US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV5239

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) 
. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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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. 
 
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THE RACE HAS BEGUN IN EARNEST 
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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. 
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IN THE GAME 
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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. 
 
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TIMING OF INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE IS KEY 
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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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