OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, January 5, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While stunned Israelis were glued to radio and television sets on Thursday, January 5, desperate for news, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon 's illness has sent the political landscape in Israel into turmoil and raised deep concerns over the future of Mideast peace.

"There is no-one that can unite the country around the hard decisions that need to be made the way that Sharon could," Israeli political analyst Yossi Klein-Levi told Reuters.

"With Sharon out of the picture it is hard to imagine anyone with the clout and the will to undertake the extremely difficult task of uprooting tens of thousands of the most hardcore settlers."

Sharon was placed in a deep coma after undergoing seven hours of surgery before doctors were able to halt bleeding in his brain, but remains in a critical condition.

It could take a week before doctors can assess whether Sharon has suffered permanent damage, said head surgeon Felix Umansky.

Dennis Ross, a special Mideast envoy under former US president Bill Clinton, was equally pessimistic.

Citing a "real uncertainty in Israel," he told CNN that Israel lacked "a built-in anointed successor".

"You take away...someone who has been the real driving force of any change and you take him out of commission... so I look at it as huge and very troubling."

According to Reuters, no politician has ever dominated the political scene in Israel to the extent that Sharon has in recent years, whether planning the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, pulling settlers out of the Gaza Strip or splitting from the Likud party.

Olmert sit beside Sharon's empty chair. (Reuters)

Sharon's critical health condition is also casting a pall over the future of his newly-founded Kadima party during the March general elections.

Aluf Benn, a columnist for Haaretz daily, said Kadima faces an uncertain future without Sharon.

"The ruling party, Kadima, has no institutions or organizational structure, and it is not clear how a replacement for Sharon will be chosen," he wrote.

"The race for prime minister, which until Wednesday looked like Sharon's one-man show, is now open."

Opinion polls had consistently shown that Sharon's new centrist party, formed just six weeks ago, was likely to trounce its rivals in the March 28 election, and could expect to win around a third of the 120 Knesset seats.

"The Kadima party, which was registered formally yesterday, was born as a one-man party. Sharon was the leader and the message," Barnea said.

"The shadow that was cast last night on Sharon's candidacy diametrically changes Kadima's situation at the ballot boxes."

The right-wing Jerusalem Post also concurred that Kadima's electoral prospects had suddenly taken a major change for the worse.

"The question that remains is not what will happen with Sharon -- we all wish him good health -- but he is out of the picture at least for the coming elections that will have to be held on time," it said in an editorial.

"The question is whether Kadima has a future without Sharon. A significant number of politicians and public figures have joined the party, following Sharon. With him gone, internecine squabbling over the leadership could well break out."

Sharon's prime ministerial powers were transferred temporarily to his deputy, Ehud Olmert, a leading Kadima figure.

Recent polls have not shown Olmert to be seen as a long-term successor.

On Thursday, Israeli government and parliamentary officials insisted that the March 28 general election would go ahead on time despite Sharon's health ordeal.

"A delay would signal a period of instability for the state of Israel which is undesirable," Transport Minister Meir Sheetrit told the public radio.

Palestinian officials have also warned that Sharon's demise would leave a "big vacuum" in Israel, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

President Mahmoud Abbas said he was monitoring Sharon's state of health with "great concern" but ruled out any impact on the Palestinian legislative polls, scheduled for January 25.

"What happens to Sharon affects Israel first of all and has repercussions for the region but will not lead to a delay in the Palestinian elections," he told reporters.

Abbas earlier telephoned the Israeli prime minister's office with his best wishes for Sharon's recovery.

"This is a significant event which will have repercussions in Israel and in the entire region," agreed Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei.

In a letter to the Israeli government, he said the Israelis would miss Sharon "as a leader and a decision maker".

Chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said Sharon's exit from the political scene would overturn all the rules of game and could provoke an escalation of violence.

"It will shake everything up in Israel, from top to bottom," he told AFP.

Erekat warned that the Palestinians were likely to bear the brunt of a power struggle.

A long-time champion of the aggressive Jewish settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories and infamous for his heavy-handed suppression of the Intifada, there has never been much love lost between Sharon and the Palestinian people.

Sharon is notorious for masterminding the 1982 brutal massacre of about 3,000 Palestinian civilian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon when he was defense minister.