It looks like we will have a bi-polar reality.

There are people starving in the siege, there are children traumatized and terrified. There are men women and children dying. This is a situation that has reached the proportions of a tremendous humanitarian crisis. It is a tragedy and every minute that passes we lose lives and more people are brutalized and traumatized.

Sharon has subverted the whole process by turning it into something sequential and conditional and, of course, by making himself the interpreter of the road map.

Beyond the emotionalism and the obvious sense of relief on all sides, I think that there is a recognition that reality may intrude, that perhaps the steps ahead and the days ahead are going to be much more difficult than one expects.

We need to stop Sharon. His lethal policies are drawing blood on both sides. That's why we need a serious intervention -- international troops. And we need to end the occupation if there is to be security for both people.

Sharon was a strong and charismatic leader who steered the politics toward the right and extremism. Now it is clear that Israel needs a leadership that proceeds strongly toward peace, or else the extremist right will hijack the situation.

The rise of Hamas is a product of the failures of political will in the international community, of the absence of the peace process, of the increase in violence and ideology.