It is said of the Israeli prime minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, that his bulldozer image leaves little room to appreciate his cunning and guile as a political in-fighter.
These skills have been fully in evidence over the last month in his pursuit of a coalition agreement with the Labour party which would endorse his plan to disengage from Gaza, guarantee government security without recourse to elections and rid him of persistent far-right critics within his Likud party and their ultra-orthodox coalition allies.
Mr Sharon is adept at jousting with these critics in such a way as to boost his popularity with the Israeli public, irrespective of whether he wins or loses particular party tussles. So it was with last night's vote of the 3,000 strong Likud central committee on whether he should pursue the negotiations with Labour, which Mr Sharon lost. He made it clear in advance that this was a non-binding vote and that he intends to continue the talks. The outcome will reinforce his determination to do so and probably makes it easier to reach an agreement. The announcement on the day before the meeting that tenders for 1,000 new homes in West Bank settlements are to be issued was widely seen as a cynical ploy. It could be dropped after criticism by members of the international Quartet trying to revise the peace process.
Mr Sharon knows most Israeli voters support the Gaza withdrawal, want to see religious parties out of the coalition and would accept a Likud-Labour coalition more capable of delivering a two-state settlement with the Palestinians. But he would have to sacrifice some of his objectives to reach a deal with Labour - not least the neo-liberal economic reforms put forward by his Likud rival, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, who also opposes the Gaza plan. Mr Sharon had similar bruising encounters with party critics when he supported a two-state solution in 2002 and first put forward the Gaza plan earlier this year, when he lost a party referendum on the subject.
If it can be agreed, a coalition dominated by Likud and Labour would be better placed to renew negotiations with the Palestinians, so long as the Gaza withdrawal was harnessed to the Quartet's road map towards peace. Given the collapse of trust between the two sides and the consolidation of the Israeli settlements and building of the fence/wall between Israel and the West Bank this would be no easy task. Mr Sharon's long-term strategy has been to weaken the Palestinian leadership and the resistance to Israeli occupation by brutal force, political guile and faits accomplis. It would be foolish not to take account of his parallel capacity to survive within the cauldron of Israeli politics despite disaffection in his party.