Yoel Marcus

The argument that Sharon has no mandate is not only malicious but groundless. No Israeli leader has ever enjoyed the kind of landslide victory, twice in a row, that Sharon has.

Sad to say, both the leaders and the led are waging a mutual intimidation campaign in the battle for disengagement from Gaza. They know that their best ammunition is scare the living daylights out of Israeli citizens who are anxious to put an end to occupation and all that goes with it.

After two stunning victories at the polls, Sharon has begun to nosedive. Paradoxically, this is happening just as he has reached the stage of leadership where he is ready to launch a historic move involving withdrawal from Gaza and evacuation of 21 settlements.

By the time the Palestinians turn into enlightened Finns, the Messiah will have arrived. And who will be his adviser on earth if not Condi's friend, the inventor.

Bibi and Barak, with their aspirations to return to the prime minister's office, "The Sunshine Boys" - a couple of vaudeville entertainers who decide to get back together for a TV special but whose troubled past make it impossible.

Arafat recently declared his willingness to sacrifice a million shaheeds. This man - who after the funerals in Sderot, claimed that Qassams don't kill children, they only make noise - seems to have lost his marbles.

Why is the fourth anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Intifada marked with the statistics of death and destruction when in reality the intifada broke out on December 9, 1987, following a truck accident in Gaza in which a few innocent bystanders were killed.

Now is the time for the silent majority to wake up and take to the streets, staging mass rallies to show how much support there is for rescuing the disengagement plan. Now is the time to get out of your armchair.

After so many warnings, most of the public ends up doing whatever it feels like doing. On the eve of the holiday, the authorities came out with a dramatic warning: Whatever you do, don't go to Sinai. The upshot: 100,000 people made a beeline for Sinai.

1. For the precept of giving in secret to be restored to public life here. The stories in which poor and hungry people are seen on the television screen waiting in line to receive a minimal amount of food in honor of the holiday don't actually improve the situation, but only humiliate and shame the people involved.

All the signs show that at the moment, the ones who are doing, dictating and inching toward the finish line are the settlers. "Get a grip on your people," Shaul Mofaz told the heads of the Yesha council this week. Their reply: "Disengagement could lead to civil war, and we might not be able to stop it."

It's not clear whether Europe today realizes what America grasped long ago - that World War III is in full swing. This war is different from all the wars in history. It's not countries fighting countries. It's not a war that can be won by conquest or some cut-and-dried military victory. Because the enemy is terror.

To insure a proper investigation, free of fear and prejudice, it must be established clearly that Hanegbi will not return to the Public Security Ministry, no matter what the findings. Otherwise his suspension means nothing.

To insure a proper investigation, free of fear and prejudice, it must be established clearly that Hanegbi will not return to the Public Security Ministry, no matter what the findings. Otherwise his suspension means nothing.

Israel cannot allow a minority to dictate to the majority and force it to live forever in the grip of terror. The authority of the state and the good of the people come first.

This week Peres confessed he hasn't been successful in grooming an heir, which means he sees himself as a candidate for prime minister in the next elections. Actually, it sounds like he's the only former premier who did groom an heir: himself. If it weren't so pathetic, it could be a barrel of laughs.

Sharon is one of those people who never forgets anything - he never forgets the people whom he owes a favor in return for a favor, or those whom he has marked down to devastate when the appropriate opportunity comes along.

The Likud convention is a gloomy attempt to revive the Bolshevist bodies of days of yore, with the party - the politburo, the secretariat or the party bureau - dictating to the prime minister, who was elected in general elections, the narrow party agenda.

It is very possible that tomorrow the members of the Likud convention will skewer Sharon a little, and make him walk barefoot on burning coals. But he has all the public backing he needs to look them in the eye, and say, "I heard you," and then proceed in precisely the opposite direction from the one they expect from him.

Sharon will probably have a majority for disengagement, and there are pretty good chances that he will start implementing it. He doesn't need a Haredi party that is interested only in itself and its own needs ferrying us back to the previous millennium. He will be doing us all a favor if he leaves them on the doorstep.

On the eve of the Six-Day War, a national unity government was established overnight, without squaring accounts or squabbling over portfolios. Today the town is on fire, but our politicians and their egos have all the time in the world to play Napoleon.

In principle, there is no barrel without a bottom. But assuming there is, if you got to the bottom and didn't find what you were looking for, what would you do? Start all over again, ad infinitum? Is there a scientific formula for that in this universe of ours?

The settlers have oodles of money (some of it the public's); they are crafty; and above all, they are pros at organizing. So stop oohing and aahing over the brotherly love of the human chain. What they don't achieve with smiles, they are planning to achieve by bullying and violence.

Over and over, I read the editorial calling for Arafat's resignation and all I could say was: "Good morning, New York Times." It's taken the paper the better part of a decade to finally grasp what many Israelis feared after Oslo.

The atmosphere in Israel today has turned poisonous, a blend of vitriol and incitement to civil disobedience. The seeds of evil and violence are taking root, mainly among the religious fanatics - the hilltop kids, the settlers, the rabbis who blithely issue permits for murder and preach rebellion against the will of the majority.