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Sep. 19, 2005
PM: I’ve lost Likud majority
By HERB KEINON and TOVAH LAZAROFF
NEW YORK Prime Minister Ariel Sharon admitted Sunday that he had lost a majority in the Likud as a result of "terrible lies and incitement" by its extremist members.
Speaking to American Jewish leaders here before heading home to a bruising political battle with his chief rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, he said the Likud has been hijacked by "radicals" who do not have the ability to run the country.
"I believe at the present time that it would be a mistake to give in to the hands of radical extremists, using terrible incitement, to run the country," he told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
"I don’t think they can run the country in the current situation." The Likud today was not the same party he formed out of five parties in 1973, he said.
Sharon gave no indication whether he was considering forming a new party if he lost next week’s vote in the Likud central committee over when to hold the party’s primaries.
"It is hard to believe that inside a party that holds the most important portfolios, and still has a year-and-aquarter to run [in power], there is an attempt for mostly personal reasons to bring the nation to elections and deport me from my party," he said.
Sharon earned applause from the audience when he said at the beginning of his remarks, "I have to go back to solve some of the internal problems I am facing. I have been gone for about a week, and I have to go back if you want me to come back in my present capacity." He met with supporters over the last few days in an apparent effort to raise funds for the upcoming primary campaign, something Netanyahu reportedly did soon after he announced last month that he was quitting the cabinet over disengagement.
Sharon spoke on the same day that back home his rivals in the Likud, Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau, accused him of getting ready to abandon his party.
"Sharon is secretly preparing a rival party so that he can leave the Likud as the time nears for elections," Netanyahu and Landau said in a letter they sent to all 3,000 central committee members in advance of the September 26 vote.
Committee members will be asked to chose between Sharon’s request for an April date to chose a party leader and an early November date favored by Netanyahu and Landau. Both men want to replace him as party leader.
The letter is the opening shot of what will be a busy week for all three, who plan to hold meetings with committee members in hopes of securing votes.
In the letter, Netanyahu and Landau warned that Sharon had ulterior motives for wanting the April date, while they had the good of the party in mind by pushing for an earlier one.
"A late primary date would allow Sharon time to create [a rival] party and to steal as many mandates as possible from the Likud,‘ they said. An early date would force him to show his hand now, and as a result the Likud was more likely to hold onto its political strength, they said. ’If Sharon is going to form a new party, it’s better he does it now and not on the eve of the elections," they said.
Sharon’s political aides strongly denied the accusations.
"It’s nonsense,‘ one told The Jerusalem Post. ’We are busy with only one thing, the central committee vote.‘ Sharon’s aides said that Netanyahu was ’stressed out" and making false accusations because he knows he is likely to lose.
Netanyahu’s camp, in turn, said a secret internal poll it conducted among 600 committee members showed that 48 percent favored the early date, while 39 wanted the later one. An Israel Radio poll from last week showed that the committee was divided evenly.
In their letter, Netanyahu and Landau said that an early date was important because it "gives a clear message: The Likud opposes Sharon’s policy of concessions.‘ They warned that a victory would give Sharon a ’green light" to make further concessions. An early primaries date would also quickly end the internal battle and allow the Likud to unite in advance of the general election, which is now set for November 2006.
Both candidates swore that no matter what resulted from the vote on the date for primaries, they would stay with the Likud.
Hadera Mayor Haim Avitan, a member of the central committee, said he believes that Sharon also intends to stay with the Likud.
"I am close to Sharon, and I hear him talk a lot. Ariel Sharon is not leaving the Likud," he said. He said he supported the April date and believes that Sharon has set out the right agenda for the Likud.
"There is no doubt that the process he is leading us in is the right way,‘ he said, noting that one only needed to look at Israel’s improved connections with the Arab world and with the European Union. ’Just two or three years ago, the whole world was against us. Today it is trying to establish relations with us," Avitan said.
Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi, another central committee member, told the Post, that he too supported Sharon and favored the later date.
"We have a government that works; I am against doing anything that would disrupt that,‘ he said. More to the point, Lavi said, he supported the Likud as Sharon was defining it. ’The Likud is a supermarket of opinions,‘ he said, explaining that it also had a history of making concessions to the Arabs prior to Sharon. ’It was always a party of compromise, even territorial compromise," he said.
Lavi added that instead of wasting time on a date for primaries, the Likud should be setting its agenda for the future. It needed to come to an agreement over what it believed the country’s borders should be and what was the best way to combat the demographic threat, Lavi said.
News
- Parties look to gain from Likud turmoil Sep. 29, 2005
- PM aide: If Likud doesn't back Sharon, he'll leave Sep. 28, 2005
- Sharon: I will guide Likud Sep. 27, 2005
- Sharon prevails in Likud showdown Sept. 26, 2005
- Sharon's planned speech to the Likud central committee Sept. 26, 2005
- Netanyahu's speech to the Likud central committee Sept. 26, 2005
- Cliffhanger Likud meeting opens Sunday Sept. 25, 2005
- PM sees vote against him as 'tantamount to impeachment' Sept. 23, 2005
- Sharon assures supporters he'll win Sept. 21, 2005
- PM: I've lost Likud majority Sept. 19, 2005
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