Netanyahu bids to oust Sharon after Gaza pullout

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, has launched a bid to topple him as Likud party leader in a power struggle sparked by the evacuation of Gaza settlers.

Likud polls show ex-finance minister Netanyahu would rout Sharon in a primary if it were held soon, stirring speculation Sharon may break away from rightists and forge a new centrist party to run in an election due before November 2006.

"Ariel Sharon has gone a different way, the way of the left. Likud needs leadership that will repair the damage ... to our state. I believe I can do this and will stand for the Likud leadership and premiership," Netanyahu said.

Likud's hardline Central Committee is expected to stage a primary as early as November, a move that could reshuffle Israel's political deck and lead to an early general election. Sharon, 77, is aiming for a third term.

Netanyahu, 55, prime minister between 1996 and 1999, quit in protest this month over Sharon's evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements from Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank under a U.S.-backed plan to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians.

Netanyahu is the hero of hardline nationalists in a split Likud, saying the pullout will imperil Israel by turning Gaza into an "independent terrorist base" rather than a model for Palestinian statehood as US-led peace mediators hope.

Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a Sharon loyalist, said Netanyahu at the helm would "put Israel back into international isolation ... and cause friction with the United States -- our great friend -- and hostility with Europe".

At the news conference, Netanyahu said he would be more demanding than Sharon of the Palestinian Authority. "Sharon gave and gave. The Palestinians received and received. And what did we get? Nothing," he said.

The Likud showdown will pit Sharon, a former general known for hardnosed leadership, against Netanyahu, a US-educated master of the soundbite who revived Israel's economy, although he is seen by some as prone to posturing.

Cross-party polls have consistently shown Sharon to be the most popular and respected Israeli leader and more likely to win the next election at the party's helm.

Most Israelis favour Sharon's security strategy, which entails ceding more West Bank settlements as part of any final peace deal with Palestinians but keeping the biggest settler blocs in the territory he sees as strategically vital.

Israel removed all 8,500 settlers from Gaza and 500 from the northern end of the West Bank last week. It expects to hand vacated Gaza areas to Palestinian rule after withdrawing troops next month, but will retain control of the northern West Bank.

- REUTERS