A few weeks ago, I argued that, if the Israelis did not win a clear victory over Hezbollah, there would be little if any prospect of further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank. That prediction has now been borne out, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, until now the leading advocate of withdrawal, now concedes. Moreover, Palestinian terrorists say they have learned from Hezbollah's strategy of relying on missile attacks, and are planning to a acquire more and better missiles themselves:

Abu Nasser, a commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, said his group had learned from Hizballah that missiles make the difference.

"If [we] achieve expertise in this field, we won't make do with the simple rockets we have," Abu Nasser was quoted as saying by the Israeli Internet site YNET. "There is no doubt we can subdue Israel."

This makes any future Israeli withdrawals even less likely, since the Israelis cannot and should not give up territory that will then be used against them as a platform for missile launches.

UPDATE: A typo in the original post made it seem as if I meant to say that Israel had won a clear victory over Hezbollah. In fact, however, they did not do so, and that has undermined support for Olmert's disengagement policy to the point where he has had to shelve it (as I had predicted he would). The typo has now been corrected.