World

Gaza Pullout Nets Wrath For Sharon

August 30, 2005 / 9:31 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his candidacy Tuesday for leader 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," he 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.

In other developments:

Egypt is mediating between Israel and the Palestinians to ensure a peaceful transition of power following the evacuation of 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman met with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, and they agreed to abide by the six-month-old cease-fire at least until the end of the year. Suleiman is also working on border arrangements that would allow Palestinians to cross into Gaza from Egypt without security checks by Israel. However, Israel is concerned about weapons smuggling. Suleiman will meet with Israeli leaders Wednesday.

An Arab citizen of Israel is being hailed for preventing a catastrophe, when a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked the central bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Sunday. CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger reports the hero of the failed Beersheba bombing is a Bedouin Arab security guard, Lawi Abu-Jama. He and another guard chased the Palestinian bomber through the central bus station, forcing the assailant to detonate the bomb in a place that was not crowded. Both guards were critically injured, but are now out of danger. "He's an Arab hero for the state of Israel, Abu Jama's brother said.

CBS News Robert Berger reports
on a post-Gaza challenge to Ariel Sharon.

As Netanyahu went to the podium to make his announcement, he was greeted by supporters' cheers of "Bi-bi! Bi-bi" — Bibi, his nickname.

Netanyahu made 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."

Netanyahu has a good chance of unseating Sharon because the hawkish Likud wants revenge for Sharon's decision to dismantle 21 settlements in Gaza and four more in the West Bank, reports Berger. Sharon infuriated party members by ignoring the Likud Central Committee's rejection of the Gaza withdrawal plan and its demand for a referendum on the issue. The Likud traditionally supports Jewish settlement in all the biblical land of Israel.

Netanyahu, who was premier from 1996-99, quit as Sharon's finance minister three weeks ago in protest over the withdrawal.

His announcement came after Sharon gave an interview lashing Netanyahu as unfit to lead the country.

"Netanyahu is irresponsible," Sharon said in an Israeli TV interview. "He panics and loses control. He cannot be trusted to run the country."

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.

There is also speculation that rather than face defeat, Sharon could break away from the Likud and form a more moderate "centrist" party which would have wide support in the Israeli public, says Berger.

"Arik [Sharon] — don't hide from your voters: Talk to them, listen to what they have to say. Stay in the Likud and accept democracy, for once in your political life," said Netanyahu in his speech Tuesday.

Political wrangling among Israelis and Palestinians could freeze Mideast peacemaking for months, despite the boost it received from the Gaza pullout. 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 Monday that the 3,000-member Likud Central Committee, stacked with Netanyahu supporters, could set a primary date in a Sept. 25 vote.

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 Tuesday. "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.

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."