Why the massive show of force against peaceful people?

In today's Debka, there's an interesting article that attempts to answer why the Israeli government trained and sent 40,000 combat troops to evict a few thousand peaceful civilians, men, women and lots of children and some visiting teens from Gush Katif.

If I understood correctly, the writer says that it was Sharon's way of showing his power. And the media helped play up the potential violence to try to make it seem necessary.

My feeling is that Sharon planned for violence. He expected the Shabak agents to get some of the residents and demonstrators to lose their cool and start a battle. He underestimated the quality and dignity of Gush Katif and its supporters.

The soldiers were trained in hand-to-hand combat with "prompts" like, "This is what you do when a settler puts a knife in your back." The soldiers were ready, but the peaceful civilians didn't follow the script. Thank G-d.

Now the struggle for Eretz Yisrael will be even more difficult, and we need all of Am Yisrael, united.

Shabbat Shalom