JPost: Sharon to Leave Likud Today

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon will announce on Monday his intention to leave the Likud to form a new centrist political party, and that Knesset elections are likely to be held on or before 28 March 2006. This all has a certain inevitability about it, and will finally seal one of the most remarkable transformations in recent political history.

Prepare yourselves for an endless argument as to whether Sharon is a prescient statesman with a vision for his nation, or an unprincipled, vain, corrupt and cynical politician only out to save his own ample backside.

For my own part, I am concerned that having evacuated Gaza, and last week given up control of the Philidelphi Road (a death wish, according to most security sources in Israel), Sharon now wants to bring more of the the "disengagement" process to the West Bank. That is something up with which the Likud will not put. A unilateral peace process will not work. Unless the Arabs stop basing their "nationalism" (such that it is) on genocidal Jew-hatred, giving up more land in return for...well...nothing but continued terrorism, will only result in more bloodshed.