Yoel Marcus

There's a ticking bomb right under our noses. For all we know, at this very moment, two or three fanatics are sitting somewhere, far from the legal rallies, secretly plotting the details of Sharon's assassination and putting their finger on some breach in security that will allow them to carry out their plan.

February, usually perceived as a harmless sort of month, kicks off today with a 10-day roller-coaster ride of critical decisions that will shape the face of this country.

Sharon has embarked on a historical move, and he is more determined than ever to complete it. He has all the public support he needs to crush this unholy alliance between the Land of Israel zealots and the Hezbollah, who are working in the name of God and Allah to destroy the State of Israel.

There is a breaking point and a time when the government must take off its gloves and present the other side with a flat ultimatum: For every indiscriminate round of fire on a civilian target, we will retaliate in kind on the closest and most populated Palestinian city.

We can praise Ariel Sharon's determination to the high heavens, but he still has a serious problem. Whoever heard of 13 MKs banding together to voice no-confidence in a government led by their own party?

For starters, don't even think about appointing yourself deputies or vice deputies or acting vice deputies. Whether they have power or not, it's not healthy to hand out jobs that revolve chiefly around waiting for you to die.

These are fateful times in which we cannot allow rebel forces to clash with or claim victory over a lawful, elected government. Sharon was right to hit the ceiling this week.

Sharon should be doing what Ben-Gurion would do in his place. He must make it clear to those rebelling against the authority of the state that one strike at an Israeli soldier and they're out.

While in other countries the transition from 2004 to 2005 is like the transition from today to tomorrow, the transition here tonight is like going through a generation in the life of the country.

Pines-Paz and Herzog have brought a fresh spirit to the moldy corridors of their party, but they have not achieved a revolution in the Labor leadership. It is not from the two of them that the salvation will come to rehabilitate the Labor Party.

This is not the moment at which the government can demonstrate weakness and hesitation. The authority and well-being of the state take precedence. Let no one try to frighten us with a civil war. We are stronger and our cause is more just.

Labor joining the Likud government is a correct step. But Labor will look like it is being towed along if it doesn't receive a detailed public commitment from Sharon regarding the next steps. If it lusts for political life, Labor must not give Sharon a blank check.

After the attack in Rafah, with its heavy casualty toll, a word to our Palestinian cousins: For God's sake, don't mess up again.

If these were ordinary times, the chief of staff would be out of a job. For one thing, because both at home and abroad the IDF is losing its time-honored reputation of being an ethical army, an army that regards human life as sacred.

On the eve of the vote at the Likud convention this week, the results of which are pretty predictable, the papers have published an ad, also pretty predictable, sporting the headline: "Shimon Peres - Tireless Obstructer of Prime Ministers."

Sharon's determination to carry out the disengagement plan, and the goal he has set himself of putting his house in order, deserve support. A handful of politicos cannot be allowed to drive this country up a wall.

Labor is not going to bring down the government. Sharon is the one who will decide, with his deeds and misdeeds, whether or not the government falls and the country goes to elections. Labor is not relevant today.

Somewhere between the compote, the halva and the tea, even the ultimate ultimatum has a way of fizzling out. The threat of an ultimatum is like a pistol in Act I - with one difference: When it comes to Labor, it won't even go off in Act V.

Yitzhak Mordechai was one of the first soldiers whose meteoric rise in the army was not connected to a past in the Palmach or the ascendance of the kibbutzim.

Sharon's opponents - both those who claim to have a direct line to God as well as Sharon's own party chums - are gearing up to torpedo his initiative.