Low priority: Peace with the Palestinians

The editor of The Jerusalem Report magazine, David Horovitz, says the new government is going to be "a very strange creature" because it encompasses almost the entire Israeli political spectrum.

"I think we'll have an answer fairly rapidly, which direction it will follow. It's obviously led by a Likud hard-liner with a controversial military record.

"But it also includes Shimon Peres, the Nobel Peace laureate. It'll have a minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who was the right-hand man of another hard-liner, Benjamin Netanyahu," says Mr Horovitz.

Tougher line

Whatever the political leanings of individual cabinet members, this new Israeli Government is definitely going to be taking a new approach towards the Palestinians.

Ariel Sharon's advisor, Zalman Shoval, gives a hint of what that approach will be.

"I think we will take a tougher approach. I think that's what most Israelis expect us to do. That's one of the reasons for the big shift in public opinion.

I think we will take a tougher approach... that's what most Israelis expect us to do

Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval

"But on the other hand, we have told the Palestinians before and we will tell them again: look, we want to come to an agreement."

But what kind of an agreement? Ariel Sharon has said he is not prepared to offer the Palestinians anywhere near the sort of terms discussed by his predecessor, Ehud Barak.

If Mr Sharon follows that policy in government, then there is almost no chance of a peace deal.

Yet, the newly appointed Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, is trying hard to maintain an air of optimism.

"All the agreements that we have reached and signed will be respected, provided the other side will respect them as well. We have to straighten it out and make it clear what are the relations today between the Palestinian Authority and Israel."

Immediate delivery

The sad truth is that those relations are close to an all-time low. With no sign of a peace deal on the horizon, Israel is bracing itself for more bombings in the heart of its cities.

Ariel Sharon obtained a landslide victory in the polls

The security presence is heavy and visible. But Israelis know that all the surveillance in the world cannot keep their country 100% safe from the lone, suicide bomber.

And that is a very real threat. The militant Palestinian group Hamas has vowed to welcome Ariel Sharon's government with a wave of suicide bombings.

Already it has shown that this is no empty boast - a bomb killed four people and wounded dozens more in Netanya on Sunday.

The magazine editor David Horovitz believes fear of more such attacks is overriding any misgivings the Israeli public may have about a fractious and divided government.

"By comparison to the issue of daily life being secure, by comparison to the question of 'is it safe to get on the buses', 'can we afford to send our children on school trips', these other issues pale somewhat by comparison.

"And therefore people's dissatisfaction will be there, but if the government is making life a little safer they'll swallow it," he says.

Now that government has taken office.

There will be no honeymoon period for Ariel Sharon.

Instead he will be expected to deliver security for Israelis immediately.

In the meantime, talk of negotiating a balanced peace deal with the Palestinians has become a low priority for Israelis.