For Sharon, Gaza was just the latest act of a long war
The US backing of the pullout has loaded the dice in Israel's favour

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..in accepting Israel's maximalist demands at the outset, President Bush has loaded the dice in Israel's favour and made the achievement of a just settlement a near impossibility. Faced with the combined pressure of the region's strongest power and the world's strongest power, the prospects for the Palestinians look hopeless. It must be understood that there can be no possibility of real peace without justice... The Palestinians will remain trapped in poverty and despair, and their plight will continue to foster anger and violence. Much of it will be directed against the west. If this is to be avoided, and if a just and workable settlement is to become possible, it will be necessary for others to combine and act self- consciously as a strategic counterbalance to American influence in the region. The most obvious vehicle for this would be the European Union's common foreign policy, but there are many other countries that could form part of a powerful international coalition. Just as the Americans, on behalf of Israel, have laid down certain parameters for a final settlement, it would be the objective of this coalition to set out the conditions that would meet the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations. A good working basis for such an approach would be the Geneva accords negotiated informally by a group of Israeli and Palestinian politicians two years ago. Limited Israeli gains in the West Bank (2% of its territory according to the accords) should be matched by equivalent land ceded to the Palestinians; there should be some refugee returns to Israel, consistent with the preservation of its Jewish character; and East Jerusalem should be the capital of the new Palestinian state. Pursuing such a course would elicit a furious response from Washington, and it must be doubted that this British government has the stomach to deal with it. But its strategy of proximity and persuasion has failed to move American policy in a constructive direction, and the settlement that is emerging is one that will bring lasting shame on everyone associated with it. If we allow our leaders to acquiesce in it, we will never again have to ask: why do they hate us?

The problem is that the Western leaders are so scared of 17 million Jews that they are quite willing to engage in a "clash of civilizations" with 1100 million Muslims to avoid angering Israel and the Jews worldwide. For example, the European Union leaders have stopped even their feeble criticism of Israel´s landgrabs in the West Bank and no longer oppose Israel´s annexation of East Jerusalem. They won´t talk about it with Palestinians, they won´t talk about it with leaders of Muslim countries and they won´t talk about it with reporters. All they do is make threats towards Palestinians. The hapless Jack Straw, Germany´s Green-turned-to-Likudnik foreign minister Joschka Fischer and the useless Spaniard Javier Saviola all have made the same kind of threats of Israeli attacks against Palestinians if Palestinians don´t do as the Israelis order them to do. Everything will be well if Israel is given a free hand, according to their unvoiced but plainly visible daydreaming. The Palestinian question will vanish.

So, the Western leaders believe that by giving Israel free hand to take what it wants, large chunks of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they will have peace. At least peace from mad, racist Jews who claim that all who don´t do as they want them to do are antisemites. I think that some of the Western leaders may understand what kind of effect their support for the full annexation of the third holiest city in Islam by Israel will have, but they simply don´t care. They will gladly take hate, suicide bombers in their own cities and decades of warfare - just so that they wouldn´t anger Israel, which they have made unto something that the small state isnt:The world´s only real superpower.