Ariel Sharon failed today in his bid to be elected chairman of the World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency aliya department. In a dramatic secret ballot at the Zionist General Council meeting here 59 votes were cast against the former Defense Minister while 48 were cast in his favor. The wide margin surprised the pundits who earlier were predicting a neck-to-neck vote.
Leon Dulzin, chairman of the WZO executive, said it had been a “democratic session.” He said there was no need for him to reiterate his statements made these past few days, namely, that Sharon was unsuitable for the aliya department post, and noted that the post was being held open for Herut. (Dulzin, of the Liberal Party wing of Likud, runs the department temporarily.) “I hope Herut will nominate a candidate we can all agree on,” he said.
Herut Hatzohar chairman Gideon Abramovitz, plainly bitter at the vote, said Dulzin’s words were “a contradiction … we have to put up someone who is going to satisfy somebody living in Los Angeles or wherever … there is a witch-hunt against a minister of the government.” This was a reference to the fact that Sharon serves as Minister Without Portfolio in the present Cabinet.
BROAD POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS
Both Premier Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens urged the Zionist General Council to endorse Sharon’s candidacy. The Council’s decision to flout their advice made the vote all the more significant in its broader political ramifications. Jerold Hoffberger of Baltimore, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, opposed Sharon’s candidacy. While he praised the retired general as a military man, he asserted that he was not a person diaspora youth would follow.
Likud Knesset member Ehud Olmert told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today, just hours before the vote: “They (Sharon’s opponents) want to destroy him politically.”
Sharon’s rejection by the Council despite heavy pressure exerted by Shamir is a blow to the former Defense Minister’s aspirations to make a political comeback. It is also a stinging blow to the prestige here and in the diaspora of Shamir himself.
Influential in the voting was the reported determination of Hoffberger to derail the Sharon candidacy even If it were approved by the Council. Hoffberger reportedly told Shamir in a phone conversation earlier this week that he opposed Sharon and that he would have the Agency’s Board of Governors reject him. Without the Board’s approval, Sharon could not have taken over the aliya department post.
Labor Party activists were delighted with the result of the vote. Labor Party secretary Yehiel Leket declared: “Sharon did not succeed in winning rehabilitation from the Zionist movement … This a great moral and democratic victory.”
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