Israeli Parties Back to Politicking

JERUSALEM —  Israel’s political season resumed Thursday with internal elections in several parties after a weeklong pause due to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s health crisis.

Officials at Hadassah University Medical Center said Sharon remained in critical but stable condition, with a regular heartbeat, but they gave few details. The hospital had held regular briefings with reporters but since Wednesday has given only terse updates on its website or via pager messages.

An update Thursday afternoon said doctors were to replace a tube used to drain fluid from Sharon’s brain and insert an intravenous line in his arm. A CT scan of his brain later showed that some of the blood remaining from his massive Jan. 4 stroke had been absorbed, Israeli media reported.

It was unclear when doctors would halt the flow of sedatives that have kept the prime minister in a medically induced coma for the last week. Physicians have said it could take days to awaken him and assess how extensively the stroke has damaged his cognitive functions.

Sharon’s grave condition, the result of a hemorrhagic stroke that led to three operations, brought Israel’s electioneering to a virtual standstill. Sharon’s new centrist party, Kadima, has sought to regroup behind Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, who is filling in as prime minister and now appears likely to lead the party in March 28 elections.

Kadima was heavily favored in polls to defeat Sharon’s former party, the conservative Likud, and the left-leaning Labor Party, but many analysts now expect the race to grow tighter.

The national vote, which had been set before Sharon’s illness, will select a new parliament, the Knesset, and the next prime minister.

The Likud’s central committee was voting Thursday on a party slate to be led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime Sharon rival. At stake were the 92 slots that would fill out the slate and the order the candidates would appear on the ballot.

But a number of those who had fought hardest against Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer fared poorly in the party vote and appeared unlikely to retain their seats in the Knesset.

A sweep by conservative hard-liners would have made it easier for Kadima and Labor to portray the Likud, which has dominated Israeli politics for most of the last three decades, as a right-wing fringe group.

The vote got off to a tense start after Netanyahu issued a directive instructing four Likud members who remain as ministers to resign their Cabinet posts immediately. They initially resisted, saying they would hand in their resignations on Sunday, but three later relented.

Silvan Shalom, a moderate who serves as foreign minister and lost the Likud primary last month, met with Netanyahu and agreed to submit his resignation today, Israeli media reported.

Three smaller parties were also choosing their rosters: the fiercely secular Shinui Party and two right-wing factions, the National Religious Party and Moledet, part of the National Union.

President Bush called Olmert on Thursday and offered support for Sharon. “I wanted to tell you that our hearts are with Ariel Sharon, his family, his friends and the entire Israeli people,” Bush said, according to a statement issued by Olmert’s office.

Israeli media reported that Olmert might visit Bush in Washington in coming weeks, although the statement describing the telephone conversation between the two men did not mention any proposed visit. Such a trip would probably bolster Olmert’s standing in the run-up to national elections.

In other developments, a Palestinian fighter was slain by Israeli soldiers during a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin, the army said. A second Palestinian blew himself up as he approached the soldiers, but none were injured.