Ariel Sharon came to Washington to discuss his proposal for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that will include the uprooting of almost two dozen Jewish settlements. President Bush responded with a letter that articulated his vision of realistic parameters for any viable Middle East peace.

In his missive, President Bush expressed the dream that at some future time the appearance of new Palestinian leadership will permit the resurrection of constructive negotiations. Yet, Bush also recognised that hope must be tempered by the formal endorsement of certain facts that have long been informally acknowledged by diplomatic pragmatists.

The first of these verities involves the Palestinian insistence on the implementation of a legally baseless "right of return" to Israel-proper within its pre-1967 borders. There are few issues that have ever been able to unite Israel’s fractious parliamentary democracy, but adamant opposition to the "right of return" is one of them.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis consider the demand for a "right of return" to be tantamount to a demographic death warrant for the Jewish state. The implementation of this Palestinian program would lead to a massive influx into the heart of Israel of hostile descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war that would create a catastrophic recipe for disastrous civil strife.

Moreover, the Palestinians complement their demand for the "right of return" with an insistence on the removal of all Israeli settlements from any future Palestinian state. This would create an absurd double standard in which Jews would be uprooted from Arab territories at the same time that Palestinians would be allowed to settle in Tel Aviv. In essence, this Palestinian policy of "what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine" negates the principle of a two state solution to the Middle East conflict.

George Bush declared his support for "the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel." The President’s opposition to the Palestinian "right of return" is not only grounded in principles of essential fairness, but it also constitutes a pragmatic awareness that the Israeli people will never consent to commit national suicide.

Bill Clinton also recognised that the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" would be completely unacceptable to Israel. Clinton’s attempt to finesse the Arab refugee issue by reducing it to symbolic proportions failed in the face of Yasser Arafat’s rejection of anything other than a "right of return" in its totality.

George W. Bush has merely stated explicitly what previous US presidents have endorsed implicitly — the Palestinian "right of return" issue is a non-starter.

The same holds true for the second "revelation" in this letter - that President Bush considers it "unrealistic to expect" a total Israeli withdrawal to its pre-Six Day War frontier, the so called "Green Line." Even the most peace-minded Israeli governments have baulked at the prospect of a complete return to Israel’s 1967 boundaries because they would be indefensible in the face of future military attack. Moreover, an accurate reading of the oft-cited UN Security Council Resolution 242 reveals that it carefully avoids any demand for a full withdrawal to the Green Line.

In such a scenario of total Israeli withdrawal, over 80% of Israel’s population would be concentrated in a slender coastal plain that would be only 14 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. From Tel Aviv to Hadera, the Jewish state would be completely dominated by the mountainous terrain of a Palestinian-held West Bank just a short distance to the East.

Moreover, it is worthwhile to note that the 1967 boundary never acquired the formal legal status of an international border. This is because, at the end of Israel’s War of Independence in 1949, the Arab nations universally refused to recognise the frontiers of a Jewish state whose existence they rejected.

In his letter, President Bush also recognised "new realities on the ground, including the major Israeli population centres" that have been established in the West Bank. The location of some of these towns reflects the strategic determination that Israel must retain portions of the West Bank for reasons of defensive depth.

For reasons of both historical right and military necessity, Israel will never assent to a complete withdrawal to what dovish former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban described as "Auschwitz borders."

President Bush also took pains to lay out his vision of a "Palestinian state that is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent." Public opinion polling consistently demonstrates that most Israelis share this view. Moreover, it is perfectly feasible to create such a state through land swaps that would compensate Palestinians for West Bank territories retained by Israel.

For years, the Palestinians have proclaimed that their fondest dream would be to witness the departure of Israeli forces and settlements from the "occupied lands." Thus, it is beyond bizarre that the Arabs would find fault with an American expression of support for an Israeli plan to withdraw from what will undoubtedly be the hub of the future Palestinian state. This is especially true in light of President Bush’s assertion that the ultimate border must be mutually agreed upon by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Cynics have sometimes remarked that the Palestinians want to destroy the Jewish state much more than they want to build their own nation. It is this Palestinian pipe-dream of eventual "total victory" that constitutes the real impediment to the advent of a peaceful Middle East.

Pragmatists yearn for the day when the Palestinians will finally produce a leadership that is willing to recognise the immutable realities reflected in President Bush’s letter. When that day comes, the real work of building a sovereign homeland for the Palestinians will finally be able to begin.

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But apart from the moral issues, the wisdom of such a move seems strong. Although many commentators predicted Hamas would exact fearsome revenge for the killings of Yassin and Rantisi, and some initial reports from Gaza suggested the killings bolstered support for Hamas, there is reason to doubt such reports. Most security analysts believe Israel’s aggressive pursuit of Hamas leaders has seriously hampered the organisation’s operational capability, a point underscored by the fact that the organisation tried (in vain) to keep the name of Rantisi’s successor a secret (believed to be 57-year-old Mahmoud Zahar). And Yassin himself admitted in January that the organisation had begun recruiting women and children suicide bombers because Israel’s counter-terror measures had made it difficult for more "traditional" Hamas bombers to infiltrate Israeli cities. Hamas is clearly not the organisation it was just two years ago.

In addition, the killing of Rantisi and Yassin has deprived the movement of the two leaders that would have been most capable of leading the organisation to challenge the Palestinian Authority, or even to take over Gaza when Israel pulls out. Both were founders of the organisation, both were highly charismatic, and both unwaveringly committed to the armed struggle. Both also commanded strong– but not universal– followings in the Palestinian areas. Without them it will be difficult for Hamas to command the same public approval it has in the past, and nearly impossible for it to take over the Strip when Israel leaves, as Hezbollah did in southern Lebanon following Israel’s withdrawal in May 2000.

At the end of the day Ariel Sharon’s decision to combine his political program with a continued pursuit of terrorist leaders is correct and wise. By releasing a plan to pull out of Gaza Sharon has shown he has no interest in continuing the occupation, and by targeting Yassin and Rantisi he has shown there will be no letting up on terrorist leaders. It is a clear signal to Palestinians of all groups that Israel’s exit from Gaza will be a withdrawal but not a retreat.