Gaza is now 100 percent Palestinian. The security fence Israel is building in the West Bank will, in effect, create a second Palestinian sovereignty on 92 percent of that territory. Everyone knows what that fence means. Israelis on the Palestinian side of the fence will ultimately leave one way or the other. And, in a final settlement -- if and when the Palestinians ever decide to make their peace with a Jewish state -- that remaining 8 percent could be exchanged for pieces of Israel transferred to Palestine. (The New Republic of Nov. 28 has a must-read article on the land swaps that could once and for all end the Arab-Israeli dispute.)
The other great watershed has been the maturation of the Palestinian national movement. Arafat was a revolutionary who disdained nation-building. Revolutionaries destroy the old order. His mission was to destroy Israel. Which is why, to the consternation of his Western admirers, in 10 years he built not a single schoolhouse, hospital or road in the territory he controlled. Instead, he built a dozen private militias and a state propaganda machine designed to poison the new generation against Israel. Now that he is gone, the Palestinian cause can begin the demystification from revolution to nation-building.
The other demystification was Gaza. The Gaza Palestinians have just received exactly what they wished for: self-government, borders, openings to the outside world and a complete absence of any Jews. As a result, however, they are now faced with the distinctly unromantic task of creating their new state. It's not that many Gazans would not like to continue the romance of revolutionary terror and jihad. But they no longer have the means. The separation fence makes it almost impossible to launch attacks into Israel. And rockets launched into Israeli towns are met by retaliatory Israeli artillery barrages that make the rocketeers rather unpopular at home. A similar equilibrium will be achieved on the West Bank when the fence is completed next year.
Sharon represents the majority of Israelis bent on achieving that equilibrium. It will not only bring stability and relative peace, but also offers the contours of an ultimate settlement. That's why even old regional antagonists see the promise of this moment -- all achieved, mind you, without a single Rose Garden ceremony.