1. ARIEL SHARON QUITS HIS PARTY; NEW ELECTIONS IN MARCH… Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to bolt the party which he helped to found and submitted his resignation to President Moshe Katsav on Monday morning. The move signals the start of a new election cycle and frenetic political activity across party lines. Sharon will take a cadre of his most loyal ministers with him to the pretentiously-named “National Responsibility Party,” and hopes that a sizeable number of parliamentarians now in the Likud as well as in other parties will join him as well. Sharon associates describe the new party as “centrist in all aspects.” Yet, the early belief is that the new Sharon entity will be marked by its foreign and defense policies, just as the Labor Party appears marked by its social agenda under the leadership of newly-elected chairman ‘Amir Peretz, the nation’s most formidable leader of organized labor. That leaves speculation on where the Sharon-less Likud party will end up when the dust settles following what is shaping up as a free-for-all fight for party leadership. Among those contending in a crowded field are former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Uzi Landau, the man who has emerged as the anti-Sharon force inside the party. A great deal of conjecture is focused on Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a hand-picked protégé of Sharon who has said he will enter the Likud leadership race, but who has been courted for the new party by Sharon with the promise of retaining the defense portfolio. Historically, no break-away party has ever succeeded in becoming the majority force.
2. LABOR PARTY RESIGNS FROM GOVERNMENT… Israel’s Labor Party has voted to resign from the government. Formerly the main opposition party, Labor entered the government in order to ensure that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would pass and implement the unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip that was completed last month. Although it supported Sharon on no other issue, ousted party head Shimon Peres favored remaining in the government even following new elections. But the surprise victory of ‘Amir Peretz, the head of Israel’s behemoth labor federation to lead the Labor Party changed the party’s direction. Peretz addressed party members following the vote, delivering a blistering attack on Ariel Sharon’s government, accusing it of “humiliating the poor.”
3. HALF OF PALESTINIAN POPULATION DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ELECTION SYSTEM… A new poll by the Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies, a Palestinian organization associated with A-Najah University, indicates that more than half of the Palestinian population (54.8%) says they don’t understand what the system of elections that will be used in the P.A. is. The areas in which citizens want most to see accomplishment after the election are fighting corruption, reducing poverty and imposing the rule of law.
4. ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER TO PRESENT INTERNATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER… Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom will propose an international counterterrorism center to be established jointly with nations of the European Union and Arab countries. When Shalom addresses a conference of EU and Mediterranean basin nations next week, he will identify several areas in which the various nations can cooperate, including training medical trauma teams. Shalom also wants to see regional technology incubators.