Press divided over Sharon's move

A day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that he was leaving the Likud to set up a new centrist bloc, commentators in Israel are divided over what the move means for the future of Israeli politics.

While one welcomes the weakening of the right-wing Likud, others argue that Mr Sharon needs to do more than just leave the Likud to secure a final peace with the Palestinians. A right-wing paper appeals to Israel's national religious bloc to unite to maintain the right-wing religious agenda.

In Palestinian and other Arab papers, there is scepticism that Mr Sharon's move signals an eventual Israeli retreat from its settlements on Palestinian territory.

NAHUM BARNEA IN ISRAEL'S YEDIOT AHARONOT

Sharon's conclusion is that there should be change in Israel's political system. It is not certain he's right. The strong resistance he confronted in the Likud was legitimate in the main: he imposed on his colleagues political moves that contradicted their expectations. The degeneration at the [Likud] central committee did not bother him. The Likud degenerated and it is good that it should split. Sharon did Israeli politics a great service which is almost as important as the one the Gaza disengagement did for the State of Israel.

GIDEON SAMET IN ISRAEL'S HAARETZ

Quitting the Likud so dramatically has no real value unless it is accompanied by a clear departure from Sharon's own old political principles, not merely from those of an atrophied, demagogic party. Gaza was an important signal, but it is not enough. Sharon has already hailed the roadmap as a basis for action, but the declared target date for a Palestinian state has long passed. A majority of Israelis support the roadmap... Sharon must not walk out on it.

DAN MARGALIT IN ISRAEL'S MAARIV

This will be a battle of life or death. Yesterday Sharon justly celebrated leaving the Likud on the basis of public opinion polls that promised him a sweeping victory... But everyone knows that the Israeli right has not yet taken to the streets. The orange people [the settlers] have not yet started their propaganda machine. They are in the pockets of no one. Who will they support: the Likud headed by [Binyamin] Netanyahu? Perhaps. But it could be the parties of the right. They are the organizational and propaganda force that drives the rightist battle and they have been quiet since the disengagement... For now, Sharon is ahead, [Labour leader Amir] Peretz is the surprise and [Binyamin] Netanyahu is in a state of confusion. But four months is an eternity in political terms.

EDITORIAL IN ISRAEL'S HATZOFE

Now that the die is cast and the Likud split with the departure of Sharon, the national religious camp is called upon to close ranks in order to enlist the third force to be found in the centre as a defence force of Jewish heritage ranged against all those elements on the right and on the left that want to turn Israel into the state of all the Gentiles.

EDITORIAL IN THE PALESTINIAN AL-QUDS

The new political map in Israel does not stir optimism about the emergence of a coalition that would decisively adhere to the peace option. The general tendency in the Israeli public is a right-wing one - if not hard line - and still clings to occupation and expansion... Will the peace camp in Israel awake from its hibernation to shake up the Israeli public and point it in the right direction?

EDITORIAL IN EGYPT'S AL-JUMHURIYAH

Israel's political manoeuvres are only aimed at gaining time in order to gobble up the rest of the Palestinian lands and Judaize Jerusalem.

EDITORIAL IN SAUDI AL-WATAN

Competition between forces in Israel will soon flare up and all the parties will try to adopt the most hard-line programme, while Sharon will try to take advantage of his last days in the government to persuade voters that he is the most capable person to achieve security, even if this implies new criminal actions against innocents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

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