Israel Elects Sharon, Implying Hot War Or Cold Peace In The Middle East:.

*** Some On The Arab Side Hope Bush Will Be Tough On Sharon If He Refuses To Make Concessions

*** But Bush Has Strong Backing From The US Christian Coalition Which Will Not Want To See The Holy City Under Arab Control

*** And Even The The Toughest US Leadership Will Not Call On Israel To Accept The Palestinians' Right of Return, Which Means Undoing The State of Israel

NICOSIA - The election of Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, seen as a "superhawk" globally, indicates the beginning of a new period in Middle East geo-politics. APS sources say that the Arab-Israeli peace process of the last decade is dead and will be replaced by an uncertain "tightrope walk" between hot war or cold peace. For the Arab World, where Sharon is known as a "butcher", the worst case scenario has materialised: a radical right-wing leader has come to power in Israel, and he is prepared to use force to defend his vision of a Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty, as well as to carry out a "Vietnam style" pacification campaign in the Palestinian territories to separate the guerrilla fighters from the population.

In Israel, the peace camp is in disarray with outgoing premier Ehud Barak having been beaten by a margin of 25%. He resigned from the Labour Party leadership and is preparing to move away from the political limelight, albeit temporarily, somewhat in the same way that the man he defeated in 1999, Binyamin Netanyahu, had to stay out of sight for some time before returning to politics. Within the Labour Party, infighting has already begun to determine the next leader with Knesset (parliament) Speaker Avraham Burg having announced his candidacy.

In the coming months, neither Labour nor its allies will be in a position to challenge Sharon. But Sharon himself will have to get over the initial hurdles of (a) forming a coalition government within 45 days, which is not easy given that Likud has only 19 seats in the 120-member Knesset; and (b) presenting a budget before the Knesset by end-March and winning its approval with an absolute majority, failing which the assembly would have to be dissolved and new elections held.

The sources say that, given the mood of public opinion in Israel and the disarray in the left-wing, a general election in the coming months would most probably yield a result in favour of Likud and its allies. Either way, this means the Middle East would have to deal with an extreme right-wing government in Israel at least for a year or two. Even the most optimistic among observers, on both Arab and Israeli sides, don not believe that Sharon will offer as much as Barak did to the Palestinians. A similar approach can be expected vis-a-vis Syria. According to the sources, the implications of these realities can be summarised as follows:

1. The American approach will change under the new Bush Jr administration. The experienced members of the Bush team are well aware of Sharon's background and know what kind of moves he may make in future. There is no love lost for the new Israeli Premier in Republican Washington, where it is remembered that Sharon worked hard to sabotage the Madrid Conference - the starting point of the peace process - which was launched by Bush Sr. and his then secretary of state James Baker in October 1991. Bush Jr was quoted by 'AP' saying on Feb. 7: "We're going to play the hand we've been dealt and we're going to play it well".

Whether the Bush administration will be less influenced by the powerful pro-Israel lobby within the US remains to be seen, although the indications are that it will be less easy to influence than the Clinton administration. Sharon seems to be aware of this. One day after he was elected, he announced he was dispatching three senior aides with plenty of experience in diplomacy - Moshe Arens, Zalman Shoval and Dore Gold - to the US to explain his outlook. Their objective is to raise issues such as regional ballistic missile threats and other security issues to the same level of importance as the peace process in the US-Israel strategic alliance. In other words, the goal is to dilute the importance of the peace process. Sharon will send another team to Europe, made up of former ambassadors to France Ovadia Sofer, Avi Pazner, and Meir Rosenne, and former Foreign Ministry director general Eytan Bentsur.

2. The Palestinian situation has worsened considerably, and many observers say that President Yasser Arafat lost a big chance to gain the maximum he could have got from Israel. Barak had gone further than any Israeli leader had in the past in terms of the concessions he was willing to make, offering more than 90% of the West Bank and sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem. Zalman Shoval on Feb. 8 rejected a call from the Palestinians to resume talks at the point which Ehud Barak left off, saying the new Israeli government would not be bound by any agreements which were not written down. Public opinion in Israel is likely to support such a stance, with one of the reasons for Barak's defeat being the fact that people thought he had surrendered too much in negotiations.

Arafat's own situation, as a result of the change in Israeli leadership, has become very delicate in view of the mood among Palestinians. Younger and more dynamic leaders are already jostling for position in a post-Arafat era, although the sources say that the aging leader still has total control over the Palestinian side. Arafat reportedly sent a "very warm" congratulatory letter to Sharon on Feb. 7. And there are indications that the Sharon-Arafat relationship may be more pragmatic than it seems on the surface. There have been reports that senior aides to both men met discreetly in Vienna on Jan. 24 (see Recorder No. 4). Arafat's Kurdish confidante with the nom-de-guerre Mohammed Rashid (real name Khalid Salam) was the representative on the Palestinian side to discuss issues such as the future of the casino in the Gaza Strip. This is a major revenue earner for Arafat, and it is frequented by a large number of Israelis who form the bulk of visitors there. So while deterioration in the overall Israeli-Palestinian relationship is almost certain, with the peace process likely to reach a dead end, it is not inconceivable that the two sides may work out a modus vivendi under which violence is kept within controllable limits.

3. The Syrian-Israeli track of the peace process will remain dead, the sources say. Although President Bashar Al Assad has said he would be prepared to hold talks with Sharon, he has laid down the preconditions set by his father - which involves an Israeli commitment to a pull-out from the Golan Heights before negotiation resume. It is almost certain that Sharon will not to make this commitment, although both Likud and Labour prime ministers have in the past considered various propositions for settling the territorial dispute with Syria.

On this matter Israel is not likely to face much pressure from the US, where Republican politicians are generally not positively disposed towards Syria. The question is whether Syria will decide to get Israel's attention by playing the Lebanon card, through the issue of Shebaa Farms, which Hizbollah has pledged to take back. If there is no movement on the Palestinian-Israeli track, Palestinian groups in South Lebanon may also enter the game and attempt cross-border attacks. It was due to such confrontations that, in 1982, then defence minister Sharon decided to invade Lebanon and the Arabs gave him the title of "butcher" after the massacres of the Sabra and Shatila camps.