Herzliya, Israel

TWO YEARS AGO, in a major speech at the annual Herzliya conference on national security, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon affirmed his embrace of the road map, the plan for peace in the Middle East laid out by President Bush in June 2002 that calls for a two state solution. Last year, in the same venue, a few miles north of Tel Aviv on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, Sharon stunned the nation by declaring his intention to proceed with unilateral disengagement. Last night, Sharon once again used the forum presented by the packed closing banquet of the four-day extravaganza of panel discussions and policy addresses to announce a significant development in Israeli policy toward the conflict with the Palestinians.