New movement gets Israel's first approval

Olmert receives an early vote of confidence

By Rafael D. Frankel and Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff

JERUSALEM -- As Israelis have acknowledged increasingly that there is little chance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returning to political life, the leaders of his Kadima Party appear to be coalescing around the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and are articulating more clearly a vision of centrist politics for Israel.

''Whatever talk there is about a center, it represents support for a specific plan, not just a center between left and right," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is considered the top official in Kadima after Sharon and Olmert, said in an interview with the Globe yesterday.

Kadima, which means ''forward" in Hebrew, is turning toward its first electoral campaign, even as Sharon is treated for the massive stroke he suffered last Wednesday.

Doctors who are gradually bringing Sharon out of deep sedation said yesterday for the first time that his life was no longer in imminent danger.

Opinion polls have suggested that even without Sharon, Kadima appears at this early stage to be heading for a first-place finish in the national parliamentary elections on March 28.

This would be a major shakeup for Israeli politics after years of dominance by the rightist Likud party, which shared the stage with Labor and a handful of small single-interest parties.

Livni said Sharon tapped a deep well of public support, with specific policies: ending fruitless negotiations with Palestinians, accepting a principle of a Palestinian state, and giving up occupied land, unilaterally, to draw logical borders for a Jewish state.

''This is the Israeli consensus," Livni said, adding that this new political center would survive even if Sharon could not return to a position of leadership. Both Livni and Shimon Peres, who threw his support behind Sharon's new party after leaving Labor, said over the weekend that they were supporting Olmert.

Kadima is getting down to the business of governing without Sharon, and of positioning itself for a campaign that is likely to be bitter and hard-fought.

Likud, the party that Sharon abandoned to form Kadima in November, lost several ministers and Knesset members to the new party; its leadership remains furious.

''The need for a centrist party, a moderate party that presents an alternative to the radical right and the radical left is still there," said Eyal Arad, a top Sharon aide. ''It is not affected by the tragedy."

On Sunday, Olmert presided over a Cabinet meeting and held a press conference touting his and Sharon's economic record -- drawing scathing criticism from Likud and Labor for allegedly taking advantage of Sharon's illness to campaign while other parties refrained from politics out of respect for the prime minister.

The rise of a political center in Israel followed the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, and the wave of suicide bombings that grew from it, which prompted a convergence of the Israeli left and right.

Many on the political left gave up on the idea of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians that had driven the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the same time, many on the right concluded that Israel had to give up much of the land it took during the 1967 war to maintain Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.

For Kadima, barely two months old, the question is whether the party can maintain the loyalty -- and capture the votes -- of that relatively new political center, which took shape largely as a result of Sharon's security policies in his five years as prime minister. These included the construction of a separation barrier roughly along the perimeter of the West Bank and the withdrawal of 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip.

''Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ''On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right, and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel."

In the last poll taken before Sharon fell ill, Kadima was the front-runner.

Projections had it winning 42 seats of 120 in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the once dominant Labor and Likud parties gaining 19 and 14 seats respectively. The first poll after Sharon fell ill gave Kadima 37 seats, while Likud rose to 17. Political analysts have said they expect a further drop in numbers after the initial shock of Sharon's stroke.

Hazan said Kadima's standing is likely to erode without Sharon at the helm.

The question, he said, is how much, because a great amount of the centrist party's support is centered on Sharon's personal standing. Without him, he said, many centrist voters probably would not vote for any party on Election Day.

Kadima members, meanwhile, are trying to convince voters that the party will stick to the path the prime minister laid out.

Lior Chorev, who helped Sharon form Kadima, said the new party's following would grow even without its founder, because of ''Sharon's legacy."

''Kadima represents the point which most of the Israeli public supports," he said.

The party's centrist platform, he said, rested on two pillars: unwavering war on terrorism and compromises made with the Palestinians ''in order to form the final borders of our state."

He also said Kadima would appeal to leftist voters by promising a war on poverty at a time when more than 20 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line -- a departure from the free-market approach of the Likud.

When he formed Kadima in November, Sharon said his goal in his third and final term as prime minister would be to set permanent borders for Israel.

Most Israelis understood that Sharon intended to evacuate some settlements in the West Bank, outside the barrier that separates Jewish and Palestinian areas with walls or fences. But the prime minister had avoided spelling out plans, leaving Kadima's new leaders to define their party now.

''If Sharon had to have a coalition, he would have forced his will on people, given everyone something to play with, and meanwhile pursued his own policy," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem. ''Only Sharon could have done that."

''The people trusted Sharon, and sometimes said to themselves 'I don't like what he's doing, but I trust he knows what he's doing,' " Schueftan said. Kadima is counting on resentment against the two major parties to drive voters to the alternative, even without Sharon.

''We're fed up with Likud, fed up with Labor," said Zvia Sorinov, 59 , citing ''endless attacks," corruption and a tight economy that made it hard for working people to make ends meet.

From behind the counter of her food shop in Jerusalem, Sorinov said that even without Sharon leading the party, she would still vote for Kadima ''because they will go on his path."

©2006 Globe Newspaper Company