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Moving to the center

Old rivals Sharon and Peres come together at last

By Bill Schneider
CNN Washington Bureau

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres in the Knesset in February 2005.

• Peres backs Sharon

• Sharon calls new party 'Forward'

• Sharon knocks dust off road map

• Sharon shakes up Israeli politics

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It takes bold leadership to bring together a bitterly divided country. And that's what happened. Not in the United States. But still the political Play of the Week.

Ariel Sharon is 77. Shimon Peres is 82. They've been political rivals for decades.

Sharon, the hawk, was the driving force behind the Jewish settlements and led the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Now prime minister, Sharon led the right-wing Likud party, which he helped found in the 1970s.

Peres, the dove, used to lead the left-wing Labor Party. In 1994, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Oslo peace accords -- which Sharon opposed.

Now these two old bulls of Israeli politics have joined forces to support a new party of the center, led by Sharon.

Here's what Sharon said in announcing his departure from Likud: "Staying in the Likud means wasting time in political squabbles rather than acting on behalf of the state of Israel."

This was the response from Peres: "The Sharon party is for a Palestinian state, for negotiations with the Palestinians, for the road map and to start it right away. That was my position all my life."

What happened is that the two old-timers moved closer together, politically, while their parties moved further apart.

The Labor Party recently threw out Peres as leader, while Sharon faced a rebellion in his party because of opposition to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

"These two look around them and say, 'We need to solve the eternal problems of the state of Israel within the next few years because we don't see anybody else that can do this once we leave,'" said political analyst Ethan Dor-Shav of the Shalem Center.

Imagine if former President Bill Clinton and his old rival and new friend, former President George Bush, joined forces to form a new party of the center. A lot of Americans would be very happy.

Well guess what? Polls show Sharon's new center party in the lead for Israel's March election.

Sharon and Peres are trying to resurrect the consensus of the past. A bold, risky move.

Exactly what we look for in the political Play of the Week.

Sharon is not trying to come back to power. He's in power. They're putting principles ahead of party.

In politics, that's revolutionary.

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