President Bush couldn’t be clearer about his respect for the work of Natan Sharansky, the Israeli politician and former Soviet prisoner of conscience who is a prominent spokesman for the idea that freedom and democracy can be universal. “If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky’s book, ‘The Case for Democracy,’ ” Mr. Bush told the Washington Times. “It’s a great book.” He told CNN the book “summarizes how I feel. I would urge people to read it.” He told CSPAN it was “a really good book.” On a visit to Germany this February, Mr. Bush said, “Sharansky’s book confirmed how I was raised and what I believe, and it’s essentially this: that deep in everybody’s soul – everybody’s soul, is this deep desire to be free.”

That is the context in which to see Mr. Sharansky’s decision yesterday to resign his position as minister of Diaspora affairs and Jerusalem in the government of Prime Minister Sharon. Mr. Sharansky’s resignation letter, reprinted on the opposite page, warns that the plan for Israel to evacuate the Jews from Gaza “will in fact weaken the prospects for building a free Palestinian society.” Mr. Sharansky asks in the letter, “Will our departure from Gaza encourage building a society where freedom of speech is protected, where independent courts protect individual rights, and where free markets enable Palestinians to build an independent economic life beyond government control?” And he answers that the answer clearly is no.

It is something for Mr. Bush to think about, because while the Gaza disengagement plan is often portrayed as an initiative of Mr. Sharon’s, it is being carried out with strong backing from Mr. Bush. When Mr. Sharon visited the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, last month, Mr. Bush said, “I strongly support his courageous initiative to disengage from Gaza and part of the West Bank.” When shortly afterward the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, asked Mr. Sharon why Israel was proposing to withdraw from Gaza, Mr. Sharon reportedly replied in part, “We cannot sit quietly and take no steps. The world won’t accept it, including the U.S., and the U.S. is under pressure from Europe to pressure us.”

Now we have great personal regard – and affection – for Mr. Sharon. He is one of the giants. But unless the American position is that a Gaza without Jews is a prerequisite for a free and democratic Gaza, it is hard to square Mr. Sharansky’s position here with Mr. Bush’s. The Israelis may have elected Mr. Sharon to be prime minister. Mr. Sharansky may have been unable to win a mandate from Israel’s voters. But Mr. Sharon won office with a pledge to support the settlers.

Democracies often permit their leaders to use their judgment, and Israel’s appears to be giving at least some latitude to its premier. But when Mr. Sharon is describing his shift in position as being even slightly the result of American “pressure,” the right step for Mr. Bush would be personally to telephone Jerusalem to make it clear that American support for the Jewish state is not contingent on withdrawal of settlers from Gaza and that in fact the presence of Jews in Gaza and the West Bank might ultimately aid the development of a free and democratic society there. It would be a good moment for the president to tell the premier about a book he recently read.