US embassy cable - 05TELAVIV5740

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. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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