Is pressure finally taking toll on Ariel Sharon?

Is the pressure finally getting to Israel's Ariel Sharon?

After pulling settlers out of Gaza, reshaping Israel's political map and transforming his image internationally, the former general known as "The Bulldozer" for his tough tactics suffered a minor stroke on Sunday and was rushed to hospital.

Though doctors said the 77-year-old Prime Minister's condition was not life-threatening, his health scare raised questions in many Israelis' minds over how long he would be physically able to continue dominating the country's politics.

"You're still not getting rid of me," Mr Sharon was reported to have joked with his doctors after regaining consciousness at a Jerusalem hospital.

Mr Sharon has been Prime Minister since 2001, guiding Israel through a five-year Palestinian uprising, and opinion polls show him the clear favourite to win a March election as head of a new centrist party after quitting his rightist Likud movement.

But a more acute health crisis could upset Mr Sharon's political fortunes and shake up a forthcoming election campaign that is keeping Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking on hold as he prepares to battle hardline rival Benjamin Netanyahu.

Political analysts said no figure had dominated Israel to the same extent as Mr Sharon since founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. "The moment he goes, everything will change," said political scientist Shmuel Sandler of Bar-Ilan University.

Israeli commentators were quick to point out that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Mr Sharon's long-time arch-foe, was two years his junior when he died at a Paris hospital last year just weeks after falling sick.

Mr Sharon's legendary appetite and considerable girth also drew attention as Israeli television channels and international networks broke in with blow-by-blow coverage.

"He's not svelte," a reporter for Britain's Sky television made a point of telling his news anchors.

But it is also clear Mr Sharon has had to endure one of the most pressure-filled years of his long career. There have already been signs it was taking its toll, with the Prime Minister sometimes looking drawn.

The source of much of the upheaval was the Gaza withdrawal Mr Sharon engineered this year despite fierce opposition from hardliners within his own Likud party. It was Israel's first removal of settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.

Once the pullout was complete, Mr Sharon opted to break away from Likud to form the Kadima Party, saying he no longer wanted to have his hands tied in pursuing his diplomatic strategy for ending conflict with the Palestinians.

But with the election campaign cranking up, Mr Sharon has also had to contend with a new flare-up of Middle East violence that his rightist foes say confirms their fears that leaving Gaza would be seen as a reward to Palestinian militants.

Not long ago, the notion that the one-time champion of Israel's settlements would tear down part of his own project was unthinkable.

But it was a typically bold move by Mr Sharon, who as an army commander had a legendary record for battlefield victories but also for defying the military top brass.

Mr Sharon drew Arab enmity for masterminding the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, during which Christian militia allies massacred Palestinians in two refugee camps, and later for his crushing response to a Palestinian uprising that erupted after he visited a sensitive Jerusalem shrine in 2000.

There was little surprise on Sunday when Palestinian gunmen fired in the air and handed out sweets in Gaza to celebrate news of Mr Sharon's stroke.

But Mr Sharon has won international accolades for ending 38 years of Israeli military rule in Gaza, though he has vowed never to relinquish much larger settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The question now may be whether Mr Sharon's health will allow him to keep up the gruelling pace he has set.