Abstract
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who initiated the Gaza Disengagement in December 2003 and executed it within days in August 2005, passed away on January 11, 2014. None of the eulogies ignored this unilateral move. Political analysts unequivocally considered the disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria as one of the central pillars of Sharon’s legacy and a critical event in his biography. Much like Prime Ministers Menahem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Barak before him, and Ehud Olmert after him, Sharon realized that the disassociation from the Palestinians and the creation of a two-state-for-two-people are for Israel absolute imperatives. They too understood that, from Israel’s perspective, it is the only way to secure the Zionist vision of a democratic nation state for the Jewish people. The disengagement from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria was preceded by the May 2000 Lebanon withdrawal, which was carried out by Barak’s government subsequent to the failure of American-led negotiations with Syria. Sharon had meticulously planned his Herzlyiah Speech, in which he first mentioned the possibility of unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians:
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