If I were a cynic, I would have said that Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon planned it all in advance.

Just a month ago, Barak was bankrupt; a politician at the end of his career. He had lost his majority in the Knesset, his partners had left him, the days of his government were numbered and it only managed to carry on because of the Knesset recess. The polls predicted that he would lose the imminent elections by a large margin.

Ariel Sharon was in a similar situation. His career was nearing its end. It was clear that his Likud party would oust him and replace him with Netanyahu, who would win the elections.

And then, as if by a miracle, everything changed. Barak started to talk about the "holy places of the nation", because of which he could not agree to Palestinian sovereignty over the holy mosques. Sharon announced that he was going to visit this Muslim compound. Barak took the visit under his wing and sent 1200 police officers to accompany Sharon. The visit caused the expected explosion. The next day seven Palestinians were killed by Israeli policemen near the al-Aksa mosque. Demonstrations spread all through the occupied territories and spilled over into Israel proper. After some hundred fatalities, including the Palestinian child killed in the arms of his father and the Israeli reserve soldiers brutally lynched in Ramallah, a real emergency was finally achieved. Barak called for the setting-up of an emergency government, and, lo and behold, nearly all the parties stood in line to join him. All the media have become a chorus for his propaganda, a vast majority in the country supports him.

All in all, a stroke of genius. Barak and Sharon are saved from political perdition and have become national heroes.

Well, that's what I would have said, if I were a cynic. But I am not, and therefore I say that it was not planned, but has worked out like that nevertheless. It was the inevitable outcome.

So what can we say about the emergency government?

First: This will not be a Barak government, but a Sharon government. Perhaps one should call it a Sharak government. For in all the governments he has been a member of until now, Sharon was the dominant figure. As Minister of Agriculture, he planted the settlements which now dictate Barak's policy. As Minister of Defense, he got Begin into the Lebanon quagmire. In all his diverse ministerial assignments, he has fixed the borders of annexation, according to which the present war is being fought. The very idea that Barak could control Sharon is ridiculous.

Second: About Barak himself - Never has a politician betrayed, in such a cynical way, all the promises he made before his election. We voted for Barak in order to get rid of the Likud, and because he promised to make peace with the Palestinians and the Syrians. The peace with Syria failed because of 10 (ten) meters on the shores of lake Tiberias.. The peace with the Palestinians failed because of the "holy places of the nation". The drafting of the Yeshiva-pupils has turned into a joke, and so has the civic/secular "revolution". Even the retreat from Lebanon has not been a success: because of the unwillingness to give up a tiny peace of territory near Har Dov and to release the hostages we have been holding for 13 years, Hizballah has been given a pretext to go on harassing us.

Third: An emergency government is a war government. The enemies of a compromise with the Palestinians will be in the majority. In the eyes of the Arab world, the name of Sharon is bound up with the Kibia massacre of 1953 and the Sabra-Shatilla affair of 1982. Even a child understands that hugging Sharon means throwing the peace process into the dustbin.

The mantra in the media goes like this: "But Barak has gone a longer way towards the Palestinians than any Prime Minister before him." When? Where? Contrary to Netanyahu, he has not given back even an inch of occupied territory. The talk of a compromise on Jerusalem at Camp David was an unsecured cheque. The moment Barak started to talk about "the holy places of the nation", compromise died.

The Barak government talked a lot about peace and coined beautiful slogans, but on the ground, from its first day, it continued the war against the Palestinians. Following the Sharon formula, Barak has enlarged the settlements, put up new ones under various guises, confiscated more Palestinian land al over the occupied territories, demolished homes and built "by-pass roads" designed to add more land to the "settlement blocs". (Palestinian in their villages could not fail to see these acts all around them. Perhaps that explains the violent confrontations now taking place all over.)

Within an incredibly short time, Barak has destroyed the achievements of his predecessors, from Begin on. The Arab states are cutting off their relations with us, "normalization" is dying, Israel's standing in international public opinion is sinking. Barak, who pretended to be the successor of Rabin, was from the very beginning the successor of Sharon.

Over the emergency government will hang the saying of the prophet Amos (III,3): "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?"