THE QUESTION NEVER ASKED: James Klurfeld has the precise answer for those who see Sharon as the root of all evil in the Mideast:

Yes, in the past, Sharon has shown himself to be a man of terrible excess. He often had to be rescued by his military superiors, especially the late Moshe Dayan. Dayan understood and used Sharon's talents as a warrior. But he also understood that Sharon often did not know when to stop. Sharon's invasion of Lebanon is only the most well-known example.
But too many people have projected Sharon's past behavior onto Israel's recent military operation to end terrorist attacks on its civilian population. The military incursion into Palestinian cities was not a Sharon operation; it was an operation of the entire Israel Defense Forces that was supported by the widest possible political spectrum in Israel. If dovish Shimon Peres were prime minister, he would have done no differently.
A government's first responsibility is to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens from outside attack. Israel - and Sharon - waited months before responding militarily to the Palestinian suicide attacks. Sharon did not send in the troops after a discotheque with dozens of teenagers was blown up last summer. He did not respond with Israel's military might all through the fall and winter as suicide bombings became the order of the day. It wasn't until the Passover massacre in Netanya that Israel, not just Sharon, said enough and turned to the tanks and bulldozers. What nation would have done differently? What nation would have waited that long?
Now the question about Sharon is what he will do next. Does he have a plan? Does he understand that the settlements, many of which he built himself, have become an obstacle to peace? These are the issues that President George W. Bush explored with Sharon this week in Washington. Clearly, the resumption of suicide bombings inside Israel Tuesday plays into his proclivity for confrontation.
But there is a further question that Sharon himself asks and for which there is no easy answer. That is, does he really have a partner with which to negotiate? The assumption behind the peace process, from Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978 to the Oslo Accords in 1993 to Bill Clinton at Camp David in the summer of 2000, was that the Palestinians would end the conflict if the right peace offer was made. But when former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made that offer, or at least something very close to it, Arafat not only rejected it but turned to violence in violation of his solemn pledge on the White House lawn.
I was surprised and disappointed, as were many others who believed in the peace process. Sharon was not. His reading of Arafat might have been the correct one from the beginning.
And, if that is true, what does that say about the anti-Sharon crowd?