I haven't yet blogged anything about the removal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, but it's clear that many people inside and outside of Israel are amazed that Sharon — Ariel Sharon! — is the one pressing hardest for the evacuation of the Gaza Strip. After all, he has long been one of the most prominent supporters of the settlers. Consequently, his reversal has been discussed in many articles. Here are two recent ones that I've found helpful in understanding his motives.
First, there's this piece by Laura King of The Los Angeles Times. King succinctly summarizes the military and demographic issues:
As military deaths in defense of the settlements mounted, Sharon gradually came to view the Israeli presence in Gaza as a security liability, not an asset.More crucially, he saw Gaza as a demographic time bomb. Israel, he believed, could not maintain both its democratic character and its Jewish majority if it held fast to the territory.
These two reasons strike me as enough to compel Sharon to change his mind.
Then there's this story by Aluf Benn of Haaretz. Benn's piece is fairly negative in its personal assessment of Sharon — it's in Haaretz, after all — but it usefully recounts a lot of relevant historical detail.