Theoretically, Ariel Sharon's ascendance should prompt euphoria among Israel's settlers and dread among its peace activists. In reality, it's more complicated. To begin with, Sharon is not the one-dimensional ideologue he's often portrayed as. What's more, he campaigned in virtual silence, so no one can confidently predict how he'll be touched by power. As a result, Israel's two leading extraparliamentary movements--the Yesha Council, umbrella group for the 144 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Peace Now--are both confused and ambivalent. Neither quite knows which Sharon has been elected: the man who built settlements in the West Bank or the man who uprooted them in the Sinai desert.

The office of Shlomo Filber, director-general of the Yesha Council, resembles a government minister's. Two large Israeli flags flank a large government map of Israel identifying areas slated for development, prominently including the West Bank. A photograph of an F-15 jet, offered "with appreciation" from Squadron 105 of the Israeli air force, hangs nearby. Filber's office conveys the settlers' deepest longings--for respectability, affection, normalcy. Even its location emphasizes consensus: not on a settlement but in Ramat Eshkol, the first Jewish neighborhood built in East Jerusalem after the 1967 Six Day War and now firmly part of the Israeli consciousness.

In his own quest for respectability, however, Sharon has so far ignored the settlements; he barely invoked them during the campaign. And settlers fear that in his insistence on national unity Sharon will shunt them aside as divisive. After all, the quest for unity will require him to acknowledge that while Israelis admire the settlers' courage and oppose concessions under fire, they no longer regard uprooting settlements as taboo. That is the paradox of the post-Barak national mood: The settlers won the argument over the peace process, but the left convinced most Israelis that if a legitimate peace partner were found, the territories would be expendable. "We hope that Sharon will remain the same man we've known for the last twenty years," says Filber. "But we have no illusions. Sharon," he adds wryly, "is not a member of the Yesha Council."

The settlers, says Filber, expect Sharon to restore security in the territories and to expand settlements, including those deep in the West Bank heartland. But that second goal is dependent on the first: Since the beginning of the new intifada, almost no homes in the territories have been bought by Jews. And Filber is even less certain Sharon will honor his pledge not to uproot settlements--especially isolated ones like Gaza's Netzarim, scene of some of the worst recent violence. The army's general staff is now debating the future of those besieged settlements: Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz believes Israel should evacuate them, but his deputy, Moshe "Boogi" Ayalon, insists that a pullback under fire will further erode Israel's deterrence.

For now at least, Sharon will almost certainly side with Ayalon. Still, if forced to choose between a unity government and Netzarim, Sharon may opt for unity, which he considers a strategic imperative. And who knows better than the settlers that once Sharon has identified a goal as essential, he lets nothing stand in the way?

cross town, in a yuppie enclave of West Jerusalem, is the office of Peace Now. The group shares a stone house with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a coincidental but symbolic proximity: If Germans and Jews can reconcile, why not Palestinians and Israelis?

The walls are covered with stickers from old battles, expressions from a more certain time. PERES YOU ARE NOT ALONE, reads one from the Labor leader's failed 1996 election campaign. THE CONFLICT WILL END IN JERUSALEM, WITH TWO CAPITALS IN ONE CITY, insists another. A third is imprinted with the word shalom on a background of clouds--an unconscious admission of the unreality of Middle East peace.

Leaflets remain from Peace Now's most recent demonstration, which marked 18 years since a right-winger threw a grenade into a Peace Now rally held to demand the resignation of then-Defense Minister Sharon. The attack killed demonstrator Emil Grunzweig. Janet Aviad, a veteran leader of Peace Now, was present that night; in fact, she'd convinced Grunzweig, a friend of hers, to attend the rally. "Emil didn't want to come," she recalls. "He said there was no chance of removing Sharon. I told him to give it one more try."

But today Aviad sounds more ambivalent than outraged at the notion of Sharon as prime minister. "It may even happen that the settlers will oppose an interim agreement by Sharon and we'll support him," she says. "More likely, though, he'll offer a very limited agreement and we'll propose a larger withdrawal."

The peace camp has been groping for a clear position for months now. When its Palestinian partner turned violent last September, Peace Now was stunned into silence. Then, when it placed ads in the official Palestinian press opposing settlements--while Arafat's militias were shooting at settlers--the group was bitterly criticized for appearing to support the enemy. "It was a disgusting mistake," concedes Aviad. "We should not publish our ads in official Palestinian newspapers." The ads embodied Peace Now's dilemma: how to continue advocating withdrawal without conveying a weakened Israeli resolve that encourages more violence. Indeed, the peace camp, which defined the Israeli agenda throughout the 1990s, has been marginalized, at least for now. Activists have even debated changing the name "Peace Now" to the "New Peace Movement," acknowledging the impossibility of immediate reconciliation.

By escalating fighting in the territories, Sharon could revitalize Peace Now, re-creating the outrage that marked the Lebanon invasion, when mothers demonstrated and reservists refused to fight "Sharon's war." Says Aviad, "If Sharon enters Palestinian territory, the peace camp will rise up. It took the Sabra and Shatila massacre for the Labor Party to oppose the Lebanon war. This time opposition will come much more quickly."

Having advocated national unity, Sharon would be vulnerable to such protests. In an interview with THE NEW REPUBLIC during the recent campaign, he admitted two regrets from his past. The first was destroying Israel's settlements in Sinai; the second was dividing Israeli society during the Lebanon war. Sharon's regret over Sinai grants emotional leverage to the Yesha Council; his regret over Lebanon does the same for Peace Now. He may soon have to decide which he regrets more.

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI is a contributing editor at TNR.