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Jim Bramlett
Dec 1, 2004
From David Dolan in Israel. See last section about "fresh storm clouds are forming on the Palestinian side... and "brewing chaos ahead."
Jim
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 13:11:21 -0700
From: David Dolan <ddolan@grmi.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list ISRAELUPDATE <israelupdate@grmi.org>
Subject: [ISRAELUPDATE] SHARON GOVERNMENT CRUMBLES
WEDNESDAY 9:30 PM
Israel's political scene plunged deeper into crisis tonight, possibly leading to early national elections and the collapse of the government's controversial Gaza withdrawal plan. This came just after a convicted terrorist announced that he will run to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority leader, which could spark violent conflict before the Palestinian election scheduled for January 9th.
Ariel Sharon's minority government crumbled still further when his main coalition partner, the 14 seat Shinui (Change) party voted tonight against the state budget for 2005. Sharon then carried out his earlier threat to fire the party's four minister's from his shrinking cabinet, forcing Shinui into the burgeoning opposition. (This dramatic move could adversely affect foreigners living in Israel since the strategic Interior Ministry has been controlled by the centrist Shinui party). Now, only Sharon's own 40 seat Likud party remains in his collapsing governmentand many of its members intensely oppose his unilateral pullout plan.
The embattled Prime Minister hopes that with the fiercely anti-Orthodox secular party out the cabinet door, he can now woo at least one religious party into his minority government, along with the main opposition Labor party headed by Shimon Peres. However, the fact remains that Likud party members voted against Labor's inclusion only this past summer, and many Likud legislators still strongly oppose Sharon intentions to co-opt Peres and company, including Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
My best guess tonight is that Sharon is on his way out as Israel's leader, along with his controversial disengagement plan. Although the veteran politician may succeed in forming a new "national unity" government with Labor and the small Torah Judaism party, the fact still remains that around half of his own Likud legislators believe that the premier's withdrawal plan is a severe mistake that will only encourage further Palestinian terror and produce civil strife amongst Israel's divided Jews.
Sharon is confident that he can win Labor's support and form a "unity coalition" since he has basically adopted the opposition's Gaza withdrawal plan. But he remains leader of the conservative Likud party, not Labor, and this fact will generate constant friction with many of his vexed party cohorts even is able to stitch together a new coalition quilt in the coming days.
PALESTINIAN RUMBLINGS
Meanwhile fresh storm clouds are forming on the Palestinian side of the equation as the campaign begins to find a formal successor to Arafat next month. Tanzim terrorist leader Marwan Barghoutithe main architect of the current violent attrition war that has raged since late 2000filed as an election candidate today after promising last week to back interim PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas.
Analysts say the surprise move may provoke Barghouti's armed Fatah thugs to wage a violent campaign on his behalf, with likely dire consequences for all, including the frozen "land for peace" process. Israel has made clear it will not release Barghouti from prison even if he is elected pope, given that he was only recently convicted for ordering Tanzim terror attacks that left four Israelis and a Greek priest dead in recent years.
In another sign of brewing chaos ahead on the Palestinian street, the extremist Hamas movement announced today that it will boycott the January 9th vote because the position of Palestinian Authority leader emanated from the despised Oslo peace accords. Some analysts believe that Hamas received orders to boycott the election from Iran, via its Hizbullah proxy force. They say the fundamentalist regime in Tehranbusy developing nuclear weapons while pretending not tois seeking to thwart both the Palestinian and Iraqi elections scheduled for January in an attempt to keep the regional anti-Israel/US/UK jihad war boiling.
Stay tuned for more interesting days ahead…
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