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    JERUSALEM, Dec. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has quit the Likud party to join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party, the Ha'aretz newspaper and army radio reported on Sunday.

    Mofaz made the decision after receiving a pledge of continuing to serve as defense minister in the next government should Sharon be re-elected in the coming elections due on March 28.

    Mofaz became the seventh cabinet member to jump from Likud to Kadima following a surprise announcement by then acting Likud chairman and Likud Central Committee chair Tzachi Hanegbi to quit Likud and join Kadima last week.

    Sharon quit the center-right Likud he co-founded over 30 years ago and formed the centrist Kadima in late November, saying that he was fed up with confrontation with Likud hardliners who were still bitter about the Gaza pullout, which completed in September.

    Soon after the bolt of Mofaz, who previously was campaigning for the Likud leadership, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Mofaz left the party because he had fallen behind in the polls.

    Shalom now only faces former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Likud leadership race on Dec. 19.

    Shalom told reporters that he was the only Likud leader who could stem the erosion which has plagued the Likud since Sharon's quit. Enditem