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