Israeli Victory Is The Only Way To Advance Peace Process [View all]
At his first security briefing, Avigdor Liberman, Israels Defense Minister, declared that Israel no longer has the luxury of conducting drawn-out wars of attrition. 100 days into his term, with no sign of the decades-long conflict slowing, it is clear that the time has come to apply that principle to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In order for there to be peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israel must win and the Palestinians must lose.
For most of human history, military victory ended wars. The Pax Romana, a period of 200 years of relative peace within the Roman Empire, began only when Augustus defeated Marc Antony in the Battle of Actium. When the North ravaged the South in the American Civil War, it caused the seemingly intractable conflict that claimed three quarters of a million lives over four years to fade away. The South, knowing it was defeated, never made trouble again. German and Japanese ill-will toward Western democracies in World War II rapidly dissipated, thanks to the bitter pill of defeat; friendship soon followed.
Todays conventional wisdom holds that conflicts are best resolved through negotiation and compromise. But lets look at the facts. After 40 years of negotiations to reunite Cyprus, the island remains divided, and 60 years of standoff over the Korean peninsula have achieved little. In Syria, the killing continues unabated despite five years of talks to reconcile Sunnis and Alawites. And at the same time, years of diplomatic efforts to roll back Irans nuclear program ended with the Wests capitulation to Tehrans demands.
The negotiations fallacy is especially evident in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/295211-israeli-victory-is-the-only-way-to-advance-peace-process