Borchgrave: Gaza is America's next international welfare black hole.

How sick is this?

Though 60 percent of Israelis believe the evacuation of Gaza, sacred Jewish land from time immemorial, was desirable in the quest for a lasting peace, television images of desperate settlers forcibly evicted by Israeli soldiers caused a national trauma.

For Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, these scenes represent a triumph of terrorism over diplomacy. Does anyone really believe Israel would have given up a territory it conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War without Intifada I and II and modern-day kamikazes? Given the population ratio, 1,200 Israelis killed in the past four years is the equivalent of 50,000 Americans.

Certainly good Palestinian democrats who believe in the rule of law didn't persuade Israel to give up Gaza. Hamas is increasingly popular among Gaza's almost 1.5 million Palestinians. Their average age is 16. Unemployment runs as high as 50 percent. There was no shortage of jihadi volunteers for suicide bombing or other forms of terrorism. So there was no future for 8,500 Israelis in 21 settlements guarded by 50,000 Israeli soldiers. Nor much future for Palestinians either.

Gaza is a political and economic wreck. A few idealists who believe in the tooth fairy can see Gaza as the next Dubai, the world's glitziest city-state, a blend of how Hong Kong and Beirut once were. But the oil-rich countries of the Gulf -- the recent oil price bonanza gushes $120 million a day for the United Arab Emirates alone -- are not about to cough up seed money for the mirage of a white elephant. Both sides now expect Uncle Sam to pay the peace piper.

Mr. Sharon hopes the U.S. will double its annual aid for the next year to a little less than $6 billion. This would pay for resettling Gaza's new Jewish refugees in Israel proper, and defray the $2 billion cost of building the 420-mile barrier separating Israel from the West Bank. Each family gets up to $300,000 in compensation for the compulsory evacuation. An unknown number plan to start over again in the West Bank.
(Thanks to The Washington Times for the heads up.)