Sharon unconscious after hours of surgery

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lay unconscious after undergoing seven hours of emergency brain surgery yesterday, as Israel confronted a political void resulting from his devastating stroke.

Sharon, 77, was in serious but stable condition at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital after the procedure to stop a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors said they planned to keep him in deep sedation and on a respirator for several days to allow him to recover from the severe trauma of the stroke he suffered Wednesday.

Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister, summoned the Cabinet into a somber special session, and vowed to lead the Kadima party forward in its campaign for national election, scheduled for March 28. But public sentiment for the party, which Sharon created in November, revolved almost entirely on Sharon's personal popularity.

With the prime minister effectively out of politics, voters who had flocked to the party expressed despair about the future of the peace process and about Israel's political system.

Sharon's new movement was intended to break a stalemate in Israeli politics, and to chart a new middle course between socialist Labor and the conservative Likud.

''I have my doubts about peace with Palestinians, but I believe that if there is peace to be made, only Sharon could pull it off," said Moshe Levi, a 65-year-old restaurant owner from Jerusalem.

Levi, a leftist, said he had detested Sharon and had never voted for him -- but had planned to cast his vote for Kadima in March because he was convinced that in Sharon's next term, he would redraw borders and bring a comprehensive settlement with Palestinians.

Palestinian officials anxiously followed reports of Sharon's condition. The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, called Israeli officials to express concern. ''We look with great worry on what might happen if he is impaired," Abbas said last night in Ramallah.

In Washington, President Bush praised Sharon and offered ''deepest sympathies" from the United States. ''We pray for his recovery," Bush said at the State Department. ''He's a good man, a strong man, a man who cared deeply about the security of the Israeli people and a man who had a vision for peace. May God bless him," Bush said

Sharon, a one-time war hero, had positioned himself as the only peace partner in the Middle East, both for the White House and for the Palestinians; many Israelis were convinced that he had planned to dismantle outlying Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

''The disengagement of Israel from parts of the West Bank died last night," said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

''The persona of Sharon is the only one who could have continued unilateral disengagement," Hazan said. ''There's nobody who can fit into his shoes so quickly."

Palestinian leaders have frequently decried Sharon's unilateral approach. The prime minister is building a separation barrier around the West Bank, walling off the major cities, and has vowed to keep the largest Israeli settlements. Sharon has insisted he would establish secure borders for Israel, with or without a Palestinian negotiating partner -- a stance that has enraged Palestinian Authority officials even while it has thrown them off balance.

Tayseer Nasrallah, an official with the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Sharon's departure would assuage anxieties among Palestinians and raise the prospects of negotiations.

''Sharon was a major element of tension," Nasrallah said. ''This [tension] is what has been characterizing his life from the beginning to the end. His departure would help peace."

According to polls, Sharon's Kadima movement had been expected to win 40 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

This estimate, before Sharon's stroke, would have been enough to put it in first place to form a coalition government. But the movement's viability was thrown into question on Wednesday.

Olmert, a technocrat and former Jerusalem mayor who was politically devoted to Sharon in recent years, appeared an obvious choice to take over Kadima. But many Israelis call him uncharismatic, and he doesn't fare well in polls. Israeli opinion polls suggest he would win far fewer Knesset seats for Kadima than it would capture under Sharon.

Meanwhile, Sharon's precarious medical condition could affect the timing of Israel's election. If Sharon remains incapacitated but alive, Olmert can legally continue as acting prime minister for 100 days, a span that allows plenty of time for an election and the seating of a new government.

But if Sharon dies, Israel's president must call for of a new government within 14 days.

The regular elections, however, would still go ahead as planned on March 28.

Both Labor and Likud, which have lost scores of leaders, members, and voters to Kadima, said they were waiting to see how Sharon's new movement would cope without him.

''If Sharon passes away, all hell breaks loose," Hazan said. ''His departure means Israeli politics is thrown into a chaotic spiral."

Political analysts outlined two likely scenarios.

First, if Sharon emerges physically weakened from his stroke, Kadima could continue as a movement with Sharon as its symbolic leader, attracting the centrist and Likud voters who saw Sharon as a politician who could force a settlement with the Palestinians.

Second, if Sharon dies or is completely incapacitated, both Likud and Labor would probably scramble to bring back the many ministers and Knesset members who might have defected to Sharon's party.

''If Kadima gets weaker, both Labor and Likud will receive back the voters who moved to Kadima because of the leadership of Sharon," said Ephraim Sneh, a Labor Knesset member. ''This party is based on the personality of one leader."

Polls found that about three-quarters of Israelis who support Kadima had cast their votes for Likud in previous elections.

Many Israelis disenchanted with the two main parties say they might boycott the elections if Sharon falls from the scene.

''If there's no Sharon, I'm not going to vote," said Chaim Itser, 32, a modern Orthodox Jew who said he had supported Sharon in every past election in which he ran. ''This is very, very bad for all of Israel."

Reaction on the streets of Jerusalem yesterday reflected Sharon's impact across the entire spectrum of Israeli politics. Long reviled by the left as a war monger, Sharon found himself praised by the left and alienated from his right-wing base over the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip this summer.

Anxiety over his health spilled over into anxiety about Israel's political future. ''Sharon started a new process which is very delicate," said Ronit Kadosh, 37, owner of a jewelry and Judaica store.

Secular and left-leaning, Kadosh said she had not voted for Sharon in the past but had come to admire him since he took office in 2001 as the last of Israel's great generation of politicians who fought in the 1948 war of independence and have dominated the government ever since.

Although a handful of men from that age linger on the political stage, including the former Labor leader Shimon Peres, who quit his party to join Sharon's last month, none has the popularity, vigor, or force of personality that Sharon brought to office.

With Sharon absent from the scene, so is the hope for many voters that Israel will reach a decisive new stage with the Palestinians.

''We don't have great people in Israeli politics anymore. The great people are gone," Kadosh said. ''The old generation really cared about Israel. The new generation doesn't care. It's just about power."

Globe correspondents Alon Tuval and Sa'id Ghazali contributed to this report. Material from wire services was included.