Ariel Sharon’s victory in the Knesset in the debate over the withdrawal from Gaza — requiring 8,000 Israelis to tear up their roots — has shaken his opponents in the West. They question his motives and accuse him of seeking to destroy the road map to create a fait accompli by imposing his will upon the Palestinians.

Others say he knows that having destroyed the Palestinian infrastructure, withdrawal will lead to internecine rivalry between the Palestinian factions, causing chaos and justifying Israel’s further occupation.

But even the sceptics, those who have branded him a war criminal for his failure to intervene in the Sabra and Chatila camps in 1982, cannot deny that he has alienated his own political party and risks assassination by those settlers who condemn him as a traitor.

A deeper understanding of the old warrior Sharon reveals that they are off the mark. Yes, Sharon rejected the Oslo agreement for which Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres shared the Nobel peace prize, but that was not because he did not want peace but because he did not trust Arafat’s sincerity.

Considering what we know now, was he not right? It was because his judgment was correct that the majority of Israelis, who a decade ago could never have dreamt of making Sharon their prime minister, gave him an overwhelming electoral victory.

Everyone should remember that Arafat became the head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1964 before there were any occupied territories. What the Palestinians are demanding now as their rightful inheritance was there for the taking after the armistice agreement in 1948.

The Arab world was then in the position to create an independent Palestine out of Gaza and the West Bank. Instead, Egypt annexed Gaza and Jordan annexed the West Bank. The Palestinians then were not fighting for control of what are now the occupied territories but for the destruction of Israel proper.

If Israel shares any blame for the present intifada it must be laid at the door not of Sharon but of Ehud Barak, the prime minister who presented Arafat with a peace treaty that offered him almost everything, but which he was not in a political position to accept.

Barak’s election promise was to achieve peace within two years. There had been enough shillyshallying with the PLO. With the compliance of Bill Clinton, eager for a resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict as the crowning achievement of his final term of office, Barak forced Arafat into a corner. He was calling his bluff.

With hindsight they both ought to have known that Arafat could never sign a final agreement; he had kept the disparate elements of his organisation together under his control by assuring his militants that he would never give up the hope of a total Palestinian occupation of the area.

His justification of his rejection of the Camp David agreement was not the settlements but Israel’s refusal to admit the refugees, who had risen from 600,000 to 4m since fleeing at the beginning of Israel’s war for independence in 1948. Israel could never agree to this because it would make the Arabs into the majority and thus spell the end of a democratic Jewish state.

What Barak had not realised was that as a consequence of his rejection of a peace plan, Arafat would choose war. Even before Sharon took his infamous walk on the Temple Mount, the second intifada was being planned. Arafat was prepared to sacrifice thousands of Palestinians in order to brand Israel as a brutal occupying power. Palestinian schools began teaching jihad, the encouragement to sacrifice one’s life for the liberation of the land as soon as Arafat’s cabinet arrived from Algeria and set up the Palestinian authority. The map of Palestine in their textbooks included all of Israel.

Decent people find it difficult to believe that the Palestinian terrorist leaders would risk the lives of teenagers by putting them in the front lines against Israeli forces. But how is this sacrifice different from sending teenagers to blow themselves up in Israeli discos?

Israelis trapped into killing children have an even greater effect in publicising their cause. Arafat knew that terrorism would never make Israel yield. But he hoped that the human suffering caused by suicide bombers and Israel’s retaliation would lead to an outcry for international intervention in Palestine through the United Nations or Nato, as had happened in Kosovo. This did not happen because of the support that President George W Bush gave to Sharon in his battle against the terrorists.

The universally unpopular building of the fence and the assassination of terrorist leaders have almost eliminated suicide bombings; Palestinian leaders admit that the second intifada is an unmitigated disaster. Armed gangs now rule the streets of Palestine.

Whether or not Arafat survives his present illness, his physical condition will further weaken his control — already undermined by accusations of financial corruption and autocratic rule. Whatever the outcome of the power struggle, it is to be hoped that new channels will be opened for future negotiations.

If the old warrior has almost succeeded in cowing his enemies, why does he now choose to risk losing the leadership of his party, his own life and the possibility of civil war should the army need to be called in to evict recalcitrant settlers?

Sharon gave the answer in the Knesset last week: “We have no desire to rule permanently over millions of Palestinians, who double their number every generation. Israel, which wishes to be an exemplary democracy, will not be able to bear such a reality over time. The disengagement plan presents the possibility of opening the gate to a different reality.”

This does not sound like a man whose vision is that of a Greater Israel and the expulsion of its native Arab inhabitants.

Whatever his reasons, this disengagement plan, for which Sharon has fought so hard, gives Palestinians the challenge to appoint leaders to construct the beginnings of a state of their own and the opportunity for them finally to get on with their lives in peace.

Sidney Brichto is a leading Liberal rabbi who is translating the Old and New Testaments