Uzi Benziman

The enormous effort Sharon is making to create the political basis for approval of his disengagement plan demands that he improve it and turn it into a more sophisticated diplomatic maneuver.

The reality of the last four years belies a 1958 military court ruling that assumed soldiers would know when an order was patently illegal and should be refused.

The battle that will be held today in the Likud Central Committee - on the positions of chairmen for the committee, the party secretariat and the executive committee - is a reflection of Sharon's deliberations and of the crossroads the Likud has reached as a whole.

Political constraints and the bending to international conventions are not all that require Israel to change its approach toward the Palestinians; the public position of the prime minister does, too.

The citizens of the state justly feel that Barak and Netanyahu take dangerous chances at their expense, but a glance around reveals, unfortunately, that they have almost no challengers.

Starting this morning, let Sharon shape his policies, including the disengagement plan, to the new reality and seek an end to the conflict without waiting years to see the extent to which Arafat has left behind a "heritage."

Ariel Sharon has shown impressive determination and willingness to pay the personal and political price of his disengagement plan. But dangerous cracks are appearing in the thin ground on which Israeli democracy has so far managed to stand in spite of ruptures that are tearing it apart.

Even the Talmud does not say the Torah was given to Moses directly by God. But Rabbi Avraham Shapira, in the statement he issued this weekend ordering soldiers to refuse to participate in implementing the disengagement plan, spoke in the name of Heaven and presumed to express the will of God.

This mixture of violence dulls the senses, making the horror banal and clouding the ability to distinguish between types of terror threatening the country and undermining the calm of its residents.

Sharon is showing us how he carries out a withdrawal: He announces a disengagement plan from the whole of the Gaza Strip and, meanwhile, he orders the IDF to return to large parts of the territory and deepen its hold on them.

The alertness and dedication of Israeli soldiers and police cannot always overcome the cunning and the determination of Palestinian terrorists. At the end of the week, Israel received a painful reminder of this: in the terror attack at French Hill in Jerusalem and in the terrorists' infiltration into Morag.

Hundreds of thousands of people spent the holiday out of doors as if there was no terror; anyone who mentioned the events in the territories over the weekend was branded a serial party-pooper.

The Yesha Council is playing a double game. It is inflaming a tense situation that threatens bloodshed - and then warning of this danger, as if it were a wise UN observer.

Sharon cannot evacuate the Gaza Strip with political ploys. It is to be a move, if implemented, with far-reaching implications.

The basic meaning, the unequivocal significance of the results of the vote at the Likud convention on Thursday is that the party's membership and its elected representatives do not support the prime minister's peace initiative.

Sharon is taking significant political steps to create the necessary backing to carry out disengagement. His failure lies in his not creating facts on the ground that highlight the seriousness of his intentions, and that he has not worked to engender public support for his plan.

Complicated dangers are waiting to ambush the implementation of the withdrawal plan. Rather than uniting political forces in order to ensure the success of the plan and rather than leading a mass movement in its support, Labor and Shinui are holding coalition negotiations revolving around matters of honor and prestige. And Yahad-Meretz is sitting on the balcony.

As preparations for the implementation of the disengagement plan get under way, those responsible for carrying it out are becoming increasingly concerned that it will be impossible to execute their assignment because of the settlers' opposition and the backing of those behind them.

The first task of a national unity government will be to infuse the professionals in charge of implementing the disengagement with a new spirit - and convince them it is indeed possible to carry out.

The government will have a hard task in persuading the public that the motive behind the building of the fence in this area is solely security based, and the prime minister will find it difficult to shake off his expression of understanding to the suffering of the peasants who must be cut off from their lands. It is worthwhile to foresee the future and return the route of the fence close to the Green Line.

Mazuz must decide: if Sharon's behavior in the Greek island affair attests to dishonesty, he should charge him and not rely on the public's judgment; if his behavior was proper, why then did he include in his response to the High Court of Justice the statement casting suspicion on Sharon?

Sharon chose to visit the Al-Aqsa complex at an incredibly sensitive time, to force the government of Ehud Barak into the corner, and thus showed contempt for the Muslim world with his provocation. He did not hesitate to authorize the imprisonment of Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, while ignoring the humiliation that his decision is causing to Muslim citizens in this country.

The Lapid Committee was set up as part of the government's facade that it intends to seriously implement the recommendations put forth by the Or Commission, which bravely exposed the status of the Arab sector, the problem inherent in its twin identity: Israeli citizenship and Palestinian nationality.