After Sharon's farewell
ARIEL SHARON was no happy warrior last Aug. 15, the day Israel's withdrawal from Gaza began, telling his countrymen, ''It's no secret that I, like many others, believed and hoped that we could hold on to Netzarim and Dfar Darom forever. But the changing reality in Israel, the region, and the world has forced me to make a reassessment and alter positions."
Sharon's reassessment was Israel's. He was the indispensable party to change because he had been on the Greater Israel side of the settlement question for so long, earning from opponents the derisive nickname, ''Mr. Bulldozer." Now he was ready to square off against his old Likud Party and lead a centrist pro-withdrawal coalition, carrying the banner of his new party, Kadima (Future).
Instead tragedy struck in the form of a severe stroke and massive bleeding leaving Sharon on life support and many Israelis lamenting what one colleague called ''a massive blow to the prospects for peace."
That may turn out to be the case, but one should be careful not to translate the shock of the moment into dire prophesies when the situation on the ground is far more nuanced.
For one thing Gaza is a fait accompli. The 8,000 Israeli settlers are gone and won't be back. They have left behind 1.3 million Palestinians and a festering political mess where gangs, clans, terrorists, kidnappers and dissident political factions run beyond the control of a feeble government. Israel may do many things to prevent any of these actors from menacing its towns, but resettlement isn't among them.
Second, the man who will run at the top of the Kadima ticket is more committed to closing remote West Bank settlements than was Sharon himself. When I interviewed him in his Jerusalem office last August, then Deputy (now Acting) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the withdrawal advice he had offered Sharon: ''And I said, 'Let's start from the beginning on a much bigger, much greater scale operation than just Gaza, because the political devastation will be the same anyway, and you don't want to go in stages -- go through this plan every two years. So let's do at the beginning something much bigger that will give us rest for 10 or 15 years.' " Sharon decided otherwise.
Third, Sharon had already announced his commitment to road map peace talks rather than further unilateral steps. Road map talks take place under the auspices of a quartet of sponsors -- the United States, the European Union, the UN, and Russia -- and involve three stages, culminating with Palestinian statehood. But they are likely to founder on the first stage, which requires the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in its area, a requirement it is too weak of mind and body to attempt. Not without reason did Sharon's security adviser, Dov Weissglas, describe the road map as ''formaldehyde" for the peace process.
Fourth, any West Bank withdrawal would be far more modest in concept than Gaza, where settlers and military forces returned to the Israeli side of the Green Line, the borders existing prior to the 1967 war. On the West Bank, by contrast, only settlements east of the security fence would be evacuated and the Israeli Defense Force would continue to conduct operations in the abandoned areas. Israel can barely tolerate Qassam missile attacks that reach its small Negev towns. Missiles fired from the West Bank at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv must be preempted, as must potential suicide bombers.
The biggest difference Sharon's departure makes is political. Benjamin Netanyahu, heading the Likud ticket, is a tough and polished former prime minister, but one who had met his match in Sharon.
Against him, Olmert struggles for gravitas while his infant party searches for ways to institutionalize Sharon's appeal to voters. Lose five seats from those projected under Sharon and Olmert still forms the next government. Lose 10 or 15 and it's a dogfight.
In sum, the loss of Sharon makes little difference in Gaza and no difference in any peace talks with the Palestinians. It could lead to a more substantial, though still incomplete, Israeli withdrawal on the West Bank unless Netanyahu forms the next government, in which case the likelihood of unilateral Israeli moves is remote.
Bob Zelnick, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of the forthcoming book ''After Gaza." 
