In one instance, a family of 12 was wiped out. There were also cases in which the men fled but left behind their wives and children. One such man won't talk to reporters to this day because of his shame and grief. About half the victims were women and children.

In "Warrior," Sharon wrote that he found out about the civilian casualties only the next day, listening to Jordanian radio. He acknowledged the tragedy but unapologetically called it a "turning point" that boosted Israeli morale "after so many defeats and demoralizing failures."

Now, almost 50 years later, Israeli voters seem to crave another such turning point: an all-out retaliation after months of failed diplomacy and counterstrikes.

In a private conversation reported in Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper last weekend, Sharon promised to deal with the current intifada by using some of the forceful methods that earned him his nickname, "the bulldozer."

According to this article, Sharon said he would fight Palestinians' shooting at the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo by eliminating row after row of houses in Beit Jala, the village from which Palestinian snipers have operated in the past.

"I know the Arabs," he reportedly said. "They are not impressed by helicopters and missiles. The worst curse is 'May your home be destroyed.'"

The effectiveness of Sharon's brutal raids -- in Kibya and elsewhere -- is open to debate. Terrorism did not stop after the Kibya massacre. On the contrary, infiltrations increased and became more violent.

And the memory of the raid still rekindles deep-felt anger among Palestinians. It inspired a retaliatory action as late as October 1991 when a villager slammed a stolen truck into a hitchhiking post near Tel Aviv, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding 11.

A larger question is whether Sharon, if elected Tuesday, will be tempted, or able, to resort to the methods of his past.

Some believe the old warrior, now 72, has mellowed and learned his lesson after the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982, when hundreds of Palestinian refugees were killed in cold blood by Lebanese Christian militiamen under the Israeli army's watch. Sharon, who did nothing to prevent the killing, was found indirectly responsible for the massacre and forced to resign as Defense minister. He became an international pariah.

Most Palestinians, however, are terrified. They are convinced that the "old Sharon" will burst through the surface of the relatively moderate "new Sharon" designed for electoral purposes.

The most radical among them see a Sharon victory as a welcome opportunity to rip off Israel's friendly, peace-loving guise and show it "for what it is": the truly bad guy of the Middle East. In their dream scenario, Sharon will take on the role of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader and widely reviled war criminal. The world will then come to the rescue of the Palestinians just as it saved the Kosovars.

Others claim indifference. "Barak and Sharon are the same," said Mohammed Abdel Wahab, 26, whose grandfather was killed in the Kibya raid as he was riding back to the village through an olive grove. "They are the two faces of the same coin. Barak wants to slaughter us from the back," he said, making a chopping hand gesture on the back of his neck. "Sharon wants to slaughter us from the front," he added with a throat-slitting motion.

But if four months of almost daily funerals have made Barak as much of a butcher as Sharon in Palestinian eyes, Sharon's predicted victory is still read as a particularly bad omen.

Mohammed Al-Ajareb, the boy who once hid in the sewage, believes Israelis are electing Sharon because "they want a strong man who keeps killing Arabs." And his mother believes Sharon will indeed satisfy that wish by repeating his past crimes.

"Will the bad ever be good?" she asked rhetorically. "He will always be bad."

But by becoming prime minister, Sharon will also be more constrained than in the past. When Sharon led the raid in Kibya, he was a hotheaded officer who hid his intentions from military headquarters. Dwight Eisenhower had just been made president of the United States, and Israel had not yet made peace with its Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors.

"Whether he's a serial killer or a serial destroyer since age 25, who knows?" said Avishai Margalit, a philosophy professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "I don't believe he will behave like that. He's ambushed -- politically and morally -- by the whole world. He's a bully but he's not stupid."

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