Sharon Shakes up Israeli Politics

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Arial Sharon has left the Likud party and started up a new party that promises to hold more moderate positions.  Observers wonder whether Sharon will be able to stitch together support from Likud and Labour defections.  Joshua Marshall reports that a Likud exodus may well be under way:

The latest word I've been able to find is that the first meeting of Sharon's new party, which took place this morning, had twelve ex-Likud members present. But all the reporting seems fluid. When I first read this article in Ha'aretz about a half hour ago it said there were eleven. Sharon needs 14 to lay claim to some of Likud's state funding.