Bush is a natural, committed unilateralist. He doesn't just believe in American "exceptionalism." He believes in his own exceptionalism: Whatever he believes in is right because he believes in it.

Sharon got rid of what he didn't want ? bedraggled Gaza with its 1 million Arabs for the minimal price of moving 7,000 Jewish settlers whom most Israelis agree should never have been there in the first place. (Neither religion nor nationalism attracted them there but cheap land and a chance for remission from military service).

In practical terms, "reality," as Bush put it at their joint appearance at the White House, always ensured that most Jewish settlers would stay and that almost no Palestinian refugees would ever return.