Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05TELAVIV5239
2005-08-24 14:31:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tel Aviv
Cable title:  

SHARON EMBARKS ON THE ROAD TO RE-ELECTION

Tags:  PGOV PREL IS KWBG GOI INTERNAL 
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241431Z Aug 05
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 005239 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/24/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL IS KWBG GOI INTERNAL
SUBJECT: SHARON EMBARKS ON THE ROAD TO RE-ELECTION


Classified By: Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)
.

-------
SUMMARY
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 005239

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/24/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL IS KWBG GOI INTERNAL
SUBJECT: SHARON EMBARKS ON THE ROAD TO RE-ELECTION


Classified By: Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)
.

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) Ariel Sharon's ability to hold on to the Likud
leadership and win re-election as the only prime minister
ever to evacuate settlements and settlers will depend on his
ability to extend the honeymoon with the Left and Center
created by his successful disengagement, deal with critical
budget issues, and at least temporarily stave off demands
from the international community for further concessions to
the Palestinians. The timing of those international
community demands will impact both Sharon's ability to
fulfill them during his remaining months in office, and his
ability to win re-election in races that must be held by
November 2006, but will more likely come earlier in the year.
End Summary.

--------------
THE RACE HAS BEGUN IN EARNEST
--------------


2. (C) With his successful evacuation of some 8,000 settlers
from the entire Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, and his
stick-in-the-spokes of Likud opponents seeking to unseat him,
Ariel Sharon has begun the race for re-election as prime
minister in early elections -- the betting is for March --
and for which he will orchestrate the timing. While the
religious Zionist movement and its rightist supporters,
particularly in Likud, claim betrayal, and while most polls
show him running behind Bibi Netanyahu, Sharon is basking in
support from the international community and from mainstream
Israelis whose children no longer need stand guard duty for
settlers in the Gaza Strip. Israel's combined, well trained
force of some 55,000 police and military personnel ended 38
years of Gaza settler presence in a mere six days. To win
elections, he must now balance the demands of the U.S.-led
international community for further disengagement moves
against rightist demands that he cede nothing further,
particularly absent unambiguous security performance by the
Palestinians. To a great extent, his fate is becoming
increasingly tied to that of Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, who must deliver the economic goods to his own

people, and security to the Israelis.


3. (C) The Israeli attorney general has ruled that Israel
must hold national elections by November 2006, four years
after the elections that gave Sharon his second term as prime
minister. Even with its much-divided membership and Knesset
delegation, Sharon's Likud remains the dominant political
party in the country, and from its numbers will come the next
prime minister. Absent the 77-year-old Sharon's death, that
means either he or Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.
No other Likud leader -- Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom,
Education Minister Limor Livnat, rebel leader Uzi Landau,
Deputy PM Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz --
carries the political muscle to truly compete against him.


4. (C) Within the party, Sharon's allies squashed this week
an effort to force immediate leadership primaries. The delay
postpones until at least November 2005 even the Central
Committee's consideration of setting early primaries, let
alone the primaries themselves, and allows Sharon to enhance
his position, gauge his support, and then determine the best
time for elections anytime in the period up to the November
2006 deadline.


5. (C) Cutting through the rampant speculation and pundit
prognostications, Sharon now faces two choices: try to hold
on to the Likud leadership, or split off with the more
centrist wing of the party, either separately or as part of
what pundits call the "big bang," possibly forming a campaign
coalition that could, conceivably, run Sharon, Labor Party
leader Shimon Peres, and Shinui leader Tommy Lapid on the
same list. Sharon's response to the swirl of big bang
speculation and mutations has been clear; he was, is, and
shall forever be, Likud. And Shimon Peres has said that he
is, and will remain, Labor.


6. (C) We see no reason to doubt Sharon on his stated
intention to compete for and win the leadership of Likud,
and, with it, the premiership for another four years. For
all his difficulties within Likud, Sharon remains the
dominant player in the party, and with the success of the
settler evacuation, in Israeli politics overall. Likud
currently holds 40 parliamentary seats, a full third of the
Knesset. Sharon's opponents within the Knesset delegation
are a strong minority, but still a minority. Within the
powerful Likud Central Committee and the party more broadly,
the numbers are uncertain, but are not so dismal as to prompt
his departure for a new, "big bang" party or list. Simply
put, Sharon maintains all his options -- and loses none -- by
claiming the right exclusively to carry the Likud banner,
thus leaving his enemies to make the tough calculation of
whether to leave the country's dominant party to go off on
their own. If that calculus later fails, leaving him in the
minority within Likud, he can always change course at that
time; no need to do it now.
--------------
IN THE GAME
--------------


7. (C) Even with disengagement ongoing, Sharon found time in
the past week to play both offense and defense. He announced
that he will yield no more on territorial or other
concessions to the Palestinians -- and certainly not embark
on the roadmap -- absent solid Palestinian security
performance. Facing Likud and Knesset opposition to a
GOI-Egypt deal on turnover of the Philadelphi Strip in Gaza,
Sharon opted to seek not only Cabinet review of the deal, but
to present it to the Knesset. When opponents, including the
powerful Likud chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, criticized the deal for not addressing possible
Egyptian arms tansfers to the Palestinians, Sharon sent his
team back to successfully re-negotiate the deal with Egypt,
stymying opposition.

--------------
TIMING OF INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE IS KEY
--------------


8. (C) Whether Sharon can first hang on to his marginal
dominance within Likud, and then enhance it to ensure victory
in primaries and national elections, will depend on his
responses to anticipated -- perhaps "promised" is a better
word -- international pressure for further concessions to the
Palestinians and re-embarkation on the roadmap. Sharon has
two calendar facts that can provide a break during which to
re-trench for his campaigns: (A) While settler evacuation
has been completed, IDF disengagement from Gaza will continue
for several weeks, closing the gap available for any further
demands or government action until (B) the full month of
continuous Israeli holidays in October. Those holidays
largely prevent any serious political or other action until
at least early November, and, absent Palestinian violence or
serious international demands, perhaps longer. How the
prospective January 26 Palestinian Legislative council
elections play into Sharon's calculation is uncertain.


9. (C) The breadth and intensity of international pressure
for further concessions both during and after this next
two-plus months -- and Sharon's response to it -- will
determine the extent to which he can sustain his primacy
within Likud to win party primaries whose date he will
rightly try to set for his own benefit. Early international
pressure for concessions will increase rightist demands for
Sharon to either rebuff the demands or call primaries, and
then elections, eliminating the "cushion" of the October
holiday period. Those earlier primaries, with rightists
still smarting from disengagement and facing more of what
they would call "surrender," will divide the Likud.
Likewise, any lengthy postponement of international demands
for further steps and for resumption of the roadmap, with a
likely consequent loss of momentum with the Palestinians,
would open the possibility of resumed violence that the Right
-- particularly within Likud -- could use to attack both
disengagement and Sharon as failures. In short, Sharon --
and the international community -- have a so-far
indeterminate window during which the first Israeli prime
minister to remove settlers from Eretz Israel can best seek
re-election.






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