It took everything Sharon had to make the withdrawal a reality, and it ought to tell you something that he had to create a whole new political party just to get it done. (Not that new parties aren’t created all the time in Israel’s system — they are — but to create a new *major* party from whole cloth was completely unheard of before Sharon.) I’m struggling with what I see as your continued failure to understand the mindset of the Israeli electorate in so many aspects of this conflict. I’ve always thought of you, for better or worse, as a “realist” when it comes to foreign policy (insofar as you’re more willing and able to spell out hard truths that most writers I know of). But as you have continued to misunderstand how this operation fits into the Israelis’ narrative of themselves, I find that a lot of what you’re saying is reduced to empty moralizing — a crime which you share with something like 99% of other American bloggers, but which nonetheless doesn’t seem up to your standards.

Kristol writes, “Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism.” – but look at how this namby-pamby leftist group describes Hamas: “HAMAS’ political and strategic development has been both ignored and misreported in Israeli and Western sources which villainizes the group, much as the PLO was once characterized as an anti-Semitic terrorist group”. No, let’s not pretend Hamas is all hugs and kisses, as that’s anything but the case, but let’s also stop advancing the fiction that Palestinians had a real choice here and “chose terror”. The choice was between a corrupt, inefficient, self-serving, secular organization that had been negotiating for a “land for peace” deal for a decade as Israeli settlements expanded and living conditions worsened, versus a religious, much more efficient, much less corrupt organization that was delivering food, education and medical services to the people.

Meanwhile, post-”withdrawal” Gaza was scarcely more habitable than it was when it earned its characterization as the world’s largest prison camp. It’s a testament to Palestinian rejection of the stated political goals and religious extremism of Hamas that, under the most favorable of circumstances, Hamas obtained only 57% of the seats in Parliament. Also, let’s not forget that Bush was warned both by Abbas and Israel that Hamas would likely win the election, and pressed for it anyway – then reacted in a manner typical of a man who gives lots of lip service to democracy but seems to have no respect whatsoever for elections. The election result, of course, provided a convenient excuse not to actually work for peace. But then, maybe that’s what Bush wanted.

There’s plenty of low hanging fruit to choose from today – are you going to take on Bolton?