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Sharon bolts Likud Party for mainstream, results

Saying the party can't take Israel to its goals, he forms National Responsibility, which he will lead in March elections.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published November 22, 2005

In many ways, it was as shocking as if a Kennedy had renounced the Democratic Party or President Bush had suddenly become the darling of liberals.

But in leaving the party he helped found 30 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again revealed the pragmatist that has often hidden behind a hawk's visage. This, after all, is the man who encouraged Jews to settle in the Gaza Strip only to pull them all out when it became obvious they would forever be a besieged minority.

"He is not an ideologue," said Yossi Mekelberg, an expert on Israel at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs. "He's more a tactician - whenever he decides there's a problem, he goes full steam ahead for better or for worse."

The problem, Sharon decided this time, was his own Likud Party, whose hard-liners bitterly resisted last summer's Gaza withdrawal even though the majority of Israelis were in favor. On Monday, Sharon left the party to create a new one - National Responsibility.

"The Likud in its present configuration cannot lead the nation to its goals," he said. "Staying in the Likud would have meant wasting time with politics instead of working for the good of the nation."

At 77, the crusty ex-general is taking what may be the biggest gamble of his long, controversial career. By breaking his coalition government (about a dozen Likud party members joined him), Sharon has forced elections to be called in March. But his gamble puts him squarely in the mainstream of Israeli society.

"Like many other Israelis, Sharon continues to believe that the achievement of peace with the Palestinians is very, very problematic," said Abraham Diskin, a political scientist at Hebrew University.

"On the other hand, he realizes that the dream of a Greater Israel is impossible and that movement toward the establishment of a Palestinian state sometime in the future is inevitable. He's said that many times and I think he believes it."

Whether Sharon's stunning move will lead to peace remains highly debatable. He pledged Monday to follow President's Bush's 2003 "road map," which calls for a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of this year - clearly an impossibility.

He also said it is likely Israel will dismantle more Jewish settlements in the West Bank, though no one expects thousands of Jews to vacate the large settlements near Jerusalem that are the source of so much friction with Palestinians.

Sharon has already yielded to one Palestinian demand - that Israel permit freer movement in and out of the Gaza Strip. Despite the pullout, Israel seemed determined to keep total control over Gaza's borders - strangling the Palestinian economy - until U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped negotiate a compromise last week.

On the Palestinians' part, the road map requires an end to terrorism, but doubts loom large as to whether their new leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has either the will or the ability to rein in militant groups.

Islamic Jihad has continued terror attacks, most recently last month. Hamas is observing a cease fire, but has caused great unease in Israel with its push into politics. Hamas candidates - who favor a fundamentalist Islamic state - could win a large minority of seats in January's parliamentary elections.

"Israel is not going to intervene (in the election) but will find it very difficult to accept victories of Hamas or control of Hamas over the Palestinian Authority," Diskin said. "That will drag everybody into a very bad situation."

Despite the many obstacles to peace, Palestinians appeared encouraged by Sharon's defection from Likud. "I've never seen anything of this significance," Palestian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "I hope that when the dust settles we'll have a partner in Israel to go ... toward a final agreement."

It is fair to say, though, that Sharon remains distrusted, even loathed, by many Palestinians who equate him with brutal oppression dating back decades.

In 1982, while he was defense minister, Israeli soldiers reportedly stood by as Christian militia murdered as many as 3,500 Palestinians in two Lebanese refugee camps. Sharon was removed from office after an Israeli tribunal found him indirectly responsible for the killings. During the 2001 election campaign, he expressed regret about the "terrible tragedy," but denied responsibility.

Sharon's huge victory in that race was less a vote for him than against Ehud Barak, whom many Israelis felt had been too generous with Palestinians at the Camp David peace talks. Although Sharon's provocative visit to Temple Mount - a Muslim holy site - helped touch off a Palestinian uprising a year earlier, he portrayed himself as the only one who could bring "peace and security" to Israel.

But the man once called the "father of the settlements" angered many right-wing Israelis when he announced the Gaza withdrawal. Even though they considered it part of their God-given land, the human and financial cost of protecting 8,500 Jews in an overcrowded area of 1.3-million Palestinians had simply become too great, Sharon felt.

After the August pullout, which went off with remarkable smoothness, he found himself in an odd position - a political leader far less popular with the inner circle of his own party than among the public at large. In September, he survived a challenge for party chairman by Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line former prime minister. And expecting other battles, he finally decided to break with Likud altogether.

Despite a common misperception, Sharon has always been among Likud's more dovish members, notes Diskin of Hebrew University. And now that he has left Likud, his infant party already is well positioned for the March elections and formation of a new government.

"The almost immediate result is that you push the Likud toward a position more to the right and you push the centrist and left-wing parties even more to the left," Diskin said. "By doing that you increase your chances to control the center after the election and this is really what matters."

-- Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 22, 2005, 07:41:02]