TOOTHPASTE THEORY
For those who aren't aware, there is consistently better, more critical coverage of the Israeli occupation to be found in the Israeli press than in the U.S. press. From Yoel Marcus in Haaretz:
There is only one other historical precedent for what Sharon is doing. It was when Charles de Gaulle was summoned home by the party in the hopes that he would keep Algeria under French dominion. Upon his election, he appeared before a roaring crowd of a million French settlers in Algeria, who welcomed him with cheers of "Long live French Algeria." He waved his long, lanky arms and told them: "I understand you!" Then he went back to France and did the opposite of what everyone expected of him, thumbing his nose at his party, the settlers and the far right. Later, when they complained that he had lied to them, he said: "I did understand you, but I did what was good for France."
Where in the mainstream U.S. media would you ever see the (entirely appropriate and instructive) comparison between the Israeli occupation and French colonialism in Algeria?
Sharon has come a long way since he insisted that Israel could not leave settlements like Netzarim and Kfar Darom because "every settlement is critical for our defense." As someone who had the privilege of hearing the details of Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan straight from the horse's mouth four months ago, I believe that despite his checkered past, he is not playing games now. This is not a gimmick or some trick to hang on to his seat, which is safe, in any case, until 2007. We are talking about a mental switch. Sharon has come to the conclusion that there is no future for occupation; that terror cannot be wiped out by force; that in the end, Israel could face a humiliating imposed solution in which it would lose everything.
Marcus is definitely taking a "glass is half-full" view, but I agree that despite whether Sharon is serious about a Palestinian state, and I believe he is not, Sharon has made a significant political conversion from being the hardest of the hardcore settlement builders to recognizing the futility, because of security costs, in maintaining the Gaza settlements. There's really no way for him to go back now and rejoin those who assert that the settlements are morally justified.
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