Israel avoids repeating historical errors by refraining from conscripting the Arabs and turning a blind eye to them not paying taxes. The Qasim clan revolted against the invading Egyptian army in the nineteenth century after the Egyptians demanded Palestinian conscripts and attempted to tax the villages. Palestinian Arabs, then as now, care little who rules them. Not yet poisoned by false expectations of responsive democracy, they deem all rulers equal—equally bad. Arabs care only whether their rulers infringe on their immediate interests. Israel has taken this lesson and avoids pushing her Arabs against the wall, but she forgot to strike the balance between strength and oppression, or weakness and tolerance. Instead of arrogantly dispensing favors and reminding the Arabs that taxation can kick in should their behavior deteriorate, Israel pleads for loyalty, pays the Arabs, and engages them in affirmative action. Favorable treatment by the strong gives way to fearful treatment by a weakling. Palestinian Arabs would be content with a strong occupational power that refrains from oppressing them, but revolt in an Intifada against an Israeli weakling, which treats them to moral diatribes instead of leveling their towns. Whatever Jews think of our rights to the land, the Arabs see us as occupiers, and for occupation to succeed it must be heavy-handed. Just, but heavy. The subject population must see that the occupier means to stay. Taxation must be reasonable rather than absent. Misbehavior must be punished cruelly, and loyalty rewarded mildly. The occupation that the locals don’t see is the worst one, because it creates a sense of anarchy. When the locals don’t fear the occupier, they are likely to launch a guerrilla war against him.
Israel never controlled the territories, but merely bugged the Arabs there with military and security procedures. An autonomous entity irritated from within grows hostile. Palestinian Arabs have a government of their own, but none of the responsibilities that come with self-governance. They need not rein in their radicals or guerrillas or handle macro-economic or security issues, and they depend on the occupier for last-resort aid. Israel essentially paid the Palestinian Arabs in order to maintain nominal control over Judea and Samaria, thus soothing Jewish sensibilities.

Other Muslims have massacred Palestinian Arabs on occasion, from Mohammed Ali’s Egyptian army burning Hebron with its Bedouin inhabitants to the Jordanian army gunning down thousands of Palestinians in a matter of days. The Ottomans weren’t too kind to the Palestinians, and neither were the British. During the Arab Revolt, the British executed plenty of Arabs, leveled many places (including much of Jaffa), employed other means of collective punishment (such as fines), and used civilians as human shields. After the Arabs murdered British commissioner Lewis Andrews, the Mandate power arrested hundreds of Arab political figures and dissolved almost all Arab institutions. Nothing similar happened when Arabs assassinated Israeli Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Seventy years before Sharon’s separation barrier, there was the Tegart Wall, which cut Palestine off from Syria. Arab terrorism was virtually non-existent when Israel pursued a heavy-handed policy under the left-wing governments until the 1970s. The path to peaceful coexistence never lies through goodness, but only through crushing the will of the defenders. The occupier who wants to be moral is doomed.