There has been a major political shift in Israel. There are great cries of how this is going to bring peace. I doubt that. Sharon isn't going to give up what he has gained. But it will make for some big changes. What those changes are only time will tell.

Sharon to quit Likud and form centrist party
· Frustrated Israeli leader will force early elections
· Former Labour chief Peres expected to give support

Sharon's Critique of the Authoritarian Likud Party
by Juan Cole

So how delicious it is that Sharon has left the Likud because it is too fascistic even for him! The party's highly authoritarian politburo was an albatross around Sharon's neck. Its strident insistence on continuing to steal Palestinian land and never trading land for peace would have accelerated the engorgement of the West Bank by Israel and the consequent transformation of Israel into a binational state. You can't annex the West Bank without getting a couple of million Palestinians into the bargain. The very hard line Likudniks would deal with that prospect by just ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, but Sharon is enough a man of the world to know that the US (and especially Condi), the European Union, and the Muslim world would never put up with that Milosevic-like war crime.

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Israel's political earthquake
Ariel Sharon's split with the Likud, and the rise of Labor leader Amir Peretz, have turned Israeli politics upside down. Will the new order help bring peace with the Palestinians?

Israel has entered one of the stormiest political seasons in its history, even by the standards of its fractured, tempestuous governing structure. On Monday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his departure from the ruling Likud Party, returned his membership card and called for an early general election, perhaps in March. Widely described by Jerusalem's political pundits as "an earthquake," Sharon's move is redrawing the country's political map.

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