Sharon Rebuffed by Party Again -Likud rejects alliance with Labor

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-likud19aug19.story

Sharon Rebuffed by Party Again
Likud rejects a proposal to form an alliance with Labor. The Israeli leader needs rivals' support to push through a plan to pull out from Gaza.
By Laura King
Times Staff Writer

August 19, 2004

JERUSALEM — Once again, Ariel Sharon's own party proved to be his toughest constituency.

The Israeli prime minister was rebuffed early today by rebels within his conservative Likud Party seeking to block his plans to forge an alliance with the left-leaning Labor Party. Sharon needs Labor's support to push through his controversial initiative to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Although the ballot by Likud's Central Committee was nonbinding, it represented the latest in a series of setbacks for Sharon as the 76-year-old former general tries to execute an about-face in his once-ardent support for the settlement movement.

A senior aide to the prime minister who requested anonymity indicated shortly after the vote by Likud's policymaking body was tallied that Sharon would be undeterred in his aim of getting out of Gaza.

A raucous party gathering preceding the vote laid bare the deep ideological rifts within the Likud, whose rank and file overwhelmingly rejected the pullout plan in a May referendum. <snip>

[idontwantaname]

1. THE GREAT SHOW

The extreme rightists who voted against Sharon in the Likud Central Committee
played their part in the show: they enabled Sharon to present himself as a man
of the moderate center. The Labor Party plays the part of the Left.

This show has nothing to do with reality. Sharon has remained a man of the
extreme right, as he has been all his life. Even if the so-called
“disengagement” would take place, the occupation would still remain in place.

Gush Shalom,

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[The Magistrate]

2. Likud Seems To Be Splitting From Sharon, Sir

It is an excellent development; it seems unlikely his coalition can survive much more of this with a governing majority.

[Darranar]

3. And if Sharon abandons disengagement?

His right flank will be more secure then; his main worry will then likely be Israeli public opinion, and that can wait until 2007 if his coalition stays intact....

[The Magistrate]

4. He Will Not Do That, Sir

The disengagement represents his genuine strategic judgement of the best he can get for Israel, balancing the possibly competing desires of more land and greater security. Whatever one may think of it on moral grounds, it represents a pretty shrewd judgement of what is feasible by way of unilateral imposition, and the fellow is likely to stand by it on grounds of professional pride and bloody-minded stubborness.