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January 23, 2004/Tevet 29 5764, Vol. 56, No. 18
Will scandals sink Sharon?
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - As with President Nixon in the Watergate affair, tapes and an attempted coverup could be the undoing of Israel's scandal-haunted leader.
After audiotapes and videotapes that aired on prime-time television last week suggested Ariel Sharon knew more than he has admitted about illegal fund raising during his 1999 bid for Likud Party leader, pundits and politicians say the prime minister won't see out the year in office.
Sharon says he isn't worried and has no intention of resigning. But the race for succession is gathering pace in the Likud, with Finance Minister Benjamin Netan-yahu, a former prime minister, well in the lead.
The tapes released by David Spector, a political consultant who worked for Sharon for about a year before and after the 1999 campaign, show Sharon's close advisers unabashedly contemplating illegal cam-paign funding.
In one tape, Uri Shani, then the Likud's director general, tells Sharon's son Omri that he could transfer Likud funds to the campaign coffers in a way that would be untrace-able.
In a taped telephone con-versation with Spector, Ariel Sharon asks about U.S. and European donations to what is believed to be an election fund, suggesting that he followed the wider illegal donation process in great detail.
Even if the tapes don't prove criminal wrongdoing by the man who is now prime minister, they do imply a readiness to bend the rules, pundits say. They also suggest Sharon lied to the state comptroller in April 2001, when he said he had no idea how campaign funds were raised and that his two sons had handled all money matters.
Things are liable to get worse for Sharon soon. The state prosecution on Jan. 21 filed bribery charges against David Appel, a wealthy building contractor and Likud activist with close ties to Sharon.
One of the charges relates to a Greek island that Appel wanted to buy in the late 1990s for tourist develop-ment. He allegedly paid Sharon's son Gilad hundreds of thousands of dollars for his "advice" on the project, with a promise of $3 million more if the deal went through - money that police suspect was meant to encourage Sharon senior, then the foreign minister, to help advance the project with Greek authorities.
Gilad Sharon, at least, was not unaware of the risk he was taking. An earlier Spector tape shows him worrying that the affair could land him in jail.
If Appel stands trial for giving bribes, the issue of prosecuting those who took them will arise.
During the investigations, Sharon's public standing has been hurt further by his sons' failure to cooperate with authorities. Omri Sharon, who is a Knesset member, answered police questions but said virtually nothing; Gilad Sharon evoked his right to silence, even refusing to produce relevant documents.
Even if there aren't criminal proceedings against the prime minister in the end, several seasoned observers predict that he will have to go soon.
"Ariel Sharon will leave office this year," Dan Margalit wrote in Israel's daily Ma'ariv. "Not because he will be tried, but because the Sharons went too far. In the Likud they already are talking about his resignation. Knesset members are getting ready to abandon his sinking ship, and this time it's easy because his resignation will not entail new elections."
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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