Defeat the Palestinians

In the past I have predicted that there will be another round of armed conflict between the Palestinians and Israel before there can be a real peace between us.  Here is my reasoning.

There were major wars in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982 when various combinations of the encircling Arab countries attempted to destroy Israel militarily.  As we all know, they failed.  The IDF was far more capable than the combinations of the armies of the surrounding countries and Israel not only won against great odds, but succeeded in establishing a degree of deterrence.  In other words the Arab countries learned a lesson, that they attacked Israel at their own peril.  The defeat by Israel went against all their cherished cultural beliefs.  It was axiomatic to them that not only were the Arabs/Muslims superior to the Jews, but that Jews could not fight and of course, Allah was on their side.  Further, the doctrine of Pan-Arabism of Pres. Nasser of Egypt and of Arab nationalism, gave them the sense of invincibility.  The defeats came as a fundamental shock to their system of beliefs and resulted in the leaders of Egypt and Jordan suing for peace with Israel. Pres. Sadat and King Hussein recognized that Israel could not be defeated by their armies and that the only course was to make peace with the hated enemy.  They did not do this out of sentiment, but out of the need to overcome the crushing defeats that they had suffered physically and psychologically.  

However, through all this very active history, the Palestinians were basically passive.  It was only after the defeat of 1967 that the PLO was formally born and only after 1973, disgusted by the inability of the Arab States to take care of the hated Israeli enemy, that they went on the offensive themselves, using terrorism in place of their inability to confront Israel militarily.  Even in 1982 when the IDF swept into Beirut, the PLO was able to escape to Tunisia, and come back from there under PM Rabin's agreement.

Terrorism is fungible, it is difficult to defeat, if it is crushed somewhere it pops up elsewhere.  Unlike an army it does not need physical structures (barracks, airfields) and large equipment (tanks, planes) to operate.  When Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel the other Arab States basically were forced to give up the military confrontation, and now with Syria destroyed and Iraq in melt-down there is effectively no Arab military threat to Israel (excluding Iran).  But, in effect, the Palestinians have never been defeated by the IDF, the IDF has made incursions into Gaza and the West Bank, but a military occupation is not the same as a military conquest.  The Palestinians must be routed in the field and forced to face the fact that they cannot dictate terms and must surrender to the reality of the situation.  They cannot continue to make fantastic and unrealistic demands as a defeated minority, such as the demand for Jerusalem as their capital, the right of return of 5 million so-called "refugees", the cessation of Israeli building in Judea and Samaria, the release of all convicted terrorist prisoners and so on.

The current situation is a harbinger of future conflict.  When Pres. Abbas of the PA chose instead of making peace with Israel but instead to re-unify with Hamas to form a unity government, he was sowing the seeds of war.  Israel immediately cancelled all peace talks with the PA, and the US and EU were forced to disown the move because Hamas is well-known to be a terrorist organization, with an ideology that is based on the destruction of Israel.  The US has announced that this move will cause the PA to lose several hundred million dollars in annual support from the US.  The PA has announced that the projected unity government will accept previous agreements and recognize Israel, even though it will include Hamas.  Many will be sceptical of this statement, given the dedication of Hamas to the destruction of Israel that is a central feature of its existence. 

War is terrible, people die, but on the other hand for the IDF a war against a Hamas-dominated Palestinian regime in Gaza and the West Bank would not be such a challenge, certainly not on the scale of those it has fought in the past.  If all the Palestinian facilities, such as the Mukata (the Presidential Palace) in Ramallah are occupied and destroyed, including the memorial to that arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat, if all their institutions are occupied and destroyed, if they depend entirely upon Israel for the supply of all basic commodities, food, water, electricity, medicines, etc. then Israel will be able to dictate terms to them, just as victors have always done throughout the ages.  Israel does not want to destroy or massacre the Palestinian people, but we do want them to accept the reality that they cannot dictate terms to us.  And my contention is that this can only come about if they are totally defeated, as were the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Syrians and the Lebanese before them.