The Israeli people have decided. In a sweeping 62.5% electoral majority, Ariel Sharon has been elected as Israel’s new Prime Minister.

What are the real implications behind Israel’s choice?

First, the outcome of the elections is more accurately perceived as visceral public reaction to Barak’s unfulfilled promises of peace with the Palestinians and his turbulent term in office. With more than 40% of the electorate unwilling to cast a vote, the scale has significantly tipped in Sharon’s favor. Barak’s would-be supporters have lost faith in Barak, thus giving Sharon an easy victory.

Second, the Israeli leadership’s unfulfilled promises of security, as separate from the requirements of a just and comprehensive peace, have caused the Israeli people to turn back and hold firmly to a familiar past. Sharon’s policies of militarism may just guarantee security. Yet, the Israeli people’s attempt to escape to the past will inevitably be confronted with failure and Sharon’s inability to guarantee either peace or security.

Sharon’s proposed plans for peace, in which only a mere 42% of all territories occupied in June 1967 would be handed over to Palestinian control, is a recipe for war rather than a formula for peace. His unconditional rejection to the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, his rejection to the dismantlement of illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory, and his unilaterally-declared sovereignty over all of Jerusalem will pave the way for more conflict.

And finally, Sharon’s victory is an indication of a real crisis in the Israeli peace camp, which needs to come to terms with its own failure in mobilizing Israel’s peace movement. The Israeli people must realize the inevitability of confronting the imperatives of peace in order to reach a final, just, and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Overstepping the legal and political rights of the Palestinian people will only add more obstacles in the road to peace.

Ariel Sharon does not hold the key to peace. His term will be a short-lived one, and it is only hoped that the damage he inflicts on the peace process will be repairable.