The Immediate Successor?

With Ariel Sharon suffering the effects of a massive stroke, power has been transferred to Sharon's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert under Israeli law. This transfer was going to occur when Sharon was supposed to go in for surgery to repair a heart defect on Thursday, but the serious medical condition has changed everyone's plans.

So who is Olmert, and what does this mean for Israel, the Palestinian crisis, and the Middle East in general? Will the Iranians be emboldened by the crisis in Israel?

He's served in the IDF and has been Mayor of Jerusalem. He's been a long time member of the Knesset and most recently been Sharon's right hand man.

Among the more interesting points, he opposed the Camp David Accords and the notion of land for peace, but has since turned around and supported the Gaza Disengagement and that Begin was correct.

And it didn't take long for the terrorists to threaten Olmert with death either - they can't help themselves.

Apparently the answer for the Palestinians in the short term is that Sharon's illness and incapacitation has done nothing to change their behavior or position towards Israel's existence. Not that anything short of Israel's capitulation or the destruction of all Palestinian territories would change that. The terrorist groups are dedicated to Israel's destruction, not just the destruction of a single individual. Fatah, Hamas, Hizbullah all seek Israel's destruction - they only differ on the timeline. Fatah is content to take its time. Hamas and Hizbullah want that timeline compressed into as short a period as possible. Tanzim and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade are both more militant in their destructive tendencies.

In the mid-term, the Palestinians actually have more to worry about from those same terrorist groups as they could easily derail the planned elections, which the Fatah leadership is quite willing to delay because they fear they're going to lose the elections anyway. Abu Mazen and his cronies can't keep the terrorists in check, can't clamp down on the territories they control, and can't get the basic infrastructure to work, so the Palestinians are in a physically worse position than they were when Israel controlled the territories.

Olmert will likely continue Sharon's policies and may become the face of Kadima, although Sharon's presence was the glue that held Kadima together. It's unclear whether Olmert has the ability to hold the center.

UPDATE 1/5/2006:
Vodkapundit offers a pre-post mortem and wonders what will happen next.