Sharon, Netanyahu in bitter power struggle

In the right corner, Ariel Sharon is limbering up for the fight. Further to the right, Benjamin Netanyahu is also ready and has taken off his gloves.

Fuelling the rivalry between "Arik" and "Bibi", who will contest the leadership of the ruling right-wing Likud in a party vote on Thursday, is a personal vendetta which has repeatedly reshaped the Israeli electoral scene.

But the stakes are higher now, as Likud is expected to become the largest party in parliament in the January 28 general election, ensuring its leader will be prime minister. Sharon has a clear lead in the opinion polls.

"It's clear the main issue is personal," said Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. "They have a history of bad blood between them."

The official leadership race began early this month, after Sharon's coalition with the centre-left Labour Party broke up in a dispute over Jewish settlements and the prime minister called an election rather than build a narrow right-wing government.

Sharon, 74, then made the hawkish Netanyahu, 53, an offer he could not refuse without seeming to shirk his duty as a Likud leader - joining a caretaker right-wing government as foreign minister.

Political commentators called it a masterstroke by Sharon to keep Netanyahu under his scrutiny in the run-up to the election.

Their mutual sniping has since become a daily feature of Israeli political life, growing more bitter as opinion polls show Sharon has a large lead over his rival.

But their battle dates back to the 1996 election, when Sharon secured for Netanyahu several thousand tie-breaking votes from ultra-Orthodox Israelis that propelled the younger man into the prime minister's post.

Netanyahu then proceeded to freeze Sharon out of the government, offering the coveted foreign ministry post to another coalition partner, before finally bowing to Likud pressure and creating a new portfolio for his "ally".

When Netanyahu took a "time-out" from politics after a crushing defeat by Labour's Ehud Barak in 1999, Sharon took over the wounded Likud and rehabilitated it. Many Israelis viewed him as merely a Likud caretaker until Netanyahu made his comeback.

Netanyahu's return to power was blocked in 2001, when Barak called early elections because of the Palestinian uprising which began two years ago after he failed to clinch a peace deal.

Netanyahu was riding high in the popularity polls, but Barak and Sharon agreed to a direct election for the prime minister's post, making it impossible for Netanyahu, a private citizen, to run in a contest open only to legislators.

Sharon won that race by an unprecedented landslide.

"Sharon... is trying to focus on affairs of state and not enter a contest of mud-slinging. Sometimes he strikes below the belt, but elegantly so," Sandler said of the current contest.

"As a challenger, Netanyahu has to be more aggressive. But neither wants to look as if he is hurting the Likud... because their victory is tied up with the party."

Using both subtle and overt hints, Sharon has portrayed Netanyahu as a smooth talker lacking credibility and has branded his policies as mere slogans, ill-suited to the reality of the Palestinian uprising and a possible US strike on Iraq.

At the same time, Sharon has played to the public's sense of insecurity, promising to steer the state soberly to a peace deal and showing a degree of toughness in standing up to US pressure to ease the army crackdown on the uprising.

Netanyahu's line has been to depict himself as an energetic leader able to galvanise a country drained by two years of violence and recession with a slew of new policy initiatives.

He first tried, without success, to attack Sharon on Israel's economic ills, then moved to outflank him with right-wing voters by decrying Sharon's support for an eventual Palestinian state and his pledge to the United States not to expel President Yasser Arafat.

Apart from their disagreement on whether to permit a Palestinian state, Sharon and Netanyahu have similar political platforms, both demanding an end to Palestinian "terror", favouring Jewish settlements and disparaging Arafat.

Sharon was quick to remind Israelis that Netanyahu as prime minister signed a deal giving the Palestinians control of most of the West Bank city of Hebron and even shook Arafat's hand at the US-brokered talks.

"Sharon was a minister in Netanyahu's government. They know how to work together and even if their views differ, the gap is not that wide," Likud lawmaker Moshe Arens told Reuters.

Some commentators say the two are likely to sit together in the next Likud-led government, possibly as prime minister and foreign minister, regardless of who wins the party race.

"I think Bibi would be willing to keep the foreign portfolio, contingent on Sharon not moving to establish a Palestinian state," said a Netanyahu confidant.

"But I think Sharon has no intention of offering it to him. The intention in the Sharon camp is to wipe out Bibi politically," he said.