Turned out to be the sound of one hand clapping

Okay, so it turns out he wasn't really serious after all. From Haaretz, February 6:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants U.S. approval to expand large West Bank settlement blocs that are intended to be annexed once a permanent peace agreement is reached in exchange for evacuation of most settlements in the Gaza Strip and a few others in the West Bank.

Sharon will justify the request due to the need to move some of the settlers from the evacuated areas to Ma'aleh Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion.

(The need for US approval has to do with maintaining the fiction of the so-called "roadmap" to peace.)

In other words, Sharon's supposedly dramatic proposal to dismantle Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip has a punchline: Settlers are to be moved from Gaza, which Sharon isn't interested in keeping, to the West Bank, which he is. The result is to strengthen Israel's de facto (but illegal) grip on portions of the area which Sharon intends to keep as part of any final settlement - or even in the absence of one.

Well, I did say that Sharon has pulled bait-and-switch schemes before. Chalk up another one.