Looking back, most end-of-the-year predictions are stuff and nonsense. Nine years ago, a reigning prime minister had visions of the Azrieli Towers being blown up. A year later, the pundits declared that the Year of the Lion was upon us, in the wake of Assad's willingness to begin peace talks with Israel. As the millennium rolled around, the end of the world was presumed to be close at hand.

The year the Oslo Accord was signed, visions of higher living standards danced before our eyes. Wealth and poverty turned into a numbers game. The abject poverty in the headlines was not always reflected in the crush of humanity at the airports before the holidays. Now, thanks to our former finance minister, the people of Israel are even poorer.

From time to time, fancy albums come out about Israel's 100-500 millionaires. When was the last time we saw an album featuring Israel's 500 poorest? All we know is that every fourth Israeli lives below the poverty line. About life on that rung they don't put out albums.

This year's losers are last year's optimists - for example, those who thought that the Rabin musical would be a hit this year; or the public opinion polls that predicted a resounding victory for Benjamin Netanyahu up to the last minute, or until Ariel Sharon's microphone went dead; or the strategic advisors, those pompous asses, who advised Sharon to hold a referendum, which ended badly and got him into trouble with his party.

There are lots of losers this year - like the Yesha Council leaders who promised their flock that disengagement from Gaza would never happen. They made it sound as if they would stop the withdrawal even if blood flowed in the streets. The settlers believed them, to the point where many neglected to sign up for alternative housing and were left with nowhere to live. And don't think the big talkers apologized or offered any explanation. All of a sudden, the cat got their tongues. The main thing is that they took care of their own hides.

The same goes for the rabbis who ordered the settlers not to budge, in God's name, promising there would be no disengagement, and the rabbis who issued religious rulings encouraging soldiers to disobey orders. Out of thousands of troops brought in to evacuate settlers, no more than a few dozen refused. The greatest clown of them all was Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who heard it from the Big Boss himself that the hurricane in New Orleans was George Bush's punishment for the disengagement.

The adage about Jews not expelling Jews was another dud. In order to safeguard democracy and the authority of the state, it turns out that Jews do expel Jews, even if doesn't say so in the Geneva Convention.

Included on the list of this year's bungles is the failed putsch led by Netanyahu. Four out of nine ministers huddled in the corridor to bring the prime minister to his knees, but they are the ones who came back with their tails between their legs and voted for the pullout.

Poor Amram Mitzna. He ran for office on the unilateral disengagement platform, but Sharon was the one who made it happen, while Mitzna vanished in a puff of moke. Yosef Paritzky fizzled out on live TV after admitting he had tried to frame his Shinui colleague, Avraham Poraz. David Levy, the famous winner that was, sits like a wax doll to the right of whoever happens to be the rising star.

Among the greatest fizzle-outs was the Big Bang dream of Haim Ramon that Sharon no longer needs to stay in power. Although one still wonders where the Labor Party has disappeared to, along with the socioeconomic agenda that got swallowed up in its great hankering to be part of the Sharon administration.

Other names on the loser list: Yasser Arafat, who never got to see Israel leave Gaza; Moshe Ya'alon, who predicted the pullout would be a tailwind for terror; the Palestinians who destroyed the synagogues that Israel wisely left behind, thereby demonstrating how unfit the Palestinians are to be guardians of the holy places. That will be relevant when the time comes to discuss the future of Jerusalem.

The biggest non-starter of the year was the comeback. Ehud Barak regaining the leadership of Labor sounds unlikely to me. Ditto for Netanyahu, who wrecked his chances in the Likud all by himself.

That leaves us with Sharon, portrayed by Nouvel Observateur as a knight in shining armor who will guide us as we move ahead in the peace process. The chief of Military Intelligence estimates that Israel will need to resort to more and more of these one-sided measures. Sharon strongly denies this. But if the Palestinians continue to act irrationally, and President Bush keeps up the pressure, we will be looking at more unilateral withdrawals this year. For sure.