Wobbles all round

摘要

Just a month after the prime minister, Ar-iel Sharon, overturned Israeli politics by quitting the ruling Likud to form his own party, Kadima ("Forward"), a similar upheaval has hit the Palestinian Authority (pa). And to confuse matters still more, Ka-dima's own chances of keeping Mr Sharon in power after the election due in March took a knock after he suffered a stroke, albeit a minor one, on December 18th; his new party, after all, depends massively on the charisma of its 77-year-old leader.