As the human bombs exploded one after another over the past two weeks, Shimon Peres could have been excused for wondering if destiny had not singled him out for cruel mockery.
Until the bombs began, Peres seemed on the verge of victory and vindication.Though responsible for building Israel's military might and for masterminding the Palestinian peace in a political career that spanned 50 years, he could never shake the image of an indecisive dreamer and a shifty politician. Though he shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize and has served in every senior office - defense minister, foreign minister, prime minister - he never gained public affection nor a clear victory in an election.
At a time when he had all but abandoned political ambition, the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November suddenly thrust on him the mandate and the means to bring home the peace and recognition that Israel has struggled for since its creation.
The right wing was in remission, the lifting of Israeli occupation of the West Bank was proceeding on schedule, Syria was at the negotiating table and the economy was booming. Public opinion polls showed that he could not lose the next election.
Then came the explosions, two on Feb. 25, then another a week later, then one more last Monday - 61 shattered bodies shown over and over on television, mobs howling "Peres next!" and an anguished nation clamoring for action and revenge.
Public faith in the peace policy fell like a stone. Yasir Arafat, so recently Israel's partner in peace, was now regarded by many Israelis as a two-faced phony who had failed to deliver his end of the deal. Rumors swirled that Peres was under pressure to form a government of national unity, or to appoint someone with a tougher image to take his place as defense minister.
Suddenly, instead of bringing home political victory and peace, Peres is struggling for political survival and doing all the things he once so ardently opposed - ordering a ruthless siege of Palestinian areas, deportations, the separation of Arabs and Jews, all-out war against Islamic fundamentalism.
Once again, fate seems to be ripping victory from his grasp, as it did in 1981, when Israeli television announced that Peres had won the election and he was presented to his cheering followers as "the next prime minister of Israel." An hour later the television network announced that it had made a computing mistake.
The difference now is that the stakes are far higher. At 72, it is the last chance for Peres, and if he fails, and the peace effort crumbles, history may remember him as the intellectual who could never quite bring off his ideas. If he leads Israel through the crisis and salvages the peace, he stands to enter history as Israel's greatest captain, a pragmatic visionary who prevailed in the end.
Yet through it all, Peres refuses to abandon the political process that he began in secret meetings with the Palestinians in Oslo, Norway.
"No, nothing has changed with me," he told the newspaper Maariv. "I continue to believe that there will be peace here."