Likud unity? Wednesday, November 16, 2005

If there was any doubt that Labor's new chairman Amir Peretz is the genuine article, along came this morning's Likud faction meeting where the so-called rebels, from Binyamin Netanyahu down, called for unity in the ranks 'to defeat the rival enemy, Amir Peretz.'

Despite his silence – at least in public – Ariel Sharon is gong to remain in the Likud and face down any challenges that might arise. A poll in today's Haaretz shows Sharon roundly defeating any challenger, including Netanyahu. Here's some political proof that Netanyahu understands that his chances of defeating Sharon are very limited – there are efforts underway to try to guarantee him the Number 2 spot under Sharon, thus eliminating him from the primaries race.

But Uzi Landau is insisting he will run to the bitter end, as a matter of principle. Landau is promising he will accept the leadership of whoever wins the Likud leadership race – right now, he and Netanyahu are tied, but far behind Sharon. In the polls, at least.

Not that anything is written yet in stone. The Likud faction meeting was devoted to discussing when to hold elections and it was no accident that Netanyahu pressed for elections in May, and not the March dates that are being bandied about in the Knesset by among others, Amir Peretz.

Netanyahu argued that May would be a better date for elections, 'to give Peretz more time to make mistakes,' but some in the Likud suggested privately that Netanyahu might be jockeying for the later date in the belief that his chances at beating Sharon in an internal race might yet improve. Perhaps.

In any case, Sharon's staking horse, Ehud Olmert, who often speaks for Sharon, said after the Likud faction that 'it's time to stop trying to save Netanyahu.' Israel Radio's usually prescient political analyst Hanan Kristal predicted that Netanyahu supporters' efforts to guarantee Netanyahu the second place in the party list would be foiled by his rivals in a post-Sharon era: Olmert, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and others who think they could be prime minister one day and don't want to let Netanyahu get a pass.

Nobody is explaining how Likud unity will be forged between the Sharon who pushed the Gaza withdrawal and those Likudnik rebels who fought it tooth and nail – and continue to insist that the Likud unity would revive the 'good old Likud ideology.' It seems that the only unity they have in the Likud is around defeating Peretz. Kristal said that the Likud would remain united around Peretz until after the elections and then the all out war in the Likud would resume.

Netanyahu wants elections in May, but Foreign Minister Shalom, in Tunisia (where he was born), said March was as good a time as any for elections. Shalom is considered a Sharon ally. It might have been significant, a day after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hammered down the deal that by mid-November is supposed to grant for the first time to the Palestinians control over at least one border (the one with Egypt, from Gaza), that Shalom met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the international conference on the Internet being held in Tunisia.

But their dialogue was the usual dialogue of the deaf between the two sides. Abbas said that Israel and the Palestinians could go straight into final status negotiations – something Sharon refuses to even consider as long as the PA does not take tangible steps to disarm the irregular militias of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fateh's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- while Shalom said that Abbas better watch out for the Hamas, which Shalom predicted would rise up against the Palestinian Authority.

And while a 'senior government official' (apparently under Rice's influence) told Haaretz yesterday that Israel would refrain from arresting Hamas political candidates for election (but would not cease arresting or killing Hamas terrorists), six more Hamas men were arrested in the West Bank overnight.

Meanwhile, on Labor's side, the ministers have seemingly all lined up behind Peretz, and now there's talk about Peres stepping aside as an eternal force inside the party. MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who won a little less than 20 percent of the vote in the recent primaries that Peretz won and Peres lost, went on Israel Radio this morning to recommend that Peres not run in the upcoming party elections meant to determine the party's nominees for Knesset behind Peretz. MK Collette Avital, on the other hand, said the party should guarantee Peres the Number 2 position in the party list. Of course, he was her patron when she first entered party politics after a stint in New York as consul-general.

The entire political arena is awaiting Sharon's meeting tomorrow with Peretz, when either the two will agree on a date - March 7th is the latest one mentioned for general elections. If they agree on that date, it means that just as the Palestinians go to the polls to vote for a new parliament, Israelis will be going to the polls to vote for their respective parties' candidates for elections. In other words, Rice may have called her successful negotiation of the border crossing deal this week 'a big step forward' but until the elections in Israel are over, it's highly unlikely there will be even be baby steps forward. Indeed, we'll still have to see if the Israelis and Palestinians manage to stick to the agreement they reached this week when the time comes to implement it, starting November 25th, as Rice declared.

Yitzhak Rabin's Last Speech, which he delivered at the Tel Aviv peace rally on Nov. 4 1995

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