Until, of course it becomes a regional nuclear war at which point there WILL BE A CLEAR TOTAL VICTOR
Today the Financial Times published this column by :
Professor Shai Feldman is director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Gilead Sher, one of Israel's most prominent lawyers, was its chief negotiator and is author of Within Reach: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations 1999-2001
At first one might semi-optimistically read this tome hoping for a 'reverse engineered' grand bargain for peace based on:
"announcing that once Israel reaches an agreement with the Palestinians on a permanent resolution of the dispute, the Arab states would reward Israel for every step it took towards implementing this vision."
These authors also believe Ehud Barack and Yassir Arafat almost made it with Clinton in 2000.
One read of the polite Dennis Ross's book, The Missing Peace (as well as interviews with the American staff who sat between the Arabs and Jews) reveals just how wrong this is, and also reveals why today there is simply no hope hope of middle east peace.
Arafat could never, and no Arab leader can ever throw out the right of return, the acceptance of which by Israel will mean the end of Israel as a Jewish refuge state.
EVER.
There are simply too many Arabs who refuse to give this up, and would rather remain in a permanent state of war, (one could argue) the state of war which really has existed since 632 AD.
The only possibility that this Quranically compulsory demand can be put aside is with the idea that a true democratically elected govt among the Arabs could do so.
But every poll shows that the Palestinians are NOT willing to do so and that therefore such a freely elected govt would have a mandate to go on as things are. Which, PS, is what we have.
Thus no political solution can be found to a religious war.
It doesn't matter whether the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 was a cynical attempt to euchre the world by offering full relations once the Palestinians signed on to a peace, since no peace can be created acceptable to the Palestinians which allows Israel to remain inviolate in the face of the demand for the right of return.
The bitter truth is that Israel must remain a garrison state among deadly religious enemies for the foreseeable future and perhaps as long the Quran is accepted as immutable.
Hamas, even as a MINORITY which will never be smashed by a Palestinian govt which cannot end the demand for right of return - ensures this outcome.
The failure to accept this reality by the UN, the USA and and the other nations who believe that everybody wants what we regard as peace, as the natural and desirable state of man will lead without any doubt to rounds of war until finally the victor on the battlefield will be able to set the terms over the few survivors left on the other side.
On the other hand, if those who desire peace help set the terms for a militant truce among enemies, and do not look for more, perhaps one day something further might be possible. However those who seek to keep such a truce had better be prepared to kill to keep it.
Is anyone? I don't think anyone wants to get between those two peoples because they know well the outcome.
Therefore, we should leave these enemies to their own devices to solve this problem.
We outside don't have the power to end this.
Even if Iran looks like a Jeffersonian utopia, is there anyone who believes the 30-60% (depending on the moment and the question) who believe in what HAMAS wants would say ... 'oh well we tried'?
Insistence of right of return as a part of peace (instead of a big fat check for what your family owned in the past) demands a permanent war.
That's all there is, as long as Israel is to be a state of ultimate refuge for jews in the world.