Sharon Soon To Fall?

Israeli Prime Minister's Son Indicted

Published on February 18, 2005 By Larry Kuperman In International

In what could further destabilize the Middle East, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been indicted in a campaign funding scandal. The indictment comes at a time when many Israelis are angered by concessions made by Sharon to the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in order to get the peace process started.

The indictment is the result of a three-year investigation of Sharon and stopped short of indicting the Prime Minister himself. Sharon's son Omri, however, has been a close advisor of his father and now faces criminal charges. The indictment will surely have consequences for Sharon's government.

Quoting from the article on CNN:

"An indictment against Omri Sharon leads to Ariel Sharon," Ran Cohen, a lawmaker from the leftist opposition Yahad party told the daily Maariv. "The court might judge the son, but the public will judge the father."

Ariel Sharon still faces an additional investigation about misuse of a $1.5 million loan from a South African businessman.

I am not a fan of Sharon's. I dislike the man personally and I have often said that there will not be peace in the Middle East until both Sharon and the late Yasser Arafat were gone, but the timing of this is not good. If Sharon is forced to step down at this point, either because of indictment or a no-confidence vote, it puts the peace talks in limbo.

Comments

bakerstreet

on Feb 18, 2005

How would that work as far as their political system? To me, it seems like you'd have a hard time finding a politically viable candidate that was more hard-line than Sharon, wouldn't you? The image of him in a tank always springs to mind... lol.

I know that there are many in Israel that want no consessions at all, but do they have the political clout to reverse the process? Who do you feel might take his place?

Larry Kuperman

on Feb 20, 2005

Hi, BakerStreet. I took most of the weekend off blogging, to hang out with my daughter. I was hoping that Manofpeace would answer your question, as he is much more qualified than I to answer. He may still be off-line. He had computer woes not too long ago. But I'll give it my best shot, here we go:

"it seems like you'd have a hard time finding a politically viable candidate that was more hard-line than Sharon" The likely candidate would be former- Prime Minister Benyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, the hard-liners hard-liner. Netanyahu has damaged by accusations of corruption, but that may be less relevant if it seems everyone else is as bad. Meaning Sharon.

An unlikely, but possible candidate would be Benny Begin. He has the "name" being the son of the former PM.

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