Netanyahu bids to oust Sharon after Gaza pullout

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s
bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, launched a bid on Tuesday to
topple him as Likud party leader in a power struggle sparked by
the evacuation of Gaza settlers.

Likud polls show ex-finance minister Netanyahu would rout
Sharon in a primary if it were held soon, stirring speculation
Sharon may break away from rightists and forge a new centrist
party to run in an election due before November 2006.

Likud’s hardline Central Committee is expected to stage a
primary as early as November, a move that could reshuffle
Israel’s political deck and lead to an early general election.
Sharon, 77, is aiming for a third term.

Netanyahu, 55, prime minister in 1996-99, resigned in
protest this month over Sharon’s evacuation of all 21 Jewish
settlements from Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank under a
U.S.-backed plan to “disengage” from conflict with
Palestinians.

Netanyahu is the hero of hardline nationalists in a split
Likud, saying the pullout will imperil Israel by turning Gaza
into an “independent terrorist base” rather than a model for
Palestinian statehood as U.S.-led peace mediators hope.

“Ariel Sharon has gone a different way, the way of the
left. Likud needs leadership that will repair the damage … to
our state. I believe I can do this and will stand for the Likud
leadership and premiership,” Netanyahu told a news conference.

The looming Likud showdown will be a culture clash as well.

It pits Sharon, a stout former general known for hardnosed
leadership and distaste for messy debate, against Netanyahu, a
U.S.-educated master of the soundbite who revived Israel’s
economy, although he is seen by some as prone to posturing.

While many in Likud see Netanyahu as truer to party
principles than Sharon, cross-party polls have consistently
shown Sharon to be the most popular and respected Israeli
leader and more likely to win the next election at the party’s
helm.

SHARON HAS POPULAR MAJORITY

Most Israelis favor Sharon’s security strategy, which
entails ceding more West Bank settlements as part of any final
peace deal with Palestinians but keeping the biggest settler
blocs in the territory he sees as strategically vital.

Sharon stole a march on Netanyahu’s announcement by
lambasting his rightist rival on Monday as someone who quickly
“panics and loses his cool” under pressure and calling him
unfit to lead Israel in any peace process with Palestinians.

Netanyahu hit back on Tuesday: “You can judge by yourselves
which one of us is under pressure, reacting to pressure.”

“What the public wants to know is when will it get a prime
minister who stops putting wind in the sails of terrorists and
begins to demand things in return for concessions.”

Sharon says his plan extracted isolated settlers from land
Israel would not keep under any peace deal and won U.S.
acquiescence in a permanent Israeli hold on major West Bank
settlements within the Israeli consensus.

The primary vote would mark the first time an Israeli party
has tried to topple a serving prime minister as its chairman.

Maariv newspaper columnist Ben Caspit said “bad blood was
boiling” between Sharon and Netanyahu and predicted “one of the
fiercest and dirtiest political battles Israel has ever known.”

Sharon hopes for a boost from the World Summit at the
United Nations in mid-September where he is expected to reap
accolades for the first removal of Israeli settlements from
territory where Palestinians want to create their own state.

Israel removed all 8,500 settlers from Gaza and 500 from
the northern end of the West Bank last week. It expects to hand
vacated Gaza areas to Palestinian rule after withdrawing troops
next month, but will retain control of the northern West Bank.