Netanyahu to challenge Sharon leadership

[DemsUnite]

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli finance minister who left the government in protest of the disengagement plan, says he will challenge Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the Likud party leadership.

Netanyahu -- who made his announcement Tuesday during a nationally televised Tel Aviv news conference -- lashed out at Sharon, saying he has spurned the principles of Likud.

"The Likud today needs a leader who can unify the ranks, rehabilitate the ruins, and lead the Likud to victory, and who will then lead the state in the spirit of our principles," he said.

Netanyahu, 55, said he believes he is up to the task.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/30/israel.netanyahu/index.html?section=cnn_world

[AlCzervik]

1. he's been chomping at the bit for years now, not a big surprise.

[davidinalameda]

2. sounds like Sharon is toast

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/APNews/News/ap0473n

[classysassy]

3. Those two

playing good cop,bad cop,both are nut cases.

[DemsUnite]

4. I'm no Sharon fan

But my understanding is Netanyahu is more extreme.

[President Kerry]

5. Netanyahu ain't going nowhere..

I hate that guy.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Haaretz (Tuesday): PMO: Netanyahu continues to spread lies, fantasies

Form Haaretz (Tel Aviv)
Dated Tuesday August 30

PMO: Netanyahu continues to spread lies, fantasies
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent

Responding to MK Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration of his candidacy earlier in the day for chairmanship of the Likud and as the party's candidate for the premiership, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said Tuesday evening that Netanyahu "continues to spread lies and fantasies."

According to the PMO, "He forgot that he received a strong party and left one with 19 mandates and a huge debt. It is difficult to address each of his lies specifically. He has proven that he is the leader of the extreme right, of the Feiglins."

In his announcement, Netanyahu painted Sharon as a prime minister who had veered sharply to the political left, abandoning his own party in the process.

"The Likud today needs a leader who can unify the ranks, rehabilitate the ruins, and lead the Likud to victory, and who will then lead the state in the spirit of our principles, and believe that I can do that," Netanyahu said during a news conference in Tel Aviv's Beit Sokolov.

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