When the Israelis offered the PLO control of Gaza during peace negotiations in the early nineties, it is reported that one of the Palestinian delegation quiped: "Great, now what do we get in return?" Even for the Palestinians, Gaza - with its apocalyptic overcrowding, its suicidal birthrate and its epic poverty - is a problem rather than a prize.
This is even more so for Israel. Successive governments in Tel Aviv have viewed the Strip as a burden rather than an opportunity. For a state obsessed with its own security, Israel's retention of Gaza makes little sense. Keeping well over a million Palestinians in a cage to protect a few thousand settlers is a considerable drain on Israel's army and exchequer.
The territory is too small and peripheral to be of much importance to the military men who spend their days poring over maps. Gaza, unlike the West Bank, has no mountainous spine or "strategic depth".
What's more, the Strip has no sites of religious importanace, no Tomb of the Patriarchs, no Western Wall to stir the emotions of the Jewish state's citizens. While the West Bank and Jerusalem constitute the Biblical heartland of Palestine, it is debatable whether Gaza even merits inclusion in Eretz Yisrael.
So it should come as no surprise that Ariel Sharon has decided to leave Gaza. Only the not-an-inch fundamentalists fail to see that disengagement is in Israel's interests. In return for giving up something which he and most of his fellow citizens don't want, Sharon can increase his grip on something which he and most Israelis do want - the West Bank. By leaving Gaza, the Israeli prime minister will free up troops and cash for the slow-mo annexation of "Judea and Samaria", a place of great economic, military and spiritual importance.
Sharon's tactical move has been grotesquely over-sold by his fellow belligerents, Bush and Blair, as evidence of a new Middle East taking shape following their invasion of Iraq. With their disastrous conflict in the Gulf getting bloodier by the day, George and Tony jump on any vaguely positive development in the region as justification for this idiotic war. Thus, they tried to take credit for Syrian troops leaving Lebanon this spring, as if their war in Iraq, rather than the murder of Rafiq Hariri, were behind the decision of Damascus to withdraw.
Those who are interested in peace in the Middle East should not be fooled by the idea of a new dawn. If Sharon's decision to leave Gaza means that life in the Strip will improve, then this is very welcome. But if, as I suspect, the disengagement is a sleight of hand to strengthen Israel's occupation of the West Bank, then lasting peace is further off than ever.