When Mr. Sharon began his visit this morning, accompanied by members of his Likud party, about 1,000 Israeli police officers were deployed around the site.
The public rhetoric by Likud officials about Jews being allowed to live anywhere in "Eretz Israel" is an attempt to transform the international narrative from one of a two state solution to a demographic question for one state.
His first public comments about the missiles came in a speech to Likud Party lawmakers about the need for appropriate security arrangements as part of any peace deal with the Palestinians.
The revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, the spiritual father of the Likud, was blunt about the need for Jews to retake their ancient homeland.
He will strongly support the Likud leader Arik Sharon, about whose own comeback more in a moment, in his Feb. 6 contest with Barak.
There is also speculation about Likud and Kadima's forming a government together and rotating in the prime minister's chair, an arrangement that Labor and Likud agreed to in the 1980s.
Bezalel Smotrich, whose Jewish Home party is a powerful partner of Netanyahu's conservative Likud, voiced suspicion about the leak of the wedding video, which Channel 10 said had originally been seized by state investigators.
While the conflict has not, despite its violence, precluded a peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, it is now more clear than ever that Likud and Hamas cannot bring about peace.
That argument represents a stunning about-face for Likud politicians, who traditionally contended that settlements in Gaza were a cornerstone of Israeli security, and that to evacuate any while violence continued was to reward terrorism.
Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud, 1996-99) was questioned about an alleged votes-for-influence conspiracy.
