MAIN PAGE  WORLD    africa    americas    asianow    europe    middle east  U.S.  LOCAL  POLITICS  WEATHER  BUSINESS  SPORTS  TECHNOLOGY  NATURE  ENTERTAINMENT  BOOKS  TRAVEL  FOOD  HEALTH  STYLE  IN-DEPTH  custom news  Headline News brief  daily almanac  CNN networks  CNN programs  on-air transcripts  news quiz   CNN WEB SITES:  TIME INC. SITES: Go To ... Time.com People Money Fortune EW  MORE SERVICES:  video on demand  video archive  audio on demand  news email services  free email accounts  desktop headlines  pointcast  DISCUSSION:  message boards  chat  feedback  SITE GUIDES:  help  contents  search  FASTER ACCESS:  europe  japan  WEB SERVICES: Keyword Title Author		Barak government begins to take shape Barak, left, met with President Ezer Weizman on Sunday but remained tight-lipped about his plans for a future government  IMAGE GALLERY: A landslide onto shaky ground IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Israeli elections

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak wasn't talking Sunday, leaving Israeli politicians and pundits to speculate on the nature of the government he will form as he prepares to take the reins of the Jewish state from Benjamin Netanyahu.

One of Barak's early moves, one lawmaker close to the premier-elect said Sunday, would be a clean break from his predecessor -- reopening peace talks with Syria where they left off in 1996.

Labor Party lawmaker Ephraim Sneh said Sunday that reopening the Syrian talks was key to fulfilling Barak's campaign pledge to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon within a year.

Those talks would include discussion of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Sneh said.

Netanyahu had refused to restart talks at their 1996 end point and would not discuss any return of territory before opening negotiations.

Sneh said that Barak would likely tie the degree of Israel's withdrawal to the degree of Syria's agreement to normalize relations and trade, a position of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Barak's One Israel Coalition handed Netanyahu's Likud Party a sound defeat in last week's elections. He has 45 days to form a government.

One Israel holds 26 seats in the 120-member Knesset, and speculation centered on whether Barak would approach either Likud, with 19 seats, or the ultra-orthodox Shas Party, with 17, to form a coalition -- or both.

"No one has any clue," said Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing Meretz Party.

Barak appointed a team of negotiators Sunday to hold talks with potential coalition partners. He said nothing about his plans during courtesy meetings with Israeli President Ezer Weizman and Israel's two chief rabbis.

But former Justice Minister David Libai, appointed to head the negotiations, said Sunday that Barak wanted "a broad coalition" and planned to hold meetings with each of the parties before the start of negotiations.

"It will be an attempt, a desire, to hear from those elected representatives of every faction how they see the new government and its composition," Libai said.

Barak has said that there was no place for Shas in the government if its controversial leader Aryeh Deri remained in control.

Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Saturday that he would not oppose including Shas in the ruling coalition. Knesset members Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Ben-Ami agree with Peres, the Jerusalem Post reported.

But Likud legislator Michael Eitan was reported to be urging his party to agree to join Barak's government only if Shas was excluded.

Defense Minister , named acting chairman of Likud when Netanyahu resigned that position following his defeat, reportedly leans toward joining Barak, a path Netanyahu opposes.

The outgoing prime minister has told close associates he is considering dropping out of political life rather than follow other Likud leaders into the One Israel bloc, according to Ha'aretz Daily.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a founder of Likud, blamed Netanyahu for the party's defeat. Shamir cast a blank ballot in Sunday's elections, he said, rather than vote for a man he believed abandoned the party to remain in power.

"It will take some time for the Likud to rise again and return to what it was, " Shamir said on Israel's Army Radio. "I warned that this would happen, because Netanyahu saw only himself, without ideology or an ideal."

Shamir's candidate of choice had been , son of Likud co-found Menachem Begin. Begin, who strongly opposes the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, quit the race after two other candidates withdrew and endorsed Barak.