ONLY HE HAD THE VISION AND GRAVITAS ISRAEL NEEDED;

This surprising policy, was taken by an aging leader anxious to establish principles that would survive his passing. Redeployment marked Sharon's recognition that settlements and occupation by the IDF--at least in Gaza -- were not sufficient guarantors of Israel's security. By removing settlers and the IDF from Gaza proper, Sharon hoped to force Egypt to police Gaza and to make Gaza into a foreign country for which Israel's responsibilities as an occupying power - responsibilities that constrained its freedom of military action against potential security threats- no longer applied.

On this important point however, Sharon's intentions were partially thwarted. Egypt continues to resist becoming Gaza's jailer. And Israel's foreign ministry ruled that because Israel, after its redeployment, remained in "effective control" of Gaza, Israel could not disavow its responsibilities as an occupying power.

Nothing that has happened since Israel's redeployment in 2005 -- including the electoral victory of Hamas in elections or the movement's subsequent assumption of power in Gaza, or indeed the current war itself, contradicts this view. The current war offers considerable evidence that Israel has indeed been able to conduct policy in Gaza according to the rules of war -- a policy supported as self-evident by Washington and others.

The new reality Israel is creating in Gaza is the product of blood and fire rather than negotiation or diplomacy, certainly during the critical period when the territorial outlines of the future are being established.

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