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Palestinians call Barak ‘The Lemon,» because Arafat has squeezed so many concessions out of him.

Jerusalem – Poor Ehud Barak. He has been viciously attacked from every conceivable quarter, collecting condemnations so harsh that one wonders whether he is the worst ruler Israel — and the world — has ever known.

Washington Post columnist George Will called Barak «the most calamitous leader a democracy has ever had» while, on the other side of the ideological spectrum, CNN devotes a good share of its programming to bashing Barak. In the Middle East, he fares no better. While the Egyptian media compare him with Hitler, Nero and Pharaoh, the Palestinian media call him a «war criminal.»

According to Israel Radio, Palestinians have nicknamed him «The Lemon,» because Yasser Arafat has squeezed so many concessions out of him. Within Israel, controversial Parliament member Azmi Bishara and respected political scientist Shlomo Avineri have accused him of Bonapartism, as polls show him lagging 20 points behind the historically problematic Ariel Sharon in the current electoral campaign.

So what to do when you are a prime minister in the middle of elections and your public image has been shattered? First, you may try to reach a peace agreement with an historical enemy with whom your country has been negotiating for years to no avail.

It may be a difficult task to do so when you hardly enjoy parliamentarian and popular support, after you have resigned to the premiership – thus lacking moral and perhaps legal authority to make fateful decisions — and especially when you no longer enjoy the support of an enthusiastic American president, because he is out of office.

So, unable to produce an impressive diplomatic achievement, you may opt for mercilessly attacking your contender for the high office. This is why Barak’s ad campaign is centered mostly on character assassination. In politics, of course, there is nothing new or atypical about it, but it is quite a comment on Barak’s desperate position.

So voters are treated to what can be described only as a public exhibition of Sharon’s weaknesses and past mistakes.

• First came the gossip about his senility; he doesn’t hear well, he looses attention, he is overweight. A pro-Barak journalist went as far as even contacting Sharon’s personal medical doctor, in Kampuchea on vacation, in an attempt to try to get a new scoop to add to the repertoire. He was disappointed; the good doctor said that Sharon was clinically all right.
• Then Barak’s spin doctors introduced the obvious card: Sharon’s role during the Lebanon War. Not completely satisfied with this, Barak’s public-relations campaign placed an advertisement in Israeli-Arab newspapers showing Sharon ascending the Temple Mount last September in an effort to persuade Arabs that it was the Likud candidate who started the whole «Al-Aqsa intifada» —in which 13 revolting Israeli-Arabs were killed, a fact that Barak knows all too well will cost him the Arab vote.

This explains why Sharon is making every effort to present himself as the ultimate dove. «Sharon: A leader of peace» says his main electoral slogan. In the Likud TV ads one can see Sharon fatherly hugging cute little kids, cutting a flower in a field, gently looking at the camera as he removes his grandpa glasses and so on. The Likud jingle, coming pretty close to a local version of USA for Africa, is full of intonations about peace and smiling Israelis. Anything that can counterbalance Sharon’s warmonger image is emphasized.

But no matter how much Sharon invests in trying to convince Israelis that he will bring peace to this war-stricken land, he simply can’t. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because peace or war is not an option for him to decide. As scholar Daniel Pipes points out, that decision is not made in Jerusalem but in Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and elsewhere in the region.

In any case, these elections are not about peace as much as they are about security; sorely needed security. Personal and national security have to be restored in Israel. For this, Sharon is unquestionably the right man for the job.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst in Jerusalem.