Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has narrowly survived a challenge to his leadership of the governing Likud Party. Sharon's 104-vote margin in the vote Monday by the 3,000-member Likud central committee was a slap in the face of party hard-liners who wanted to punish him for the Gaza pullout, The Associated Press reported. The man who led the challenge, was former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The ballot was ostensibly over a procedural issue: whether to hold elections for party leader in April, as scheduled, or move up the primary to November. But both Sharon and Netanyahu said the ballot amounted to a vote of confidence in the prime minister, who has expressed hope the pullout would jumpstart long-stalled peace talks that would ultimately lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Sharon did not immediately react to the vote. But Likud lawmaker Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio that "the argument over whether or not Sharon's vision was the Likud's vision is over with this vote."
