Did President Hindenburg and the German intelligentsia feel this way in 1930s when they saw that Adolf Hitler, and his brownshirt thugs, were about to be elected to power? Sharon is 72. Elected, especially by a significant margin, he will act. He might threaten so hard, including all the buried scandals that could totally discredit the Arafat regime (and other Arab regimes as well) if revealed, that some kind of deal would be quite literally forced down the Arab throats. He might attempt to implement the "Jordan is Palestine" approach, which he has championed throughout his life, though kept quite mum about in recent years. He might attempt to use military means to reconfigure the region, for a period of years anyway, but with unknown and untold ramifications for the future. At the moment, the situation in the polls is as follows:

POLLS SHOW GROWING SUPPORT FOR SHARON OVER BARAK

This week's polls, published in today's papers, show Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon ahead of incumbent Ehud Barak in the prime ministerial race by as much as 28 percentage points. A comparison of today's Gallup poll with the previous two weeks, shows a clear increase in support for Sharon:
Dec 22, 2000: Barak 28% Sharon 46%
Dec 29, 2000: Barak 24% Sharon 45%
Jan 5, 2001: Barak 22% Sharon 50%

The above figures include the Arab vote. Amongst the Jewish-only vote, the poll shows Barak with 22%, and Sharon with 55%. A Dahaf poll published today indicated a smaller gap: Barak 32% Sharon 50%. A third poll carried out by the Geocartographic Institute, which will be published tomorrow night, indicates a wide gap, closer to the Gallup poll.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/1/9.htm