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Israeli PM Sharon quits Likud to pursue peacemaking
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-22 08:39
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday he gambled and broke away
from his hardline Likud Party because he did not want to squander peacemaking
opportunities created by Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip or waste time with
political wrangling.
Sharon, whose split from Likud electrified Israeli politics and set the stage
for likely March elections, ruled out unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank,
however. He also said he remains committed to the internationally backed "road
map" plan, which calls for a negotiated peace deal culminating in a Palestinian
state.
"There is no additional disengagement plan," he told a televised news
conference, referring to the summer's Gaza withdrawal. "There is the road map."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon speaks
during a news conference at his office in Jerusalem on November 21, 2005.
[Reuters] | Sharon's decision to form a new party
he described as "liberal" cemented his transformation from the hawkish patron of
Israel's settler movement to a moderate peacemaker reconciled to the
inevitability of a Palestinian state.
Weekend polls indicated Sharon, Israel's most popular politician, could
marshal enough support to return to the prime minister's office for a third term
at the head of a moderate coalition.
Palestinians said the developments created new prospects for peacemaking,
which ground to a halt during five years of violence.
"I believe this is an eruption of an Israeli political volcano, and I hope
that when the dust settles, we will have a partner in Israel to go toward ... a
final arrangement," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Sharon said he turned his back on former Likud allies who opposed his Gaza
withdrawal because life within the party had become "insufferable."
"The Likud in its present configuration cannot lead the nation to its goals,"
said Sharon, the first sitting Israeli prime minister to quit his party.
The Gaza pullout created a "historic opportunity," he said. "I will not allow
anyone to squander it."
Four small settlements in the northern West Bank were also evacuated along
with Gaza, and Sharon said, as he has in the past, that additional West Bank
settlements would be dismantled under a final peace deal.
But he reiterated that Israel would hold on to major settlement blocs in the
West Bank where most of Israel's 235,000 settlers live, and demanded that
Palestinians disarm militant groups.
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