But you shall be obtaining power at the coming of the holy spirit on you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in entire Judea and Samaria, as far as the limits of the earth."
--So Spake The Jesus, Acts 1:7-8 (Concordant Bible).
Bush is set to meet with Ariel Sharon at the White House tomorrow during a very climactic moment. It is encouraging, I suppose, that he's offering to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, much to the fury of the settlers and Israeli right-wing parties within the government. It's nice to actually see settlers forced to protest. (The Guardian adds the context so ominously lacking in American media)
We can't underestimate the importance of the effect of Sharon's Gaza gambit on the West Bank's future. Sharon seeks nothing less than leveraging America's power to permanently secure the vast majority of the settlements, along with the seized and fenced land around them, representing somewhere between 40 to 60% of the West Bank.
On this topic, President Bush's motives have always seemed very shadowy.