Here is what the "Head Heeb" thinks.
Disappointment
So Sharon's Herzliya speech (full text here)http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=373673&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y didn't present a withdrawal plan after all:
Settlements which will be relocated are those which will not be included in the territory of the State of Israel in the framework of any possible future permanent agreement. At the same time, in the framework of the "Disengagement Plan", Israel will strengthen its control over those same areas in the Land of Israel which will constitute an inseparable part of the State of Israel in any future agreement. I know you would like to hear names, but we should leave something for later.
The trouble is that without naming the settlements to be evacuated or the IDF redeployment lines, nobody can tell whether there really is a "Disengagement Plan." There are no concrete proposals for the Israeli public and the Knesset to debate, nor has a bottom line been presented to the Palestinians.
The goal expressed by Sharon in his speech - to "reduce as much as possible the number of Israelis located in the heart of the Palestinian population" - is not equivalent to peace but, if properly carried out, might reduce tensions enough to allow final status negotiations to succeed. Without specifics, though, it's impossible to determine whether Sharon's plan will accomplish this goal. The Herzliya speech was just a speech - a groundbreaking speech for Sharon, certainly, but in the end one more of far too many speeches that have been made about resolving this conflict.
I've sometimes seen Sharon's vagueness justified on the ground that a wise negotiator doesn't reveal his position before talks begin. These, however, aren't ordinary negotiations. Most of the time, the parties to negotiations start by agreeing to come to the table and then decide the outcome. Between Israelis and Palestinians, the sequence is precisely the reverse - everyone knows more or less what the outcome will be, but the parties have never managed to stay at the table long enough to finish. One of the purposes of unilateral withdrawal is to create an environment in which negotiations can happen in the first place, and a concrete signal could begin creating that environment even before it is implemented.
In addition, if the settlements to be evacuated "will not be included in the territory of the State of Israel in the framework of any possible future permanent agreement," then what's the harm in naming them or even beginning to dismantle them? If there are no circumstances under which Israel will keep these settlements, then proposing to leave them is like making a $500,000 offer on a million-dollar case. It wouldn't be equivalent to giving the store away or even making a major pre-negotiation concession, but it would be a strong sign of seriousness and good faith.
An evacuation of settlements is also not something that can be done on the spur of the moment. The planning for evacuation needs to begin now, with a focus on preparing the settler leadership, confronting the resistance of those who will not be persuaded, finding alternative housing for the settlers and managing the logistics of relocation. The more advance notice is given, the more smoothly a unilateral withdrawal can be debated, planned and managed. Hopefully Sharon will soon lay out his contingency proposals in more concrete terms so that actual preparation can begin.
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