Sharon's Military Strategy

During the disengagement many people asked me why Sharon, an avowed right-winger, would do something so "dovish" as to give the Palestinians territory to call their own.

"He's not," I answered, "he's a pragmatic, right-wing general." Here's his bio.

This is the man who was one of the first (and only) Israeli politicians to purchase a large dwelling in East Jerusalem, through several proxies, and then move in, creating his personal 'Hebron community' within the Moslem Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. The same guy who was blamed for using Christian militia groups to help conquer Lebanese territory. The Phalange groups' behavior led to the horrific massacres in Sabra and Shatila.

The disengagement pulls the line of defence into a straight shot, and creates a clear field of fire into a territory where Israel doesn't have civilians. I am not the only on who sees the government's cynical abandonment of synagogues to be vandalized as part of a ploy for pity running up to an active, aggresive terror response.

Until the disengagement the Palestinians and the excuse, lame though it might be, that they couldn't possibly reign in Hamas because they didn't have the power and right to do what they needed. And Israel's responses were hamstrung. Things. Have. Changed.

Hamas has lost its cover. When shelled, Israel will respond with counter-battery fire. The PA is on the hook to keep order, and every time Hamas fires a rocket, they are undermining their assertion that their rule by might is right.

Everywhere Hamas fires a Qassam rocket will be come a target zone. Israelis return an accurate salvo before the missile lands. Even if Hamas terrorists run as soon as they light their missile fuses, Hamas cannot repeatedly withdraw from the field without creating instant Palestinian enemies from the survivor's if Israel's artillery strikes.

Unlike Israel's previous use of collective punishment, a singularly idiotic way of getting Palestinians to stop their kin given the PA's lack of power under Israeli-occupied territories, this has the effect of helping to empower the fabled 'Palestinian street' to take back their cities from the rule of the insane.

At the rate of fire available to Israel, there won't be a street, courtyard, public plaza or road intersection left after just a few weeks -- Gaza isn't all that big a target, and now it needs to act like a State, not a terrorist nest.