Beginning of the end of Likud rule

[Classical_Liberal]

Beginning of the end of Likud rule

By Gideon Samet



There's a long list of mistakes Prime Minister Sharon made on the road to defeat in the Likud referendum. And there is one positive outcome - unintentionally, Sharon has clarified what kind of disengagement has taken place between the will of his party and the will of most Israelis. That may be the only revolution he has managed in the three years he has been in office. That important fact in the political landscape can also be seen without the mistakes of the referendum. But the drama of the challenge was necessary to make it stand out with such theatrical sharpness.



The importance of the Likud rank and file's tardiness - the spirit of the times - goes far beyond the realm of once isolated political incident. It means the ruling party has ceased being what it pretended in the last three decades since it first won office in 1977. In the political folklore of the era, the Likud was regarded as a movement reflecting the people. Labor was the one in arrears, except for a brief period of glory under Rabin. People kept disparagingly calling it "the Alignment."

The sweaty passions of the Likud, the popular style, the stormy violence in the party conventions - it was all very Israeli, good and bad. In recent years, add a change in consciousness to that portrait. Two prime ministers from the Likud accepted the basic assumption there wouldn't be any peace agreement without withdrawals and a Palestinian state.

Up until this week the Likud appeared to be a movement capable of setting aside its most sacred-cow principle - the sanctity and integrity of the Greater Land of Israel. There is no doubt that the adjustment to a new national agenda - despite lip service to historical longings - helped the Likud preserve its rule, with a few brief recesses, when the orgy in the territories began to chill.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/423661.html

[Leilani]

1. We can only hope!

If the Israeli middle of the roaders were in charge, I might have hope again for peace someday in the Middle East.

[The Magistrate]

2. Mr. Samet, Sir

Is on to something. There may indeed be a silver lining in the recent events.

It is clear that the great majority of the Israeli people want their country to withdraw from Gaza, and view doing so as a good thing. To have this widspread desire balked by a paltry fifteen thousand votes, cast by people of a political stripe most Israelis detest, may prove to be the final straw that turns the Israeli electorate decisively against the reactionaries of Likud.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

3. I hope you are right.