Sharon resigns as Israel PM

...Leaves Likud, building new party

BY A CORRESPONDENT
21st November 2005



Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Israel, on November 21 resigned from the Likud party he helped build three decades back. He has asked the President for fresh Parliamentary elections. As per schedule, the elections were to be held in November 2006.

In his resignation letter, Sharon told President Moshe Katsav that the Likud government could not function in the present political climate. Ever since Sharon announced his policy of withdrawal from the occupied territories, he has come under fire from party hardliners, who accused him of surrendering to the Palestinians.

Sharon is busy setting up his new party, inclding his Likud loyalists and supporters from the conservative party. Sharon is also believed to be tapping Nobel peace prize winner Shimon Peres for his new party.

Sharon's aggressive step sent shockwaves through world's political capitals. Sharon was always known as the hardline face of Likud, till he changed tack in the 2000s.

A former army general, he has been instrumental in building the Likud of today, though he has been alienated in the party for some time now. The party did not support his move to pull out of Gaza. But Sharon teamed up with opposition Labour party to push through his revolutionary idea.

A former army man, he took part in Israel's independence war in 1948 and in 1953, led a raid into Jordan. Later in the Six Days War, he commanded several divisions, which led to the occupation of Gaza, West Bank, Golan and Sinai. In 1977 Sharon was elected to the legislature and became agricultural minister. Later as defence minister, he led the army to Lebanon to ferret out Palestinian guerillas. Following this, Christian militants attacked and killed hundreds of Palestinians in refugee camps.

However, this proved to be Sharon's undoing soon. In 1983, he was forced to resign after an inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of Palestinians.

In 1998, as foreign minister, Ariel Sharon called for as much land-grabbing as possible in occupied territories to erect settlements. He came to power as Prime Minister in 2001.

Sharon's hardline agenda envisaged the settlement of occupied territories by Jews. However, after his re-election with a bigger margin in 2003, Sharon sensed the winds of change.

In late 2003, Sharon announced his policy of "disengagement" which was diametrically opposite to what he preached all these years. Likud politicians could not stomach Sharon's about-turn, and hit out at him. The peace deal with the new head of Palestine endeared him to neither Jews nor Palestinians. But a resolute Sharon courted Labour politicians to push the vote and won. However, a strong section of his own party and ultra-nationalists had turned against him by now.

Sharon is not known for bowing under pressure. The long-time hardliner knows his ground and plays his cards. Sharon is convinced that Likud is a party without a future. Besides, if he pulls off peace with the Palestinians, Sharon will go down in history as the final architect of peace in the Middle-East. That will be a goal worth scoring for a right-wing hawk who spent his entire career and life advocating aggression as the natural means to an end.

BY A CORRESPONDENT