[JasonC]

I love Steyn and his heart is in the right place, but he is utterly wrong about this issue. It is not a clever backhanded piece of "be careful what you wish for". It is simply surrender and craven appeasement of implacable murderers, paid by the entire world to kill Jews for a living, rewarded and feted for it, who know no other occupation. Europe has pushed it precisely in the hope that said murderers will kill Jews instead of Londoners. You might as readily describe walking to the gas chambers as a cunning move to put the Nazis in the wrong. It is all utter madness.

[sarasmom]

I can see nothing close to sanity anywhere in the Middle East.
I choose to stand with Israel, despite the fact that Israel is not really an ally of the USA.
Israel is not a bastion of human freedom.
They are just a less obviously violent and virulent strain of a theocratic enemy than the Islamics of that loathesome, barbaric region.
If the numbers were reversed, and if the Jews were the majority population in the middle east...
But even thinking such thoughts is forbidden.

[wildcatf4f3]

true, i don't need gaza handed over to see that the palestians don't want a state. To think that this is neccesary is to attribute innocence or at least naivete to the supporters of a Pal. state. they are neither. They are EVIL and know exactly what they're doing.

[finnigan2]

" It is simply surrender and craven appeasement of implacable murderers,"

- I cannot agree. It seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, Israel was losing the propaganda war to the terrorists and for what? For the sake of about 8,500 settlers who themselves are no slouches when it comes to fanatical beliefs that the Gaza was "theirs" - having been given to them by God some 4,000 years ago.
The costs for the Israeli army to protect these people from attacks must have been horrendous and, in the long run, could not be sustained.
By removing the Palestinians biggest argument to support their terrorist attacks against Israel, Sharon may have changed the whole political situation on the ground with one stroke - we will have to wait and see if his gamble works.