Here's a scenario: Netanyahu, like Menachem Begin in 1997, will want to prove that he isn't a bogyeman.

The Syrians don't care who's in office in Jerusalem. They simply want their Golan back, and Bibi, noting that 50 percent of the Golan settlers voted for Peres, and dependent on his mystic fundamentalists who regard the West Bank as Salvation Park, might hand over the entire kitandkaboodle to Assad, just to placate the Americans, believing that it will enable him to keep Hebron. The intifada re-erupts in Hebron. Suicide bombers go back to work. Bibi blames Peres.

Here's another scenario: The vote counting continues until Sunday morning. Rampant ballot rigging in Bnei Brak, the haredi stronghold east of Tel Aviv, is revealed by the Election Commission. Another three or four thousand votes in the settlements are also proven to be fraudulent. Meanwhile, the latest generation of soldiers, those drafted since the Oslo Agreements, reverses the historical pattern that gives the right wing a slight edge in the enlisted soldiers vote. Peres, after all, is named winner, by a margin of less than 1,000 votes. The right-wing begins a campaign to delegitimize the government, "since it was elected by Arabs." New Yigal Amir's appear on the scene.

Here's yet another scenario: Despite all the early confidence, Bibi is unable to resolve internal party pressure, and coalition demands for ministerial jobs. With Arik Sharon named finance minister, the top echelon of the finance ministry resigns. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, which fell five percent on the morning after the election as a result of the uncertainty now weighing heavily over the country, collapses even further. Inflation, which began raising its ugly head again in the last few months, turns rampant as Netanyahu is forced to print money to pay off political debts to all the parties he needs to bring into his coalition. Multinationals that began investing since September 1993, undertake "reassessments" of their policies. The cash flow into Israel subsides. Diplomatic isolation confirms the xenophobia of the religious fundamentalists who voted Netanyahu into office. They put their faith in God, not people, and certainly not non-Jewish people.

This, too, is a scenario: Netanyahu panics. Desperate for international legitimacy, he asks Ehud Barak into a "national unity" government as defense minister. Barak, still a political novice, accepts the offer, losing any chance of inheriting Shimon Peres as Labor Party leader.

And what of Peres? There's a vote coming up in a few months for Secretary-General of the United Nations.

So who won? Meanwhile, the biggest winner is Yigal Amir. Not because Israel will derecognize the Palestinians, or even entirely reverse the last four years of progress in the Israeli economy, the real strength of the State of Israel. Amir will have won because in their effort to keep the nation united, the Labor Party's leadership since November 4, 1995 failed to remind the people daily from whence Amir sprang up. How, until the day he shot Yitzhak Rabin, he was a flower of the nationalist-religious camp, and the day after suddenly became nothing more than a "wild weed."