Senior members of Israel's Labor party have called for it to leave the government after the prime minister struck a deal to include an far-right party in his coalition.

Labour, with 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, is the main partner in Ehud Olmert's 67-member coalition. Its departure could bring down the government.

On Monday, Olmert's shaky six-month-old government was bolstered after he reached an agreement with Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beitenu party, on joining the coalition.

The agreement is expected to be brought  for a cabinet vote on Wednesday and to the full Knesset within a week.

Under the agreement, Lieberman will be appointed minister for strategic affairs - a new portfolio, focusing on relations with Iran. Lieberman draws his support mostly from immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Most of Lieberman's views - which include the transfer of  populations to create homogeneous Jewish and Palestinian states -  are anathema to Labour, the main liberal party in Israel since the country's creation in 1948.

Coalition

Ophir Pines-Paz, the culture minister criticized the agreement and called for Labor to resign from cabinet if it goes through.

"The actual appointment of Lieberman as minister for strategic affairs could constitute a strategic threat to Israel," he said.

"Labor party must not give a hand to this move. I will do everything in order for Labor not to be a member of such a coalition. I will try to convince MPs to oppose the move in parliament.

"There is no common ground for sitting with Lieberman in a coalition. Not in the political-diplomatic, the economic or the governance and democracy fields," he said.

Labor MP and former chief of Israel's Mossad spy agency, Danny Yatom, also expressed "strong opposition to Lieberman's entry, which will legitimize his extreme views calling for the transfer of Israel's Arabs".

"This is a shallow joke to allow Lieberman to become minister for strategic affairs," he said.

Photo Caption

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister