Ariel Sharon: Promised to deliver security to his people

After the marked caution of his first few days in office, Mr Sharon has thrown off restraint.

In striking hard, both in Lebanon and in Gaza, his aim is to show the Israelis who voted for him in February that, unlike his predecessor, Ehud Barak, his priority is to end Arab violence, rather than to reach a final peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Peace process on hold

At the same time, his stark message to the Arabs is that violence from any source will bring a tougher response than in the past.

If the violence has a Palestinian source, then Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, will be held responsible.

If it comes from the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, then Syria - the real master of events in Lebanon - will be held responsible.

Israel is threatened on both sides, by Hezbollah and the Palestinians

Though periodic 'contacts' with Palestinian officials will take place, there will be no substantive negotiations. While the violence continues, the peace process will be off the agenda.

The result is a bloody stalemate which, in the end, will satisfy no one.

Sharon's minimalism

Ever since Mr Barak's widely predicted election defeat in February, it has been clear that the Middle East has entered a new and dangerous phase.

Rather than bringing the Oslo peace process to a successful conclusion, Mr Barak pushed it to breaking point.

His all-or-nothing approach failed, paving the way for Mr Sharon's radically different agenda.

The new prime minister is offering the Palestinians a state on 42% of the West Bank - less than half the amount Mr Barak was offering.

The Palestinians fired mortar rounds into an Israeli town

While the former leader wanted to resolve all the big issues - Jerusalem, refugees, borders - Mr Sharon will not even discuss them.

The conflict is not ripe for resolution, he argues. Instead, he favours a series of small incremental steps to ameliorate it.

From the Palestinian point of view, the Sharon approach is a non-starter.

And, to make matters worse, Mr Sharon's advent to power has coincided with the arrival of a new administration in Washington, which does not regard the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a priority.

US involvement

President Bush, in contrast to his predecessor Bill Clinton, is adopting a hands-off approach, which leaves the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat fuming.

Mr Arafat's response has been to do what the Palestinians had warned the Israelis they would do: turn up the heat.

In this respect his tactics are not fundamentally different from those of the radical Islamist groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

They all have a common interest in intensifying the intifada - even though their strategic goals are very different.

The radical groups want to blow up a peace process they have always opposed.

Mr Arafat, on the other hand, wants to force Mr Sharon to revive a meaningful peace process - and to prod the Bush administration into more active involvement.

Who is in control

The trouble is that the two key players - Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon - have adopted high-risk strategies.

The Israeli leader is using increasingly harsh military measures in a vain effort to resolve a conflict which has no military solution.

His Palestinian counterpart is further and further alienating Israeli public opinion, and in the process tarnishing the originally peaceful and popular character of the intifada.

The danger for both men is that they will let events spin out of their control.

Eventually, some sort of peace process is likely to be revived, with the reluctant involvement of an American administration which will probably find it more dangerous to watch the fire spread than to rush in with the fire engines.

But, for now, the dynamic of violence is much more powerful than the dynamic of peace.