Background / Will Sharon topple Sharon? A scandal guide . [View All]

[Scurrilous]

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=382642&displayTypeCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2

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"Ariel Sharon has done what no sitting Israeli prime minister has accomplished in more than 20 years: run for re-election and win.
He has done what no leader of the Likud has ever done: challenge the party's take-no-prisoners Central Committee on bedrock issues of the Middle East conflict - Palestinian statehood and dismantling settlements - and emerged strengthened in the public eye.

He has kept Shimon Peres' Labor in a government without even a semblance of peace talks on the horizon. He has kept the settlers' National Religious Party and the pro-transfer National Union in a coalition despite advocacy of unilateral IDF pullbacks and the removal of settlers from their homes.

Politically light on his feet as ever, he has deflected with little apparent strain the blistering attacks of the hard left and the militant right at home, as well as bids abroad to bring him to heel through war crimes tribunals and the United Nations.

Now, after nearly three years in office, it appears that the only force that can topple Sharon in the foreseeable future is Sharon himself. Specifically, the eventual fallout from one or more of the police probes that have been on the slow boil for much of his term, could be his downfall."