RAMAT AVIV, ISRAEL—Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres has become the first member of the defeated Labor Party to announce that he will join a national unity coalition government headed by Ariel Sharon. Peres, 79, who has held virtually every post in Israeli politics, will serve as Minister for Sewage.

At a joint press conference with Sharon, whose Likud Party made huge gains in the recent Israeli election, Peres said that he was taking the post “for the sake of peace.” In an exclusive interview, Peres told al-Bassaleh, “I believe that the Palestinians are still our partners, and if we cannot make peace from above, we shall start from below. We may have very deep misunderstandings between our people, but when we sit on the toilet, we produce the same shit.”

For this reason, Peres, explained, he believed that the Ministry of Sewage could become the center of a renewed peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Sharon, who has recast himself as a moderate and distanced himself from extreme right-wing religious parties, gave Peres his full backing. “Shimon is the biggest bullshitter of them all,” said Sharon, “so his contribution will be enormous.”

Peres, who lists among his achievements the creation of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, added that his first act would be to establish a joint Palestinian-Israeli sewage committee. Peres said “we will ask the Palestinians to roll up their sleeves, to take a deep breath, and to delve into this very complicated issue.”

Peres won a Nobel peace prize in 1994, even though his greatest achievement for peace, the massacre of 106 refugees at the U.N. compound in Qana, Lebanon did not occur until two years later.