SHARON ENERGIZES ON NECK-AND-NECK LIKUD PRIMARIES

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEL AVIV 005740 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/11/2015 TAGS: PGOV PREL KWBG IS GOI INTERNAL SUBJECT: SHARON ENERGIZES ON NECK-AND-NECK LIKUD PRIMARIES VOTE Classified By: DCM Gene A. Cretz for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). ¶1. (C) With polls showing him either barely winning or barely losing the fight over whether to hold early Likud leadership primaries, Prime Minister Sharon returned from his successful United Nations visit to engage in an unprecedented flurry of internal party lobbying to staunch the efforts of challengers Bibi Netanyahu and Uzi Landau. Embassy contacts uniformly confirm overall polling results indicating that the September 26 Central Committee vote is too close to call. Sharon has scheduled party gatherings for three consecutive nights this week, the first time he has ever done so. The meetings -- each involving reported hundreds of Central Committee members -- follow a similar event just before his departure for New York in which he complained that he is busy running the country during the day while at night he has to deal with what he termed the crazy ambitions of certain individuals who are trying to destroy Likud. His lobbying activity contrasts starkly with his failure to campaign within the Central Committee during last year's vote on supporting disengagement -- a vote in which he suffered an embarrassing loss that emboldened his leadership challengers. ¶2. (C) Sharon is trying both to hold off early primaries and to lay to rest the leadership challenge posed by Netanyahu, in particular. While the latter aim is a long shot, given polling results and known Central Committee sympathies, Sharon knows that a narrow win in averting early primaries -- in reality, the best he can hope for -- will allow Netanyahu and Landau to continually contest his leadership over the coming year. A win nonetheless gives Sharon breathing room. A defeat on the early primaries issue, on the other hand, will require Sharon to put aside virtually everything else while he re-invents himself to meet the needs of the multiple constituencies he needs to win the primaries, carry on with his coalition government, and stand for November 2006 re-election. ¶3. (C) While unidentified members of his entourage are muttering -- as a form of threat to the Likudniks -- that Sharon may split to form a new party, Sharon himself continues to claim the mantle of Likud, recognizing that he has little to gain from splitting his own party -- at least for now. A Sharon-initiated split would smack of disloyalty among his supporters and those on the fence -- including the 15-plus Likud parliamentarians prohibited by party rules from seeking reelection -- and reduce the party from the dominant player to a possible coalition partner. Far better, from Sharon's point of view both domestically and internationally, to lash himself to the helm of Likud, attempt to weather the storm by delicately balancing the demands of the left, right and internationals, and, only if faced with absolute defeat, resignedly move to a new political structure to pursue the agenda with the Palestinians that the majority of Israelis clearly support. ********************************************* ******************** Visit Embassy Tel Aviv's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/telaviv You can also access this site through the State Department's Classified SIPRNET website. ********************************************* ******************** JONES