The NY Times throws in a pretty disgusting attack on Ariel Sharon in it's news analysis on yesterday's Bush-Sharon announcement. From Sharon Coup: U.S. Go-Ahead:

Further, Mr. Sharon viewed settlements as deepening Israelis' attachment to the land and giving them incentive to hold it. "Yes, I want to put the children before the tanks," he told The New York Times more than 25 years ago.

Needless to say this is taken somewhat out of context, and the words he used were actually suggested to him by the interviewer as something his accusers had said. See below from the NYT of June 1, 2003 where David Shipler writes about a conversation he had with Sharon in 1979:

By placing civilians in those isolated outposts, scattered among Palestinian towns, he was accused of putting children in front of tanks. But this was a criticism he accepted.

"Security is not only guns and aircraft and tanks," he told me in 1979. "Security first of all is motivation — motivation to defend a place. If people live in a place, they have the motivation to defend themselves, and the nation has the motivation to defend them. The fact that you are present, that you know every hill, every mountain, every valley, every spring, every cave; the curiosity to know what is on the other side of the hill — that's security. If you have all the guns and tanks in the world, you cannot do anything if you aren't motivated, if you don't know the area, if you don't feel that it is yours. Yes, I want to put the children before the tanks."

The current analysis ends with the following:

Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Sharon's approach would fit with his own road map and "open the door to progress toward a peaceful, democratic, viable Palestinian state." But Mr. Sharon, arguing that the Palestinians have proven themselves unworthy as peace partners for now, has said his approach closes the door to substantive negotiations and a Palestinian state for years. "It will bring their dreams to an end," he told the Israeli newspaper Maariv recently.

I'm having trouble finding the exact quote, but here is what he really said in his recent Passover interview with Maariv - a state was not going to be formed from this current disengagement plan, but that the road map was still valid.

A state could only be established within the framework of [President Bush’s] road map to peace. I have agreed to establish a demilitarized Palestinian state in borders which would be determined at a later date. But there will be no Palestinian state as part of the disengagement plan. That will not happen.

OR where he is actually describing how the settlements themselves were destroying Palestinian dreams:

Maariv: These people, whom you plan to evacuate from their homes, saw you as a father figure.

Sharon: Not every decision of a father seems right to his sons. There is no choice. That is my decision, and I believe it is the correct one. I believe it will contribute to our security and will open the way for a future peace process. When you fence off entire regions and settlements, you terminate many Palestinian dreams.