Israel’s warrior PM fights for life

He said that the Prime Minister had retained brain function but would remain sedated for at least another 48 hours as doctors tried to keep cranial pressure low.

Sharon’s power as prime minister was transferred to Deputy Premier Ehud Olmert. Israeli politics, dominated in recent years by Sharon, who will be 78 next month, was thrown into turmoil, especially as lawlessness continued to grow in the Gaza Strip.

The mood in Israel was sombre, with Josef Lapid, leader of the Shinui Party, calling it “one of the most dramatic nights in Israel’s history.” Whether or not Sharon survives, the country seemed already to have entered a post-Sharon era. Some compared the feeling to the night in 1995 that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

Even if Sharon recovers, chances are small that he could campaign hard and win election to a third term, scheduled for March 28. His new party, Kadima, may now be stranded and the former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the conservative Likud Party, may gain from Sharon’s misfortune.

Popular with Israelis as a warrior willing to take political risks, Sharon recently broke away from Likud and founded the centrist Kadima Party. He attracted many of Likud’s best politicians, including Olmert and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as the old Labor stalwart, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, 82.

But Kadima is centred on Sharon, who had fought in or masterminded every Israeli war and who, despite a hawkish history, had come to accept the inevitability of an independent Palestinian state. Sharon broke with his past by pulling Israeli settlers and troops out of Gaza and four West Bank settlements, and there was expectation that he had another withdrawal in mind in the West Bank if he won in March.

Israelis are also worried about chaos in Gaza, the increasing influence of the radical Islamic Hamas movement and the deterioration of the Palestinian Authority in the face of its own elections, scheduled for Jan 25, and Sharon was considered a safe set of hands in dealings with the Palestinians.

With a healthy Sharon, Kadima was considered likely to win up to 40 seats in March, dominating a likely coalition with the Labor Party. Under Israel’s basic law, if Sharon dies or is incapacitated, Olmert will be acting prime minister for up to 100 days, when the president then appoints a member of Parliament to try to form a new government. It is possible that the March 28 date for the election may now change.

Sharon suffered a mild stroke on December 18, temporarily losing his ability to speak. But doctors said then that the clot causing the stroke had dissolved and that he would suffer no aftereffects. His political advisers pushed the notion that Sharon, born of good stock, would be healthier than before.

Last night, Sharon was taken to the hospital from his ranch in the Negev after complaining of pain. He was taken to Hadassah-Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, where he had been due on Thursday to repair a small congenital hole in his heart that may have contributed to his first stroke.

He apparently suffered this larger stroke at the hospital. According to an initial statement made by his office, Sharon was brought to the hospital “after feeling ill” at home.

In tests after the earlier stroke, doctors found a hole about 2 mm between the upper chambers of heart. Though the doctors said they did not know if the hole was a contributing factor to the stroke, or even where the clot had originated, they thought it best to plug the hole with a small device called an umbrella. They put Sharon on blood thinners and warned him to go on a diet.

Sharon has been under stress from the pressures of his first stroke on December 18, the campaign and family problems. He has outlived two wives and the death of a son. Another son, Omri, faces the possibility of prison after pleading guilty to charges of providing false testimony and falsifying documents after an investigation into allegations of illegal financing of Sharon’s 1999 campaign. — NYT