So Ahmed, we'll meet in Kfar Malal?

The prime minister is resolute: he wants to carry out his plan to evacuate all the Jews from Gush Katif at any price. What will happen afterwards, he doesnt really know. But that, apparently, is not all that important to him.

There are hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been in the Gaza Strip for decades, whose only desire is to return to the homes that they left in 1948, in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beer Sheva, who will not likely view the Jews fleeing as a gesture of good will. The Egyptian advisors, much like those Soviet advisors who were in Egypt on the eve of the Yom Kippur war, doubtless have no intention of making life harder for those who wish to continue the war of independence of the Palestinian nation, until all of the conquered lands are freed. What is happening now in Sderot will happen tomorrow, in all likelihood, in Ashkelon after the disengagement becomes a painful reality.

The entire Arab world will view this as fleeing under fire, a sign that the Jews can be driven out, essentially, from any place, if enough pressure is applied. The refugees that are still living in the refugee camps for more than 60 years after our war of independence, will understand undoubtedly that the Jews who returned to their lands after many years of Diaspora still dont really believe in their right to this place.

The refugees, who hold the keys to the homes that they abandoned in Jaffa and Haifa, in Ramle and in Lod, will start to believe that the right of return is not just an empty promise by the leaders who abandoned them, or some dream; rather it is a reality that is taking shape before their very eyes. The images of trucks upon which the Jews who refuse to be evacuated from their homes will be heaped by force, will be broadcast around the world. Everyone who sees them will see the similarities between what happened to the Jews in World War II and what is happening to them today now at the hands of their own brethren.

Ariel Sharon must realize all thisbut he cant see further than the bridge of his nose, all those who have been trying to explain to him that in the Middle East, evacuation plans are not widely seen as gestures of good will on the path to peace, but rather as acts of cowardice and fear, a mental caving in that invites more pressure in hopes that more fleeing and more gestures will come before the long awaited peace arriveswithout Jews, without Jewish sovereignty and without the Zionist state, which banishes innocent Arabs from their land, Arabs who never wanted anything but to live alongside the Zionists.

Many people will counter, of course, that Ariel Sharon, who was a glorious general in his youth, cannot be so stupid as to believe that if he exiles Jews from the Gaza Strip, he will raise the level of security in Sderot and in the western Negev, or that the settlements in northern Samaria are only just a security burden. But its happened in the past. It happened in other countriesand its happening before our eyes right now. Generals get older, and sometimes wish to strike from their resume all sorts of questionable episodes in their career, and they do all they can to end up their lives with some kind of accord of general agreement.

It hasnt worked anywhere else in the world, and its not going to work for us either. David Ben-Gurion loved the Arik-hero-of-Israel thing despite the fact that he was caught lying, and not just once. Ben Gurion, as we all know, also worshipped Moshe Dayanand kicked Yigal Allon out for him to take his placedespite the fact that he was also a wild card. These two glorious stallions made a name for us amongst our neighbors all those years agobut they also broke a lot of rules in the process. Much has already been written about Moshe Dayan in this area; Ariel Sharon, however, has only recently had his activities more closely scrutinized.

In a book of conversations with Shimon Peres that I published recently (called "Not the Same Sea") the aging leader, known for his friendship with Ariel Sharon, told me that on the eve of the Lebanon War, he met with then Prime Minister Menachem Begin as head of the opposition, and that his impression at the time was that the then minister of defense, none other than Ariel Sharon, was not telling the prime minister the whole truth.

Similar and contradictory stories like this about Ariel Sharon abound, but that is not whats important right now: We must now find, before it is too late, a coalition of 61 MKs who will send Ariel Sharon packing to Sycamore ranch. It wont be so bad. If he retires to there before the withdrawal from Gaza, then there is a chance that he will be able to live out his remaining years without the constant background whistle of incoming missiles fired from Gaza. If not, then he can always go home to his parents house in Kfar Malal.

There, the Arabs may only get to in a couple of years.

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