The ambiguous way forward: the puzzle of Sharon's intentions.

• Author: Benn, Aluf
• Position: Reporter-at-Large

SUMMER 2005 marked a double victory for Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon. His disengagement plan to remove the Jewish settlements from Gaza and the northern West Bank was carried out swiftly and smoothly, disproving scary predictions of widespread violence and disobedience. Israel's military and police forces maintained their integrity, and not a single shot was fired during the forced evacuation of inhabitants from 25 settlements. Israel has shown a skeptical world that it can successfully confront its right-wing settler movement when the national interest requires it.

Throughout the two-year disengagement process, Sharon has kept the majority of the public, the military and the government bureaucracy rallied behind him to overcome considerable political hurdles. His settler opponents filled the country with their orange ribbons but failed to win active support beyond their core group. Their failure to reach out to the mainstream doomed their protest. By mid-September, the last Israeli soldier had left Gaza.

Shortly afterwards, Sharon beat his challenger for prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who resigned as treasury minister and tried to ride the anti-Sharon wave in the ruling Likud Party. The Likud central committee voted down Netanyahu's bid for an early leadership contest. Using his characteristic mixture of threats and temptations, Sharon won by a small margin.

Alas, his narrow victory could not last long. On November 9, trade union boss Amir Peretz won the Labor Party primary. He pledged to move the peace process toward final-status deals with the Palestinians and Syria and to reconstruct the welfare state, after over a decade in which Israel adopted free market economic policies. The "Peretz effect" energized the political system, and within two weeks Israel's political map was redrawn. Sharon had to call an early election for March, more than seven weeks ahead of schedule, and following some hesitation he decided to leave Likud--the ruling party he had initiated upon his retirement from the army in 1973--and run for election with a new political group. Sharon felt he had lost control over the Likud Party machine, which opposed further territorial concessions. True to form, he gambled on a high-risk move, campaigning without a supportive organization. Sharon cites his long experience--"sixty years in the front"--as the reason to give him a third term in office. Thus he turned the coming election into a referendum on his leadership and policies. It will be an unprecedented tripartite race between his party, the forsaken Likud and Peretz's Labor.

Sharon's summertime successes--combined with a noticeable reduction in terror attacks and a booming economy--have positioned him as the unshakable leader of Israel. Repeated polls indicate that the Israeli public accepts Sharon's assertion that there is currently no one else capable of reining in the country and dealing with its challenges. Internationally, world leaders pardoned Sharon for his brutal past, praising his "courageous" Gaza withdrawal. Op-eds, magazine articles and a new biography have tried to decipher his leadership and management secrets, which seem to have succeeded despite the most extraordinary array of opposing forces.

DEFYING COMMON political wisdom, following the settlement evacuation he refrained from turning right to compensate the Likud support base. Rather, he kept his centrist course as his new party's platform. Polls indicated that a Sharon party would be the voters' favorite, but Israeli elections can be surprising--especially given the new composition of forces.

True to form, Sharon remained ambiguous about his next move. He hinted at a deeper West Bank withdrawal...