ISRAELI PREMIER TO SUBMIT LIST OF GOVERNMENT MEMBERS TO KNESSET








TEL AVIV, March 5, 2001. /From RIA Novosti correspondent Andrei Pravov/--Israel's new Prime Minister Ariel Sharon intends to submit the final list of members of the national unity government to the Knesset in the next few days, probably by Wednesday.


	On Sunday, working groups of the Likud bloc and the religious party Shas entered into a coalition agreement. According to the document, Shas gets 5 portfolios in Sharon's government, including that of the interior minister, which was the object of competition between Shas and one of Israel's Russian parties, Yisra'el Ba'Aliya led by Natan Sharansky, and which now goes to Shas leader Eliyahu Yishai. Apart from that, Shas gets the portfolios of ministers of labor and social affairs, of religious affairs, of health and of the affairs of Jerusalem.


	The post of absorption minister has been proposed to Yisra'el Ba'Aliya, although it is yet unclear if Sharansky will accept it. Until now, his goal was the post of interior minister, which he used to occupy in Ehud Barak's government but which he quit last summer to show his solidarity with right-wingers who had started gathering around Sharon. Today, many observers expect Sharon to accept, although reluctantly, the portfolio of absorption minister, considering what he said on Sunday about the importance of speeding up government formation in order to deal with ongoing terrorism. Nevertheless, it means the end of Sharansky's plans to run the interior ministry, which permits the offspring of mixed marriages to settle down in Israel permanently.


	In the meantime, Avigdor Lieberman, who heads another party comprising Russian-born Israelis, Our Home Is Israel, is likely to consent to the post of minister of national infrastructure.