Sharon sweeps to power in Israeli election

11:00 AM By PHIL REEVES

JERUSALEM - The Middle East awoke to a perilous political map today after Ariel Sharon, a man vilified across the Arab world for his brutal conduct in the past, was catapulted into power as Israel's next Prime Minister at the age of 72.

Unofficial results from the Central Election Committee gave Mr Sharon a 24-point win which – even before it was formally confirmed – was marked in the West Bank and Gaza by a defiant flurry of violence intended as a message from Palestinians that they will not be intimidated by the man they know as "the Butcher of Beirut."

Within two hours of the close of polls, Ehud Barak had conceded defeat and said he would leave parliament and quit the Labour Party leadership.

In a victory speech, Mr Sharon called for the creation of as wide a "unity government" as possible.

"Peace requires painful compromises on both sides; any agreement will be based on security of all people in the region," he said.

His victory is the culmination of an extraordinary comeback for a military-minded right-winger who has dreamt of shaking off the stigma of being held indirectly responsible for one of the nastiest blots on Israel's short history – the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians after the Israeli army let its Christian Phalangist allies enter refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.

It kills off any chance of a final peace agreement in the near future with the Palestinians, who have made it clear that the Sharon formula for negotiations – "peace with security" on Israel's terms, framed only in interim agreements – can only produce more bloodshed.

Yasser Arafat, knowing that world sympathy may now swing his way, said he "respected the Israeli decision", adding that "we are insisting to continue the process, the peace process, the peace of the brave".

But members of his negotiating team were more outspoken. The Palestinian Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said Mr Sharon's election was "the most foolish event in Israel's history".

Marwan al-Barghouthi, a leader of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, said: "The Israelis will regret electing Sharon."

The United States President, George Bush, last night telephoned Mr Sharon and pledged to work with him.

But Mr Sharon will find that the international community – including the US – regards him with deep suspicion.

The world will want to know whether this is the same man who, as Defence Minister, led Israel's army into a hopeless war in Lebanon, reassuring his cabinet that he was merely planning to create a 40km buffer zone but going on to lead the siege of Beirut.

Seventeen years ago, after he was humiliated and forced out as Defence Minister, no one dreamt he would be back.

The world – especially the Arab world – will also want to know if this is the same man who led the biggest Jewish settlement-building drive in the occupied territories in Israel's history, laying the foundations for one of the biggest obstacles to making peace with the Palestinians.

Is this the same Ariel Sharon who, a few years ago, told Israelis to "grab" the hills of the occupied West Bank?

The same man who believes that the only language Palestinians understand is having their homes bulldozed by the Israeli army?

The man who four months ago paid a foolhardy visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, lighting the fuse that detonated the intifada, with the loss of nearly 400 lives?

His advisers have striven to show he has changed, blending his hawkish profile into the contours of a wiser, gentler figure.

He said he wants a "responsible, serious, peaceseeking government", knowing he faces a huge task to build a coalition that will keep him in office. He wants a government of national unity with Labour.

But enough is known of his ideas of peace-making for it to be clear that they are unacceptable to Palestinians. He has said he will not dismantle any settlements, and will return only 42 per cent of the West Bank.

There will be those in the West – especially in Washington – who will mourn the departure of Ehud Barak, believing his claim he was close to peace with Mr Arafat and portraying him as a victim of his own eagerness to push an agreement to an end.

But the results of the last round of peace talks emphasised how far apart the two sides still are.

Mr Barak, whose resignation caused the special election – the first in Israel for prime minister alone – was the author of his own downfall. He is a political incompetent, the world's worst glad-hander.

He deepened the hostility of the Palestinian militants driving the intifada – not so much Yasser Arafat and his Oslo negotiators as more remote, radical elements – by building settlements while styling himself as a dovish peace-maker.

He deepened antipathy by abandoning land and prisoner hand-backs planned under the Oslo process. The Palestinian hatred of him grew when the Israeli army shot Palestinian after Palestinian.

And he lost the faith of the Israeli Jewish majority, who wrongly saw Mr Arafat as the sole evil genius behind the intifada, and – as peace talks unravelled and violence began – blamed Mr Barak for making what they saw as overly generous offers concerning their most precious values, notably their claim to Jerusalem.

As the violence unfolded and Israeli Jews began to die, the country's chief concern became one of security.

Though Mr Barak is the country's most decorated soldier, Mr Sharon's track record for suppressing Arabs is second to none.

In the end, the election was oddly downbeat. There were signs it would produce the lowest turn-out in Israel's history – 58 per cent, by one estimate – reflecting the lack of enthusiasm for both candidates.

And Israel's Arabs, a bastion of Mr Barak's support in 1999, stayed away in protest against the killing by Israeli police of 13 Israeli Arabs at the start of the intifada.

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT

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