Sharon's legacy

Charles Krauthammer opines with specificity:

Sharon's genius was to seize upon and begin implementing a third way. With a negotiated peace illusory and a Greater Israel untenable, he argued that the only way to security was a unilateral redrawing of Israel's boundaries by building a fence around a new Israel and withdrawing Israeli soldiers and settlers from the other side. The other side would become independent Palestine.

Accordingly, Sharon withdrew Israel entirely from Gaza. On the other front, the West Bank, the separation fence now under construction will give the new Palestine about 93 percent of the West Bank. Israel's 7 percent share will encompass a sizable majority of Israelis who live on the West Bank. The rest, everyone understands, will have to evacuate back to Israel.

The success of this fence-plus-unilateral-withdrawal strategy is easily seen in the collapse of the intifada. Palestinian terror attacks are down 90 percent. Israel's economy has revived. In 2005 it grew at the fastest rate in the entire West. Tourists are back and the country has regained its confidence. The Sharon idea of a smaller but secure and demographically Jewish Israel garnered broad public support, marginalized the old parties of the left and right, and was on the verge of electoral success that would establish a new political center to carry on this strategy.

I essentially agree. One can not allow one's enemies to define your nation state. The Israelis I know -- a determined lot they are -- understand that both surrender and infinite war are bad options. The result -- a fence and a pullout -- is really the best bet. There may very well be chaos on the other side of the fence, but once that fence is completed, it's somebody elses responsibility.

Memo to Abu Mazen: control your thugs or watch American cash vanish from your coffers. Not that it will stop the French or the rest of Jew-Hating European Union (EU), home to the last attempted genocide.