Krauthammer on Israel

There are few columnists that are as knowlegeable and insightful on Israel as Charles Krauthammer. In his recent column, he partially agrees with my assertion that Sharon deserves much credit for what he has done in the Mid-East:

"Why did Ariel Sharon do this? Did the father of the settlement movement go soft? Defeatist? No. The Israeli right has grown up and given up the false dream of Greater Israel, encompassing the Palestinian territories. And the Israeli left has grown up too, being mugged by the intifada into understanding that you do not trust the lives of your children to the word of an enemy bent on your destruction.

For now, you trust only the defensive fence and the deterrent power of the Israeli army. Sharon is no dreamer like Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, who bargained away land for a piece of paper. Sharon, like any good general -- and he was a great general -- is giving up land for a stable defensive line.

Everyone wants peace, but Sharon's real obsession is terrorism. From his days as a young commando in the 1950s, he has been a fanatic about fighting terrorism. Take away the terror weapon and everything else follows: safety, stability and the conditions for a final peace. A peace based not on the good will of a Sharon or a Mahmoud Abbas but on the new reality on the ground: separate nations delineated by a temporary barrier to produce a temporary peace -- and the possibility of a final one."