Good news, bad news...

The good news is that Ariel Sharon's days in power may be limited. In all likelihood, he will soon face an indictment for taking a bribe.

This story in Haaretz describes the affair as an exercise in simple sleaze: David Appel, a wheeler-dealer and behind-the-scenes Likud potentate, wanted to engineer some real-estate shennanigans on a Greek island. So he paid off Sharon's son to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In return, Sharon (then Israel's foreign minister) pulled strings with the Greek government to make sure Appel got what he wanted.

The bad news: Sharon won't go quietly. His awareness that time was short probably prompted him to take the bold step of killing Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Arafat may well be next. The resultant international outrage will mean nothing to a man on his way out.