The return of Shimon Peres to the top of the political ladder in Israel is a shocking development. Well, not really. Peres' return should be incredible and surprising, but it is neither. Personally, I am terribly disappointed, but not surprised. As Steven Plaut wrote in a recent column, it seems that the unwitting purpose of the Likud is to return Labor to power by any means.



Another perceptive writer, Sarah Honig, recently confessed that her party, the Likud, had lost its meaning for her. It was time to turn in her party card and go elsewhere. Sarah quoted her late mother as saying that when the party loses its ideology, it has lost its reason to be.



Looking back, the evolution, or devolution, of the Likud is visible. The very formation of the Likud was a weakening of the Jabotinsky ideology of its core, the Herut Party. When Menachem Begin had Ariel Sharon negotiate the formation of the Likud, it was the beginning of what we see today. Begin had started to turn pragmatic and centrist. No better proof of this can be seen than the Camp David Accords, the full surrender of Sinai and the acceptance of a blueprint for a Palestinian state.



This last act, committed at Camp David under the grinding, coordinated pressure of US President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, turned out to be perhaps the most significant act of Begin's life. The great Revisionist had unwittingly consecrated Palestinianism, a movement not for fulfillment of some modest political aspirations, but one interested only in Israel's destruction. Did Begin sense this? Was this part of his famous depression in the wake of the attrition of the Lebanon war? I believe so. I am convinced that Begin saw he had let the genie out of the bottle. Israel lost the Lebanon campaign early on, by failing to end the PLO and turn the clock back on the genie.



Now, it has exploded on Israel in all its monstrousness. All the events that followed, including the relentless propaganda against Israel and the constant external pressure to recognize the PLO and Yasser Arafat, derived from Begin's acquiescence at Camp David. Yet, it won him a Nobel Prize, an award that, by some accounts, drove Shimon Peres jealously towards Oslo.



Now Oslo is back. That is the ultimate meaning of Sharon's incredible twist back against the current of the voters' desires. The 'bulldozer' has smashed his election mandate, and now will use the backing of Peres and Labor to restart Oslo. Israelis did not vote for this, regardless of how they might feel about the planned flight from Gaza. To put it another way, quite a few of those who favor the 'disengagement' would oppose a full-fledged PLO/Hamas state in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Yet, that is the direction, that is the meaning of this anti-democracy government - aside from the symbolism of capitulation to the combined wills of the US and European Union.



I pray that the capitulation is temporary in the face of the insanity of Palestinianism, this murderous forward arm of Araby's and Islam's lust to liquidate the Jewish state. Prayer, though, won't be enough. We Jews will have to fight this insanity, to stand up and be counted: for democracy, against Islamism and Palestinianism, for Zionism and for the life of Israel itself.



Shimon Peres? I would like to believe that Israel deserves better. Sadly, for now, it does not.