Rightwingers Quit, Weakening Olmert Majority

A right wing party walked out of the ruling Israeli coalition yesterday in protest at a new effort to start peace talks with the Palestinians.

The departure of the hawkish Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party was widely predicted but leaves the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, with a weakened majority. Lieberman, an immigrant from Russia who lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, warned that he would resign from the cabinet if Olmert began to negotiate on core issues with Palestinian leaders.

"Negotiations on the basis of land for peace are a critical mistake ...and will destroy us," Lieberman said yesterday. "If we pull back to the 1967 borders, everyone should ask himself, what will happen the following day? ...Nothing will change."

Olmert brought him into the government in late 2006 to shore up his coalition after Yisrael Beiteinu emerged as the best performing right wing party in elections that year.

Yesterday Israeli forces killed three Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including a boy aged 12, and shot dead a militant from Islamic Jihad in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian militants fired more than 20 makeshift rockets and mortars into southern Israel.