Here's an answer to the Jpost op-ed. In a nutshell: any Israeli who hopes for anything good from the international community or the Palestinians is an idiot. Any withdrawal only 'proves' that Israel has no right to 'Palestinian land' - which the international community sort of defines as outside 1967 borders, and the Arabs definitely defines as both inside and outside of 1967 borders.
I agree with most of what the author says, but he's leaving out two important factors: the American attitude and the defacto Israeli room for maneuver that will follow the disengagement. I believe that these are the two factors drving Sharon's decision, along with the need for a defined border.
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Analysis: Sharon's folly
By Ryan Jones August 16, 2005
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Monday delivered a televised speech to the nation.
Responding, critics scored the leader, who for years strongly supported the Jews of Yesha, for once again failing to adequately explain his reasons for now declaring the settlement enterprise a temporary endeavor that had run its course.
The Jerusalem Post opined in its Tuesday edition, however, that Sharon's logic was present, if buried beneath the surface.
The newspaper pointed to two parts of the prime minister's short five-minute speech which, it said, "when stitched together, complete the puzzle."
In the first, Sharon stated that he, "like many others," had "hoped that we could forever hold on to" Jewish Gaza. "However," he continued, "the changing realities in this country, in this region and in the world required we reassess and change our position."
In saying that, wrote The Post, Sharon revealed that he is in fact a pragmatist, rather than the ideologically-driven man his supporters had long taken him for.
The second, more important part of his speech supposedly answered why, even as a pragmatist, Sharon was at this time retreating under fire and receiving nothing in return from the Arabs even while Israel remains firmly under the threat of terrorist violence.
After Israel self-inflicts this "disengagement" on itself, "the Palestinians [will] bear the burden of proof," insisted the aging warrior. "They must fight terror ... and show sincere intentions of peace in order to sit with us at the negotiating table."
"The world awaits the Palestinian response -- a hand offered in peace or continued terrorist fire."
And there it was. Sharon, like so many of his predecessors, was attempting to be clever and put Israel's Arab foes on the spot by making a gesture he was certain the world must view as a painful sacrifice for peace by the Israelis.
But Sharon apparently fails, like many Israelis, to realize that the Arabs have most of the world convinced this land belongs to them, and that any Israeli concession is not a sacrifice, but rather an act of returning property to its rightful owner.
Pandering to the international community and hoping it will grasp the fact that the Jews are voluntarily relinquishing control of parts of their beloved ancient homeland in a desperate push for peace is a lost cause.
It didn't work when Israel agreed to enter into negotiations with Yasser Arafat's notorious PLO, nor did it work when former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the blood-soaked arch-terrorist some 90 percent of what he was demanding.
Even after a decade of such sacrifices, the world still doesn't hold the "Palestinians" responsible for slaughtering Jewish men, women and children at every opportunity.
But the Gaza pullout, some have argued, will be more like Israel's departure from southern Lebanon, granting the Jewish state diplomatic license to strike at the regime sponsoring and tolerating terrorists in its midst should the violence continue.
But what has the Lebanon withdrawal really accomplished?
Hizballah now sits comfortably with anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 missiles aimed at northern Israel. Will anyone remember today's relative calm along the northern border on the day Hizballah begins to rain death from the sky?
And does anyone really believe that even after Israel's withdrawal the international community will countenance an Israeli strike on Beirut, Damascus or Tehran in response to Hizballah aggression?
So why would it be any different where the Palestinian Arabs -- those darlings of the international media -- are concerned?
Sharon's gamble smacks of a general failure by Israelis to learn from their short but turbulent modern history, and will likely lead to similar or greater carnage than Oslo, Wye and Camp David before it.
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