Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Israel’s president yesterday and requested a snap election he hopes to win as head of a new centrist party intent on pursuing peacemaking with the Palestinians. In a move described by the Israeli media as a political earthquake, Sharon asked President Moshe Katsav at their 9 am meeting to dissolve parliament and call an election within 90 days, Israeli officials said.

Then Sharon announced that he quit the right-wing Likud party that he helped found to head a new centrist party in a move that is expected to reshape Israeli politics and peacemaking, the officials said. By doing so, Sharon breaks from the far-right Likud “rebels” who opposed his withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip and potentially free him to give up more land that Palestinians seek for a state. “It’s a tsunami,” said Israel Radio political commentator Hannan Crystal. 

“Sharon’s move to reshape Israel’s borders today also becomes a move to shape a new political map with him at the helm of a new centrist party,” Crystal added. The 77-year-old’s gamble is possibly the biggest of a military and political career built on risk-taking. Polls indicate it is uncertain he can turn the popularity of the Gaza pullout into electoral victory. 

Sharon had already agreed to bring forward the ballot from November 2006 to February or March. In theory, Katsav could ask someone else to try to form a government – an unlikely prospect – otherwise he would dissolve parliament for an election to be held within 90 days. Sharon has begun contacting political allies to join a new party he would head. Israeli media said 14 of Likud’s 40 lawmakers, including five cabinet ministers, have agreed to join him. 

<I>&#8220;Recent polls 
suggest that a 
new party, bringing 
in some Labour 
members, would 
leave Sharon 
neck-and-neck
with Peretz
with Likud pushed
into third place.&#8221;</I>

He has also been wooing veteran peacemaker and old coalition ally Shimon Peres, whose Nov. 10 defeat as leader of the centre-left Labour party by union leader Amir Peretz triggered the political upheaval. Sharon had been expected to announce his decision by a planned meeting yesterday with members of the parliamentary faction of Likud, which has long since failed to live up to its Hebrew name meaning &#8220;cohesion&#8221;. 

Israel&#8217;s Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday that in a third term, Sharon would seek to evacuate isolated Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank while retaining major enclaves in a peace deal with the Palestinians. Palestinians fear Sharon aims to set a border unilaterally along the lines of a barrier being built deep inside the West Bank. Israel says the barrier stops suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab. Sharon has refused to negotiate statehood with the Palestinian Authority until it disarms militants. 

As Sharon headed into new political territory, Labour&#8217;s central committee, encouraged by fiery new leader Peretz, voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to leave the government it had joined to help him push through the Gaza withdrawal. &#8220;Let the revolution begin,&#8221; said party official Eitan Cabel as he announced the result of the vote in a show of hands. Anticipating that Sharon would bolt and cause a leadership challenge, some Likud ministers suggested they would be ready to stand against Sharon&#8217;s old rival Benjamin Netanyahu, who resigned as finance minister to oppose the Gaza pullout. 

Likud hardliners oppose giving up Jewish settlements on any of the land that Israel captured in the 1967 war. For many years Likud &#8211; with Sharon at the forefront &#8211; championed the building of the enclaves. Recent polls suggest that a new party, bringing in some Labour members, would leave Sharon neck-and-neck with Peretz with Likud pushed into third place. The precedent for starting breakaway parties in Israel is not encouraging for Sharon. Founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion failed miserably when he tried, before slipping from the political scene. 

<B>Allyn FISHER-ILAN</B>