Maybe Sharon isn't at foolish as some who love Israel have thought

I've mostly kept my mouth shut (or my typing fingers still) about the withdrawal from Gaza but, when I've thought about it, I've been hoping (a) that it was a tactically wise decision to withdraw from a militarily indefensible position; (b) that it will demonstrate to the world that the Palestinians have no interest in their own state and no ability to govern; and (c) that it will provide Israel, if necessary, with a legitimate military target at some point in the future. I'm now feeling extraordinarily brilliant, since Mark Steyn has said much the same thing, only way better:

Sharon has come to understand, as Bush did after September 11th, that the glorification of “stability” invariably favours the bad guys. Under cover of “stability”, the situation always deteriorates. The world’s embrace of the Palestinian “cause” is now almost complete: Blow up a nightclub in Bali full of Aussie tourists and Scandinavian backpackers and within ten minutes someone will have identified the “root cause” as the lack of a Palestinian state. The current intifada has in essence been funded by European taxpayers – and the EU’s auditors don’t seem to care. The withdrawal from Gaza was celebrated with promotional materials bearing the slogan “Today Gaza, tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem”, which doesn’t sound awfully like a “two-state solution” but was nevertheless paid for by the United Nations Development Programme, whose logo appeared just underneath the slogan. Taking their cue from the Palestinians themselves, these various forces have little interest in a Palestinian state itself, only in using the lack of one as a means to undermine Israel and its legitimacy – which in Europe they’ve done very effectively. A continuation of the status quo – whereby the Palestinians are preserved in perpetuity as “deserving” a state without ever having to earn one – would only see further remorseless deterioration for Israel in the world. In that sense, any change in the situation would be for the better – especially a change that makes Gaza not Israel’s problem but everybody’s problem. Thus, the Egyptians have just deployed their own troops to the strip to replace the evacuated Israeli Defence Force. Why would they do this now the Zionist oppressor has fled and Arab lands are rightfully back in Arab hands? Well, for a very obvious reason: an Islamist squat in Gaza is a far greater threat to the Mubarak regime than it is to Israel. With the Jews out of the way, the Egyptian government can no longer avoid seeing Gaza for what it is. This is one way of re-engaging Arab nations in the grubby reality of Palestinian “nationalism”.

For years, it's been the Palestinians keeping the Israelis off guard with their perpetual suicide attacks. Now it's the Palestinians', and it will be interesting to see how they handle their sudden discombobulation. They may be reciting to themselves right about now "be careful what you wish for; you might get it."