Gen. Ariel Sharon, the founding father of Likud, resigned last night from the Liberal Party’s political committee in protest against the factionalism within Likud which, he contended, was hampering its work. The non-Labor opposition, put together prior to the Yom Kippur War, largely through the efforts of Sharon, is an amalgamation of Herut, the Liberal Party, the Free Center and the State List.
Sharon announced his resignation at a meeting of the Liberal Party executive after delivering a lecture on the present political and security situation and demanding, once again, new elections to establish a more representative government. He said Likud was lagging in its work mainly because its individual components maintain independence on a wide variety of issues. He called for the elimination of the old factions in the interests of a single united party.
The Liberal executive immediately passed a resolution calling on Sharon to withdraw his resignation. Liberal leader Elimelech Rimalt agreed that Likud’s strength lay in a consensus of all of its constituent groups but observed that such a goal required time and patience.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
