nirreich,
You withdrew from the Sinai after a war in which Egypt fought decently and you're caught by surprise. You withdrew from South Lebanon -- a territory you captured in a war your former PM Menachem Begin called a "war of choice" -- after Hezbollah forced you to in what is widely considered the first clear defeat of Israel to an Arab force. You only signed the Oslo Accords after the first Palestinian Intifada -- it was a "concession" you had to make in order to preserve your national security, but before it, many of your political leaders (Golda Meir, for example) openly said they saw no need to ever withdraw from the occupied territories; and following the signing of the agreement, you continued to confiscate Palestinian property and in fact sped up settlement building. You left Gaza in 2005 because, as Israeli officials have openly said, you wanted to prevent the emergence of a unified Palestinian state in the whole of the occupied territories. And as for the Golan Heights, your former PM Ehud Olmert is on record saying that "the Golan Heights will remain in our hands forever". The deal under which you would withdraw from 90% of the West Bank still meant that you would have annexed major settlement blocs built over Palestinian land, including privately owned land, much of the water resources of the area, and also East Jerusalem, where Arab families are still losing their properties to those absurd absentee laws (laws that only apply to Arabs).
In other words, every time you withdrew from a territory, it was either because you were forced to -- Israelis only understand the language of force -- or because you calculated that, by withdrawing from a territory, you could keep a hold on others.
As for the ethnic cleansing, the fact that you couldn't remove all of the Palestinians from their lands doesn't mean there wasn't a systematic attempt to force as many of them as possible so as to assure a Jewish majority in Israel since its early days. 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted -- half of the Palestinian population in 1948 -- and they were prevented to return to their homes and lands and to reclaim their money and bank accounts even after the end of the 1948 war. This has been described by many Israeli historiasns like Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé and Tom Segev, and many Israeli political and military leaders -- e.g., Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan -- in statements and letters, strongly indicated that they recognized that. There's no denying that ethnic cleansing took place.
In
all the cases I provided of Israeli withdrawal from territories it controlled, Israel did it without any serious external threat of force that can defeat Israel and take the land back, but as a result of internal calculations that got nothing to do with any master plan of annexations:
Israel withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula five years (!) after the 1973 War ended, and it ended with Israel Army on the western side of the Suez canal only 100km from Cairo. The fact that Israel was indeed caught by surprise only emphasise its military advantage - and the Arabs understood that too, finally, and since then avoided any more rounds of military conflicts. When Israel decided to withdraw from Sinai it was not because Egypt threatened to use force, on the contrary: because Egypt decided to give Israel what it wants- a full peace agreement. How is that settle with a master plan of occupation? Israel gave Egypt bigger territory than its own!
Contrary to the ill-beliefs in the Arab world about a defeat of Israel in Lebanon, the facts show no such thing. Hizbuallah did not gain any achievements during Israel's military presence in South Lebanon, could not conquer even the most tiny and remote outposts of the Israel Army and the Lebanese militia, and in average around 20 soldiers died every year Israel was in South Lebanon. A painful loss indeed to the Israeli public but hardly a catastrophic one. Israel withdrawal was a result of military and political strategy of defending our country from the border in order to achieve international recognition to our current border with Lebanon (and it was achieved), and because the limited territory the army stayed in Lebanon could not prevent the firing of rockets from grater distance. Israel withdrawal had nothing to do with the use of force or with a master plan of annexations.
As for Israel's readiness for a Palestinian self-government in Gaza and the West Bank it was several years after the first Intifada already evaporated. in 1993 the PLO was no threat to Israel: PLO was internationally isolated because of its support for Saddam in Iraq not only in the West but in the Arab world too. PLO had no funds, no recruits, no terror infrastructure to launch any armed campaign against Israel. Israel decided to legitimise PLO and give the Palestinians a self government because Israel simply does not want to control them and be responsible for millions of Palestinians. Here too, no use of force and no master plan of annexation.
As for the plan to withdraw from more than 90% of the territory, you do not deny it. Mind you, the plan included East Jerusalem as the Capital of the future Palestinian state. Israel indeed wanted to preserve its presence in several areas in the West Bank which are vital for its security. The Palestinian could have got 100% of the West Bank before 1967 when it was under Arab control but back then the Palestinians wanted it all and held this position until the late 1980's, so this is their problem. The Arab lost the 1967 War so they lost their opportunity. Israel will not withdraw again to the same borders which were made it vulnerable for constant attacks between 1948 and 1967. 90% is good enough. And the Gaza withdrawal was hardly to split the Palestinians, as they our help in their internal fightings.
Regarding the second part of your comment on the ethnic cleansing you forgot just tiny little thing which is the context - it was a total war and the Palestinians were the one who started it - they rejected to UN partition plan of 1947 (which gave them more land then they can dream to have today) and a day after the plan was announced they began with terror attacks on Jewish villages and towns. Their intentions were very clear - to destroy the Jewish community with violent means and their leader was the grand Mufti who was a General in the Nazi SS during WWII so you can imagine that their threats were taken quite seriously.
There was no plan of ethnic cleansing and as the Jews did not open the war of course they did not plan in advance to use it in order to conduct such thing. Most of the Palestinians fled without any help of the Jews in fear of the war and while listening to the calling of their own leader to leave in order not to be in the way of the Arab force who will liberate the country and very quickly they will be able to come back and enjoy the property the Jews left. There were several limited cases of intentional deportation of Palestinians by Israeli forces but there was no master plan and the evidence is the existence of Palestinian residence in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza after 1967. BTW, there were around 500,000 Palestinians who fled their homes while Israel received 800,000 Jewish refugees from all around the Arab world who lost their property and bank account and were given no compensations. Maybe there was an ethnic cleansing in the Arab world from Jews?