Several weeks ago we telephoned a mutual friend and asked how Prime Minister Sharon was faring. His opponents on the left — and no small number of them on the right — were retailing the allegations of financial improprieties on the part of his sons, and he was suddenly sliding in the polls. The thing to remember about Ariel Sharon, we were reminded, is that he has what our friend called “the thickest hide in the world.” He has been through so many fights — including that over his role at Sabra and Shatilla, the years when he was in the wilderness, the decades of being set down as an opponent of peace — that he has developed an extraordinary personal fortitude. And an ability to remain cheerful and inclusive through all the tumult.

Our guess is, this capacity is going to shine through after one of the most bitter political fights in memory. It would be hard to imagine the comparison in America to someone in, say, the Justice Department, deliberately leaking details of a half-baked investigation for the express — and admitted — purpose of smearing a candidate for national office. But something like that happened to Mr. Sharon. The voters saw through it. And the premier has emerged from the din still hewing to one of his central principles, that the right structure for government at the moment is that of national unity. He would prefer to have his political opponents share in the government he leads. He recognizes that throughout the history of the Jewish state, the national unity structure is the classic war-fighting arrangement.

Mr. Sharon won this election because he has understood more clearly than others precisely that this is a war. It is not a matter of managing a peace process, nor is there a quick fix. It is a question of seeking a victory. The premier is widely derided for lacking a postwar vision. But by his lights, perhaps, by ours certainly, the middle of a war is the wrong time to debate a post-war vision. This is a military struggle, and the voters have given the mandate to the man who understands the situation in its military dimensions. They have disempowered those who have a record for political and military misjudgment and those on both the left and the right who proposed solutions based on unilateral Israeli actions. They have advanced others who have ideas that may prove useful in the future. But the prize has gone to the candidate who understood the military nature of the battle, as well as the necessity of working with the White House.