Amir Oren in Ha'aretz:
Lieutenant General Halutz, who has publicly hedged the certainty of the implementation with a possibility of a change in the government's decision, has admitted that a cancellation of the evacuation is possible. The army juggernaut is pressing forward and is slated to crush anything that stands in its way, and eject everyone who dwells there, but it has a driver, the government, and it is within its authority to stop what it has started.
[ . . . ]
What will happen if there is no evacuation? The same thing. A little war or a little peace - the IDF is planning for both alternatives, with the evacuation or without it, when the dust settles or if there is no dust. The renewal of terror, which this month has thus far killed seven Israelis, is taken into account before, during and after the evacuation, as is American pressure - there being no Europe - for an immediate continuation of the peace process.
A renewal of fighting in the north is possible, not certain, following the elections and the governments that have arisen in Lebanon and Iran, as a reminder of the connection between an Arab application of force and an Israeli withdrawal, or its cancellation. The blessed disengagement will not win Israel a reduction in pressures, and its cursed cancellation will not be considered a sign of the disintegration of the democratic state of Israel, but rather merely a defeat for its government. The "no" in the French public to the European constitution will be interpreted as Jacques Chirac's failure, not as the end of the road for the Fifth republic. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not Israel. He is just a prime minister, who has not learned - yet - to hold proper elections before the minor evacuation, in the footsteps of which will come better, major evacuations.
For the life of me, I can't imagine what a "better, major evacuation" might consist of. I do hope I never find out.
