Sharon vs. Shalom, Advantage: No One
Now this is genuinely dangerous for Sharon:
The group of Likud "rebels", who are objecting to Prime Minister Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, received an unexpected boost yesterday (Sunday) from Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called in the Likud Ministers for a meeting yesterday to discuss the plan. During the meeting, Shalom expressed his reservations about the Prime Minister's disengagement plan.
Sharon, taking the compromising stance that he is so well-known for politically and militarily, is having none of it:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that he would form a new government if coalition parties object to his plan to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip and certain parts of the West Bank.
Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee Monday, Sharon said he hopes his government would eventually support the plan, but if not, he would form a new government "that very same day."
How this will play out is anyone's guess. Sharon won't go to elections, and he really doesn't need to because under the new Basic Law anyone who wants to overthrow the government has to present a coalition of 61 MKs that can form a new government, and there're no combinations of coalition math without the Likud that yield that. So Sharon will either have to bring in Shas or Labor. Shas will make him pay dearly to join, but it's not like they have moral qualms about joining a government that is either withdrawing from territories or run by someone under investigation for corruption charges. The interesting scenario is Labor - they want back in and if Sharon offers them enough in terms of withdrawal it'll be hard for them join. But for some unfathomable reason they've also been throwing around rhetoric that they'd rather bring down the government than join - you could write this off to off-message intra-party conflict, but it's Peres who's been running it. Either way, Sharon won't go to elections and he doesn't need Knesset approval for the withdrawal - but is even he arrogant enough to undertake an unprecedented and historical security decision over the din of public skepticism and without even a hint of an electoral mandate? I mean, he clearly is - but could he get away with it?
The group of Likud "rebels", who are objecting to Prime Minister Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, received an unexpected boost yesterday (Sunday) from Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called in the Likud Ministers for a meeting yesterday to discuss the plan. During the meeting, Shalom expressed his reservations about the Prime Minister's disengagement plan.
Sharon, taking the compromising stance that he is so well-known for politically and militarily, is having none of it:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that he would form a new government if coalition parties object to his plan to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip and certain parts of the West Bank.
Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee Monday, Sharon said he hopes his government would eventually support the plan, but if not, he would form a new government "that very same day."
How this will play out is anyone's guess. Sharon won't go to elections, and he really doesn't need to because under the new Basic Law anyone who wants to overthrow the government has to present a coalition of 61 MKs that can form a new government, and there're no combinations of coalition math without the Likud that yield that. So Sharon will either have to bring in Shas or Labor. Shas will make him pay dearly to join, but it's not like they have moral qualms about joining a government that is either withdrawing from territories or run by someone under investigation for corruption charges. The interesting scenario is Labor - they want back in and if Sharon offers them enough in terms of withdrawal it'll be hard for them join. But for some unfathomable reason they've also been throwing around rhetoric that they'd rather bring down the government than join - you could write this off to off-message intra-party conflict, but it's Peres who's been running it. Either way, Sharon won't go to elections and he doesn't need Knesset approval for the withdrawal - but is even he arrogant enough to undertake an unprecedented and historical security decision over the din of public skepticism and without even a hint of an electoral mandate? I mean, he clearly is - but could he get away with it?
