- WASHINGTON -- Whether Sharon
is forced out, resigns, is indicted, or dies at this point in history may
not be all that important any more. He's already done much of what he came
to the pinnacle of power to do. The role of Israeli Prime Minister of
late is one in which different personalities are used to accomplish different
missions at crucial historical times -- as Sharon's friends Generals Rabin
and Barak as well as his former Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, have in
recent years found out before him..
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- Sharon has already made a real, 'viable', true
Palestinian State all but impossible. The system of worse-than-Apartheid
has been established. The Apartheid wall is nearly in place. Internationally
working through his infamous Washington lobby and the Israeli-centric 'neocons'
Sharon and his kind have not only enflamed the 'clash of civilizations',
they were the main force propelling the invasion/occupation of Iraq and
the enlistment of the United States more in Israel's militant corner than
ever before in history.
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- There are many who now want to see Sharon go.
And that may well include his friend in the White House, George Bush,
who is in his own fight for political survival and has kept putting Sharon's
appeals for a tenth visit to the Oval Office off as the scandals surrounding
both men just keep on coming. Whether the now maybe finally scheduled
visit in April takes place remains uncertain at this point -- certainly
don't bet on it.
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- Moreover, if and when Sharon departs from the scene,
maybe this time for the final time, there is Bibi, and a list of others,
ready and willing to take the helm and from whom even worse can now be
expected.
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- Israeli Prosecutors Recommend Charging Sharon
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- By Corinne Heller
- 3-27-4
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- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's chief prosecutor has drafted
an indictment against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a long-running corruption
scandal that could drive him from office, Israel's Channel 2 television
said on Saturday.
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- The report said State Attorney Edna Arbel plans to submit
the charge sheet within days to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will
make the final decision on whether to put the 76-year-old leader on trial.
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- Channel 2 said it could take Mazuz months to decide whether
to accept Arbel's recommendations, adding to a cloud of political uncertainty
that has enveloped Sharon.
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- A spokesman for the Justice Ministry, which represents
both the state attorney and the attorney general, declined to comment on
the report.
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- Sharon's office also had no comment and Israel Radio
quoted sources in the prime minister's office as saying Sharon would only
comment when Mazuz finally decided about the indictment.
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- Arbel's draft concluded there were sufficient grounds
to charge Sharon with bribery in connection with a real estate deal involving
his son, Gilad, and land developer David Appel, a stalwart of the prime
minister's right-wing Likud party, the report said.
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- The latest development catches Sharon during a stormy
time while he tries to win support from the United States and from his
own cabinet for his plan unilaterally to evacuate Jewish settlements in
the Gaza Strip and some in the West Bank.
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- There was no immediate indication whether the reported
draft indictment would delay Sharon's planned trip to Washington on April
14 to meet President Bush regarding his disengagement plan.
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- Palestinians fear an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip
would mask an attempt by Sharon to annex settlement blocs in the West Bank,
denying them the viable state they seek.
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- Prosecutors allege Appel hired Gilad Sharon in 1999 and
paid him large sums to persuade his father, then foreign minister, to promote
real estate deals including a Greek island resort that was never built.
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- Sharon has in the past denied any wrongdoing. Appel,
who was charged in January with trying to bribe Sharon in the 1990s, also
denies the allegations against him. Appel's indictment did not cite any
evidence Sharon knowingly accepted money to grant political favors.
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- COALITION MEMBERS CALL FOR SHARON'S SUSPENSION
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- Some ministers from the centrist Shinui party, his largest
coalition partner, have called on Sharon to suspend himself if the Attorney
General decides to indict him, Israeli media reported after the Channel
2 report.
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- Sharon has said he has no intention of resigning over
the allegations. In 1993, Israel's high court ordered Aryeh Deri, leader
of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, to resign from the cabinet over corruption
charges. He was sent to prison in 1999.
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- Legal experts are divided over whether under law, Sharon
would be forced to resign if indicted.
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- "Sharon must suspend himself -- it is inconceivable
for a prime minister to have an indictment against him," said Menachem
Klein, a political analyst at Israeli's Bar Ilan University.
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- Sharon has faced a public backlash over the past months
over allegations of corruption and misconduct regarding multiple scandals.
Israeli police are currently conducting investigations of the cases and
Sharon denies involvement in all of them.
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- One case alleges that Sharon's sons, Gilad and Omri,
used a $1.5 million loan from a South African businessman as collateral
to repay alleged illicit contributions to Sharon's campaign. Foreign funding
of political campaigns is illegal in Israel.
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- Israel's Sharon Under Pressure to Quit if Indicted
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- By Jeffrey Heller
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- JERUSALEM (Reuters - 28 March) - Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon came under pressure from within his Cabinet on Sunday to quit if
Israel's attorney general adopts reported recommendations to indict him
in a long-running corruption scandal.
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- Israel's Channel 2 television said on Saturday that State
Attorney Edna Arbel planned to submit a draft indictment within days to
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will make the final decision on whether
to put Sharon on trial.
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- "Under such circumstances, the prime minister should
resign," said Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky of the Shinui
party, Sharon's main partner in the governing coalition.
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- Uzi Landau, a minister without portfolio and member of
Sharon's right-wing Likud Party, said the 76-year-old leader should at
least suspend himself if charges are filed.
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- The Justice Ministry declined comment. A lawyer for Sharon,
who has denied any wrongdoing, called the leak politically motivated.
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- The report plunged Sharon deeper into trouble two weeks
before a visit to Washington, where he hopes to win President Bush's backing
for his plan unilaterally to evacuate Jewish settlements in Gaza and some
in the West Bank.
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- The case centers on payments of hundreds of thousands
of dollars that an Israeli land developer and Likud stalwart made to Sharon's
son Gilad, whom he hired in the late 1990s as an adviser on a never-completed
project to build a Greek resort.
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- Sharon was foreign minister at the time, and suspicions
focus on whether he tried to help win Greek government approval for the
enterprise, promoted by the Likud kingmaker, David Appel, now on trial
on related bribery charges.
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- PUBLIC PRESSURE
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- "Sharon must suspend himself -- it is inconceivable
for a prime minister to have an indictment against him," said Menachem
Klein, a political analyst at Israel's Bar Ilan University.
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- A source in the Justice Ministry said that under Israeli
law Sharon would not have to resign if charged. But recent opinion polls
have shown he would be under huge public pressure to quit.
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- Several media reports said Arbel would submit her recommendations
to the attorney general on Sunday or Monday and Mazuz would take up to
a month to decide whether to bring charges.
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- In such legal limbo, it would be a politically weakened
Sharon pressing Bush on April 14 to sign off on his disengagement plan.
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- Sharon has proposed to pull hard-to-defend Israeli settlers
and troops out of the Gaza Strip as part of a plan to impose a separation
on the Palestinians on Israel's terms if the moribund "road map"
to a negotiated peace, promoted by Washington, fails.
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- The Palestinians say that in reality, Sharon aims to
annex large Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
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- At the same time Sharon, a long-time champion of settlement
building on occupied land, is also facing opposition to any withdrawal
from ultranationalist parties in his coalition.
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- Sharon has been pushed from office before. As defense
minister during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, he bowed to a public
outcry and quit after an inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the
massacre by Lebanese militiamen of Palestinian refugees in two Beirut camps
surrounded by Israeli forces. In the latest bloodshed, Israeli forces killed
a suspected militant during an attempt to detain him near the West Bank
town of Hebron, military sources said.
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