Israeli Disengagement

For several months I have been very undecided about Sharon's disengagement plan. I was unsure how it fit in with the "roadmap", whether it was simply a land grab, and how it could ever pass muster in the Likud party. Obviously the referendum has shown it didn't, in fact, carry a majority of Likud support. After reading about it and thinking about it for a long time, I have decided to tentatively support the disengagement plan.

The tipping point for me came from reading "Does Sharon Have a Plan?" by Hillel Halkin in the June, 2004 issue of Commentary. While the article is neither very detailed nor particularly well researched, it does make a powerful common-sense argument.

Four years of intifada has increasingly forced me to agree with the cynics that a peaceful, negotiated, two-state compromise seems about as unlikely as a peaceful single state for Jews and Arabs to share.

My dad pointed out that the disengagement plan still doesn't really solve the problem of what to do with Jerusalem, ever a sticking a point. I wonder if, even if the disengagement were to succeed, it would not simply re-focus terrorist attacks on Jerusalem.

Even though it may not solve the Jerusalem issue, the disengagement plan is necessary because it will begin to acclimate Israeli hardliners to the evacuation of settlements, which is inevitable.