Hawkish Netanyahu bids to topple Sharon

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today announced his candidacy for leadership of the ruling Likud Party, issuing a direct challenge to current party head Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Internal Likud polls show the hawkish Netanyahu beating Sharon among Likud members in a match-up for party leader, though Sharon is far more popular among the general Israeli population.

“I intend to lead the party to victory in the coming elections and form the next government,” Netanyahu said.

The next election in Israel is scheduled for November 2006, but Sharon’s coalition government has grown increasingly shaky. If the government falls, it would almost certainly spark an early vote.

Netanyahu made his announcement with a strong attack on Sharon, who is in the midst of his plan for Israel to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip, a move popular with many Israelis but despised by hard-line Likud members who see it as a betrayal of the party’s root.

“The man who got the votes turned his shoulder. He abandoned the principles of the Likud. He chose a different path, the path of the left,” he told supporters. “We have to restore to the Likud and the state the principles that Sharon trampled on.”

Vengeful party hard-liners are trying to punish Sharon for ignoring their opposition to the Gaza pullout. Netanyahu, who was premier from 1996-99, quit as Sharon’s finance minister three weeks ago in protest over the withdrawal.

Netanyahu’s announcement came after Sharon gave an interview lashing Netanyahu as unfit to lead the country, and Netanyahu’s allies pushed for a quick primary that could lead to Sharon’s ouster from the party.

The battle could split Likud and remove it from power, senior party officials warned. “I’ve never before seen collective suicide committed with such joy,” said Cabinet minister Meir Shetreet, a Sharon ally.

Political wrangling among Israelis and Palestinians could freeze Mideast peacemaking for months, despite the boost it received from the Gaza pull-out.

In addition to the upcoming political elections, Palestinian parliament elections are set for January, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is not expected to take tough decisions, including on a possible crackdown on popular militant groups, before the vote.

The Sharon-Netanyahu battle burst into the open after a party tribunal ruled yesterday that the 3,000-member Likud Central Committee, stacked with Netanyahu supporters, could set a primary date in a September 25 vote.

Netanyahu would benefit from a quick leadership contest. Sharon needs more time to try to stage a comeback in the party he helped found three decades ago. Sharon is expected to leave Likud before the primary if poll results don’t improve.

In such a scenario, Sharon would likely form a new party with Likud moderates and compete in general elections. With the Gaza pullout completed, Sharon has broad voter appeal, while a more hawkish Netanyahu-led Likud is expected to lose support.

Currently, Likud is the largest party, with 40 seats in the 120-member parliament.

The battle within Likud dominated the front pages of Israel’s newspapers today. “The coup has begun,” read the headline in the Maariv daily, next to pictures of Sharon and Netanyahu. “Sharon: Netanyahu is plagued by hatred,” read the Yediot Ahronot headline.

Another candidate for Likud leader is hard-liner Uzi Landau, who led the anti-pullout campaign until Netanyahu left the government.

Landau has accused Sharon of deceiving Likud voters because he did not run on a Gaza withdrawal platform when he was elected to a second term in March 2003; Sharon only formulated the pull-out plan at the end of 2003.

Sharon, meanwhile, delivered a blistering attack on Netanyahu, who earned a reputation for political recklessness and hasty decision-making during his term as premier.

“Netanyahu is a man who gets stressed. In any situation of pressure he gets stressed immediately,” Sharon told Israel TV’s Channel 10 yesterday. “He panics and loses control. I’ve seen him like that more than once, many times.”

“To run this country, to deal with the most complex and difficult problems, you need judgment and nerves of steel. He (Netanyahu) has neither of these two things,” Sharon added.

Israeli analysts said Likud hard-liners were so bent on revenge that they didn’t seem to care that by moving up the primary and forcing Sharon out, they could also bring down the party.

“Sharon’s problem is that the Likud has stopped acting rationally, and now they are all acting from their gut,” political commentator Ben Caspit told Army Radio. “They are setting Rome on fire, and Netanyahu is playing the fiddle.”