Ariel Sharon has built up a great stock of scepticism among Israeli politicians and pundits with his periodic rehearsal of "painful concessions" that he intends to make, sometime, somewhere, in the cause of peace. This week, too, his latest withdrawal plan-from almost all of the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and from several outlying ones on the West Bank-provoked much cynicism and disbelief. One outraged MP on the far right suggested brazenly what many others whispered: that Mr Sharon is concerned above all to shift the spotlight from the police inquiries he and his two sons are facing over alleged financial offences.
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