Israeli government attempts to project continuity mask only the uncertainty that has followed Ariel Sharon's political demise, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem Six days after Ariel Sharon suffered a potentially fatal stroke Israel -- as a people and a polity -- hovers in a state of limbo. On Monday doctors said they would try to arouse the stricken Israeli leader from the coma induced on his arrival at Jerusalem's Hadassa Hospital on 5 January. The "awakening" could take up to eight hours. Only then is it possible to assess "how the prime minister's brain is functioning" and the extent of its impairment. Over the weekend the cautious consensus was that while Sharon's chances of survival had improved the likelihood of his return to any kind of political life had not. "He will not continue to be prime minister, but maybe he will be able to understand and speak," neurosurgeon Jose Cohen told Israel's The Jerusalem Post newspaper on Sunday. Other medics said such a diagnosis was "optimistic" and there were no guarantees Sharon would ever regain consciousness. The same uncertainty characterised the government. "We are hoping and wishing that the prime minister will recover, strengthen and return to preside over the Israeli government and lead the state," acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet on Sunday. However, "if I could talk to him today, I am sure Arik [Sharon] would tell me: 'thanks for your wishes but you must work to safeguard the safety and economy of Israel, and that is what we will do". In other words: business as usual. But business is anything but usual in Israel today. This is not simply because of the enormous influence Sharon had on all spheres of Israeli politics, and never more so than at his fall. It is also because of the extreme fragility of the new dispensation he has bequeathed Israel 78 days before the 28 March general elections. Take Kadima (Forward), the new "centrist" party he founded less than two months ago. It has no constitution, no clear membership and no institutions. With Sharon lying comatose it lacks even a leader, though Olmert is odds on favourite to succeed him. But who will be his running mates and what programme will they campaign under? Kadima's next most prominent member, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has said her new party's "political path [has the] principles to handle the conflict with the Palestinians", which presumably means a Sharonian commitment to a peace process in theory and the implementation of unilateral actions in practice. She is known to want the position of foreign minister in any future Israeli government, a post also coveted by Kadima's most seasoned recruit, Shimon Peres. When Peres left the Labour Party in December he said he was doing so out of allegiance to Sharon rather than the new party he had formed. And since Sharon's sickness, speculation has been rife in the Israeli press that Peres would ditch Kadima and return to Labour, reinforcing yet again his sobriquet of "inveterate schemer". Peres put the rumours to bed in an interview with CNN on Sunday. "I will call on my supporters to vote for Kadima," he said. It is less clear if a promise of the Foreign Ministry had been part of the trade. Ambiguity is also reflected in opinion polls after Sharon's stroke. On the surface they show support for Kadima holding up, with the new party winning 40 seats in the 120-member parliament. But is this an expression of emotional solidarity with the ailing Sharon or, as some analysts believe, a reflection that Kadima already represents a genuine Israeli constituency grounded on the Sharonian belief that "we cannot stay [everywhere in the occupied territories] but the Palestinians cannot deliver [a peace agreement]" in the pithy view of Israeli politician Alon Pinkas? None of these questions can be answered until Israel's other political parties abandon their self-imposed moratorium and begin again to campaign. Only then will it be clear whether Israelis have faith in a post-Sharonian Kadima or will revert to the older loyalties represented by Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party on the right and Amir Peretz's Labour Party on the left. Uncertainty has also descended on Israel's relations with the Palestinians. One of the decisions Sharon failed to make was whether Israel would allow Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem to campaign for the Palestinian Authority elections on 25 January. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has said there is a cross-factional Palestinian consensus that there will be no poll unless East Jerusalem's Palestinians enjoy the same rights to vote and campaign as they had in the 1996 and 2005 elections. It is a "consensus" that Hamas for one contests. The fog was hardly lifted by the statement issued by Israel's internal security minister, Gideon Ezra, on Monday. He said Palestinians would be allowed to campaign in occupied East Jerusalem "as long as they don't belong to militant groups like Hamas". He made no comment about the Palestinians' right to vote. Nor is it clear -- to Palestinians at least -- whether Abbas's condition is a threat or a plea, and that privately he is hoping Israel will block a suffrage that few among the leaders of Fatah want.
