The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is to undergo an operation to repair a hole in his heart that doctors believe caused a mild stroke. Sharon’s doctors held a press conference on Monday to head off speculation about his health just more than a week after he was admitted to hospital feeling ill and confused.
With elections due on March 28, the health of the prime minister has become a big issue. He will be 78 in February and is overweight. Sharon left his Likud party to set up a new party, Kadima, which has a commanding lead in the opinion polls.
Details emerged in the Israeli press on Monday of Kadima’s policy on land controlled by Israel, as the government invited tenders for the construction of 228 new homes in the West Bank.
But Sharon’s health has overshadowed policy issues. Haim Lotem, the head of cardiology at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, said the hole, measuring between 1mm and 2mm, is a minor birth defect found in about a quarter of the population. Doctors will use a catheter to insert an ”umbrella-like” device that seals the hole, which is in the partition wall between the upper chambers of Sharon’s heart. The procedure, guided by a small camera inserted through the oesophagus, requires anaesthetic and takes 30 minutes.
The hole was detected after Sharon’s stroke on December 18. Doctors concluded that the blood clot causing the stroke became lodged in the hole, restricting the flow of blood to his brain. Although he had difficulty speaking during the stroke, tests found no injury to his brain.
”The prime minister is in exactly the same state now as he was the day before he was hospitalised,” said Tamir Ben-Hur, the head of neurology at Hadassah hospital.
Despite the medical statement, doubts remain about Sharon’s health and a belief persists in the Israeli press that the doctors’ revelations were designed to obscure the situation. The doctors said Sharon’s weight has fallen from 118kg to 115kg, but the newspaper Ma’ariv says Sharon weighs 142kg.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government continued to expand its settlement activity in contravention of the road map for peace, which Sharon claims is his platform for progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The building tender for 228 homes in the West Bank settlements of Efrat and Beitar Illit brings the number of homes being planned in the West Bank this year to 1 131, according to the Israeli pressure group Peace Now.
Israel claims that it is merely ”strengthening” the large settlement blocks it intends to keep once an agreement is signed with the Palestinians. It sees its commitment under the road map as an undertaking not to create new settlements or expand the boundaries of existing ones.
The construction boom in the West Bank fits into the draft proposals for the manifesto of Kadima. However, the manifesto attempts to create a party platform of giving up some of the land Israel controls to create a Palestinian state and achieve peace.
”The Kadima party believes the advancement of the peace process with the Palestinians is a central goal that it [Kadima] will act to advance in every possible way and channel in order to lay the foundations for the forming of the permanent borders of the state of Israel and to achieve quiet and peace,” according to the draft quoted in Ma’ariv. — Guardian Unlimited Â