Reuters' Allyn Fisher-Ilan reports that the main center-right party in Israel is heading for an historic schism.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, launched a bid on Tuesday to topple him as Likud party leader in a power struggle sparked by the evacuation of Gaza settlers.

Likud polls show ex-finance minister Netanyahu would rout Sharon in a primary if it were held soon, stirring speculation Sharon may break away from rightists and forge a new centrist party to run in an election due before November 2006.

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While many in Likud see Netanyahu as truer to party principles than Sharon, cross-party polls have consistently shown Sharon to be the most popular and respected Israeli leader and more likely to win the next election at the party's helm.

As David Remnick explains in this week's issue of The New Yorker, the move by Netanyahu could eventually lead to the creation of a new centrist coalition in Israel.

In order to survive, Sharon will have to either regain the lead or, perhaps, take the “big bang” option, bolting Likud and isolating it as a bastion of the far right, while creating a centrist coalition led by the three “patriarchs” of Israeli politics: Sharon; Shimon Peres, of Labor; and Tommy Lapid, of the secularist Shinui Party.

Wouldn't it be amazing if great leaders in America were willing to consider forgoing the extremes of their parties to create a more moderate centrist coalition? Just even consider it?