Prime Minister Sharon's statement of yesterday, in which he said he is aware that he will have to give up places "like Shilo, Bethlehem, and Beit El" in a future arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, continues to draw ire from the right-wing - though not enough, in the opinion of many. Prof. Paul Eidelberg, of the Yamin Yisrael movement that ran for Knesset together with Herut in the recent elections, noted bitterly today that the right-wing parties National Union and National Religious Party have been "virtually silent" regarding the Road Map and Sharon's statements.
The Chairman of the Binyamin region chapter of Sharon's own Likud party, veteran Shilo resident Natan Englesman, said today that the Prime Minister's comments "are indicative of his increasing alienation from the roots of Zionism."
"I already have the required number of signatures to call a Likud Central Committee meeting very soon after the Passover holiday," Englesman told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson today. "Sharon thinks that he can run the party single-handedly, and he will likely try to stop us from convening the Central Committee, but we will go to the Likud Court, and in the end we will show him that he is not the sole voice of our party."
Susie Dym, spokesperson for the grassroots Cities of Israel (Mattot Arim) organization, commented that veteran Likudniks take Englesman's intentions quite seriously. "The soft-spoken, unassuming Englesman is believed to be individually responsible for gathering the signatures of more than 300 Likud Central Committee members for the crucial party vote last year against a Palestinian state," Dym said. She noted that Englesman's warning about Sharon's political future was solidly based on the recent political history of the Labor Party: "Labor's fortunes were at a fairly stable peak for the entire decade preceding the Oslo accords, during which time the notion of a Palestinian state was unthinkable for Labor. But when Labor opted to aggressively pursue a pro-Palestinian state, land-for-peace political program in the 1990s, its 40+ Knesset mandates shrank rapidly to 34 in 1996, then to 26 in 1999, and finally to its current 18 MKs."
The Chairman of the Binyamin region chapter of Sharon's own Likud party, veteran Shilo resident Natan Englesman, said today that the Prime Minister's comments "are indicative of his increasing alienation from the roots of Zionism."
"I already have the required number of signatures to call a Likud Central Committee meeting very soon after the Passover holiday," Englesman told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson today. "Sharon thinks that he can run the party single-handedly, and he will likely try to stop us from convening the Central Committee, but we will go to the Likud Court, and in the end we will show him that he is not the sole voice of our party."
Susie Dym, spokesperson for the grassroots Cities of Israel (Mattot Arim) organization, commented that veteran Likudniks take Englesman's intentions quite seriously. "The soft-spoken, unassuming Englesman is believed to be individually responsible for gathering the signatures of more than 300 Likud Central Committee members for the crucial party vote last year against a Palestinian state," Dym said. She noted that Englesman's warning about Sharon's political future was solidly based on the recent political history of the Labor Party: "Labor's fortunes were at a fairly stable peak for the entire decade preceding the Oslo accords, during which time the notion of a Palestinian state was unthinkable for Labor. But when Labor opted to aggressively pursue a pro-Palestinian state, land-for-peace political program in the 1990s, its 40+ Knesset mandates shrank rapidly to 34 in 1996, then to 26 in 1999, and finally to its current 18 MKs."