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| Middle East |
| Sharon Shows Netanyahu the Door |
| 2003-02-26 |
| Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ousted Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a surprise move after reaching agreement on a rightist coalition likely to toughen Israel’s line against the Palestinian uprising. Silvan Shalom, until now finance minister, agreed to take on the foreign ministry. Sharon began forming a coalition after his right-wing Likud party’s general election victory on Jan. 28. In a move clearly engineered to unseat his main internal rival in Likud, Sharon asked Netanyahu to be finance minister. The hawkish former premier, who challenged Sharon for the Likud leadership late last year, refused to take the finance portfolio at a meeting with Sharon in the prime minister’s office. Shalom, who has little foreign policy experience, A party man without experience. Sigh. Whatever his faults, Netanyahu could at least speak English well and hold his own in a debate. is widely seen as loyal to Sharon and his appointment is unlikely to bring big changes to Israel’s foreign policy, foreign diplomats said. "I don’t think this will make much difference to foreign policy. Sharon will strengthen his grip on foreign policy with a weaker person as foreign minister," a senior European diplomat said. Sharon was expected to make a new offer of the finance ministry to another loyalist, fellow Likud member Ehud Olmert, and keep on Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in his post. Likud reached a coalition deal early on Wednesday with the centrist Shinui party, the ultranationalist National Union party and the National Religious Party (NRP), a champion of Jewish settlements on occupied land. The coalition forces signed an agreement giving Sharon a government with 68 seats in the 120-seat parliament. Seeing parlimentary government in action makes me admire the forsight of our founding fathers in setting up a two-party system here in the USA. |
| Posted by:Scooter McGruder |
| #8 Actually, Scooter, the Founding Fathers were aghast when a two party system developed. As with much of the Constitution, it just happened to work better than the people who designed it thought it would. |
| Posted by: ereynol 2003-02-26 15:32:17 |
| #7 Bibi wants the West Bank encorporated into Isreal, he was pretty clear about that in his book. I think they might be arguing about pulling settlers back to the Isreali side of the wall. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-02-26 12:32:36 |
| #6 a lot of the modern orthodox who support NRP are just as fed up with things like ultra-orthodox draft exemptions as they secular are. The real contradiction is on foreign policy. when the Iraq war is done and Arafat has conceded a PM, expect US pressure to return to negotiations. If sharon says yes - expect NRP and NU to walk out. IF he says no, expect Shinui to walk out. Then more coalition talks, or a new election. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-02-26 12:29:45 |
| #5 poor move. Bibi is a perfect fit as FM and PM (post-Sharon). |
| Posted by: kanji 2003-02-26 12:20:35 |
| #4 Shinui in the same coalition as the NRP? WTF, over? |
| Posted by: Crescend 2003-02-26 12:15:11 |
| #3 bibi couldnt be counted on to do Sharon's bidding. With a war coming up, Israel in need of US loans to help with its struggling economy, ferment in the PA, its probably wise of Sharon to keep bibi out of the foreign ministry. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-02-26 12:12:21 |
| #2 A parlimentary system is our government without a senate. The purpose of the senate is to neutralize the size advantage of the big states, who could dominate the system and impose mandates on the little states. Canada and the EU are two places that come to mind where an elected senate would correct a whole lot of abuses. (heck, electing the EU officials would be a damn big step forward.) |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-02-26 21:24:45 |
| #1 Well, whether intentionally two-party or not I still say the founding fathers of the USA did a pretty damn good job setting up the system of governance they did, and US citizens are generally thankful not to have a parlimentary government. :-) |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-02-26 16:49:16 |