US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV6550

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEL AVIV 006550 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/17/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ECON, PINR, KWBG, IS, ELECTIONS 2006, GOI INTERNAL 
SUBJECT: (C) LABOR MINISTER SAYS LABOR WILL LOSE TO SHARON; 
CALLS "CONVERGENCE" KEY TO PEACE 
 
REF: TEL AVIV 06460 
 
Classified By: Acting Economic Counselor Jason Witow, reasons 1.4 (b) a 
nd (d) 
 
1. (C) Labor MK and Science Minister Matan Vilnai told NEA 
DAS Robert Danin November 16 that "thousands" of Labor Party 
members will vote for Prime Minister Sharon in 2006 elections 
rather than support new Labor Chair Amir Peretz.  Vilnai said 
the "Peretz revolution" was "too much from the left" at a 
time that most Israelis want a PM who rules from the center. 
Sharon, he said, had succeeded in pushing Labor to the left. 
Vilnai predicted that Sharon will remain in the Likud if 
Shimon Peres stays with Labor.  Vilnai, who had supported 
Peres for the chairmanship won by Peretz, lamented that only 
800 votes would have kept Shimon Peres as leader of Labor. 
He also commented that Sharon was "doing the right things in 
the right way," adding that Labor should be looking to fight 
Sharon's successor, because Sharon himself would be too hard 
for Labor to beat in 2006. 
 
2. (C) Asked whether he thought Israel should take unilateral 
steps to disengage from the West Bank, Vilnai, a retired 
general with over thirty years of military service, commented 
that he was worried about "a new terror phase" if there is 
not sustained momentum.  He said the Palestinian Authority 
was not strong enough to handle all its problems, or at a 
minimum had a leader who believed he was not strong enough. 
Touching on history, Vilnai said the Six Day War created the 
illusion that Israel was a superpower, but in the Yom Kippur 
War, Israel had "won the battles but lost the war."  Since 
then, Israel had been giving back territory to become 
stronger. 
 
3. (C) Vilnai said peace required a "new convergence" on 
Israel's part, with a concurrent return to "real Israeli 
values."  Israel needed to cooperate with the Palestinians 
according to a grand strategy, he said, with borders that 
realistically reflected Israel's strength (the core element 
of the "convergence" concept).  He suggested that such 
borders would encompass the main settlement blocks and 
roughly correspond to American proposals from 2000.  Claiming 
that he had originally opposed unilateralism in Gaza but was 
proven wrong, Vilnai said he was against a unilateral 
approach on the West Bank, but allowed that unilateral action 
might prove necessary. 
 
4. (U) DAS Danin cleared this message. 
 
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JONES