what's this all about?
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From Haaretz...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/390020.html
... Analysis / Could Sharon finally be serious? By Yossi Verter
Yesterday morning Ariel Sharon sat in his Knesset office discussing the preparations for the Likud convention with ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Katz, and his confidant Uri Shani. The three felt that Sharon wanted a quiet, calm convention. The news of Sharon's interview to Haaretz about the planned evacuation of the Katif bloc settlements hit them as they came out of the office. It was immediately clear that the evacuation, even if no more than a declaration, would ignite any party meeting like a barrel of kerosene.
Perhaps Sharon should have waited with such a statement. But the convention is not the foremost thing on his mind right now. The difficult police questioning about his affairs, reportedly due on Thursday, is bothering him more. So is Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's impending decision concerning the affairs.
Yesterday Sharon managed to deflect public attention from the approaching questioning. Without committing to a schedule, without ordering the evacuation of a single settlement and without even evacuating the quasi-legal outpost Migron, Sharon is already talking of evacuating the Gaza Strip, whose settlements he until recently saw as a strategic asset.
So far, it's all talk.
Verbally, over the past three years, Sharon has established a Palestinian state, expelled Arafat and made numerous painful concessions. Even if Sharon ultimately does not carry out his plans, one thing cannot be disputed - his statements have caused the settlements immeasurable damage. No Israeli leader has ever undermined the legitimacy of the settlement project as has Sharon, the settlements' father.
Anyone after him will be able to do whatever he wants to, with no real interference.
The three year stalemate brought Sharon to a point in which the political move seems to clash with the personal, legal issue. Whatever he does or says now will raise suspicion of ulterior motives, of trying to sway the attorney general. One minister said yesterday that Sharon wants to impress on the attorney general that if he indicts him, Mazuz will not only be removing a prime minister from office but cutting short a historic move supported by most of the public.
Another said Sharon's evacuation statement is intended to make the "leftists" rally to his side and prevent toppling him, if he is charged. A third said Sharon is gambling on everything. Even if forced to quit following an indictment, he wants to be remembered in history as one who initiated, on the eve of his political death, a political move.
On the other hand, Sharon's statement triggered off much confused scrambling in the Knesset yesterday.
It made even the greatest skeptics ask themselves, is he finally serious? Minister Avigdor Lieberman (National Union) said he thinks this time it's not just talk. Still, Lieberman is not packing his bags yet. Yitzhak Levy (National Religious Party) said Sharon and Labor Chairman Shimon Peres have secretly decided on future cooperation. Otherwise, Levy said, how explain the increase of settlements to be evacuated in Gaza from three-four to 17?
Another conspiratorial sign between Sharon and Peres could be seen in the latter's agreement to accept one more year as Labor's leader rather than a year and a half or two years, as he had insisted on until Sunday. "Apparently Peres knows that in a year he will be foreign minister in Sharon's cabinet," Labor sources said. Peres' people vehemently denied this.