Gaza's political difference from the West Bank is telling: Palestinian national expression developed in the West Bank, but not in Gaza. The main factor behind that difference is the neighboring countries' attitude: Jordan fueled the West Bank Palestinian nationalism in the hope of sublimating the energies of its own Palestinians away from fighting the monarchy, while Egypt ruled Gaza until 1967 rather heavy-handedly, in fact by the military until 1962. The elusive climate factor might also play a role: just like no desert tribes developed a civilization worthy of mention, so the desert Gaza did not evolve into a center of Palestinian "intellectuals."

Gazans are neither stupid nor evil, but honestly fight for the land they consider theirs. If only Jews were similarly certain of their right to this land! The fight entails considerable hardships and dangers for the Arabs, but Jews, too, willingly endangered ourselves for 2,000 years instead of abandoning our national idea and converting, say, to Christianity. Israel cannot buy Palestinian acquiescence with welfare programs or political demagoguery about peace settlement. Arabs are honest: they want the land, not the settlement.

Israel cannot achieve a victory against the guerillas which would be clear-cut in strategic terms. Even if Israel kills thousands of Hamas members in Gaza, new ones will soon join Hamas. Since the Battle of Karamah, the lesson is clear: anything short of a humiliation is a victory for Arabs. In Karamah, Palestinians lost ten times the number of Jewish casualties, but perceive the battle as a major victory. Palestinians would rally around Jewish casualties in Gaza, not their own losses. In the absence of Israeli casualties, Palestinians enjoy driving Israelis mad with Kassam rocket fire. Arabs are very extraverted, and media coverage of their attacks on Israel is sweet as honey to them. The conflict with Palestinians falls short of a real war; it is rather a PR confrontation, and so Israel should think of PR measures. Jews need to be creative. Instead of the hyper-expensive and quite useless air raids, we can parade captured Palestinian terrorists before TV cameras naked, covered with tar and feathers; we can burn dead terrorists covered in pig skins, etc. Humiliating the Arab guerrillas irreparably is the easiest way to defeat them.

The world blames Israel during the short periods she blockades Gaza, but Egypt does the very same thing. Jewish state can somewhat control the flow of illegal Gazan labor, but giant Egypt found it nearly impossible to stem the migration from Gaza. For Egypt, palliative solutions don't work: it can either seal Gaza off, or suffer the permanent flow of discontent, disloyal, criminal laborers. If Israel were smarter, she would stop pulling Egypt's hair over some smuggling to Gaza, but mobilize the world's opinion to push Egypt to open its border with Gaza. That is the surest way to depopulate Gaza within years, first of youngsters, then of working-age Arabs, and gradually of everyone - and the only practical way to end Gaza's troublesome existence.

What can we do about Gaza? The peace process tales are all very fine, but realistically there could be no peace there. The most benevolent Jewish policies would make 99% of Gazans content with Israel; still, fifteen thousand discontent radicals can carry out suicide operations in Israel ad nauseum.

Near absence of terrorist infiltrations from Judea suggests that Israeli police can rein in the guerrillas. Pervasive networks of police informants do the job. Checkpoints may help, but likely most interceptions there are tipped-off. Given the lax control of the passing Arab crowds at the checkpoints, bomb-carrying terrorists are mostly intercepted after the informants tipped off Israeli police. Arresting the bombers during routine checks is a convenient way to exonerate the informers.

Delivering a suicide bomber into a central Israeli town is a relatively complicated operation. Suicide bombers rarely ride buses; they need transportation, often a hiding place. Suicide operations depend on complicated logistics. Suicide bombers are usually street folks, and they pound several doors before finding proper terrorists willing to recruit them. Intercepting suicide bombers is an extremely hard job, but it is doable.

Rocket and RPG attacks are much simpler than suicide bombing, and less detectable. They are truly “fire-and-forget” operations. Rockets are being made in the safe, approving environment of Islamic fighters where Israeli infiltration is moderate at best. Rockets are launched from friendly territory; logistics is very basic and therefore interception is exceedingly hard. Doable, yes, but not always.

Then, Arabs have many other options for terrorist war, such as stabbing Jews and killing us with handguns. Those modes are not very popular now because the more efficient modes are available. Should the IDF end the Qassam rocket fire, Arab guerrillas would switch to other types of attacks.

One option is to leave the Arab-settled territories alone administratively and economically, but retain free hand there for police operations. That didn’t work for the British and won’t work for Israel. Sharon, as the military governor of Gaza, managed to rein in the terrorists by the immense police buildup. He continuously had huge police presence in Gaza. Such presence requires full administrative control over the territory. The IDF now keeps the West Bank relatively quiet because the guerrillas find Gaza more convenient for their operations. Should the order prevail in Gaza, the guerrillas can just as well step up their activity in the crowded slums and camps in the West Bank.

Hit-and-run or hit-and-retreat tactics never works for defenders. Israel cannot defend herself by occasional raids into the Arab territories.

Won’t the situation settle in, perhaps, a century or two? Israel can continue defending herself with limited raids in the Arab-populated territories, and wait for the things to eventually calm down. Many states lived in hostility until they eventually settled. It is not certain, however, that any border disputes are settled forever. Alsace and Lorraine are the famous example of recurring dispute. Still less are the chances of settlement when the entire country is disputed, and the fifth column (of Israeli Arabs) props the dispute. Border issues hold a chance of being settled when the cost of fighting them is unreasonable. Limited raids, on the contrary, limit the cost of fighting. The West Bank Arabs feel the IDF presence only at the checkpoints, and targeted raids leave the locals unaffected. Sending suicide bombers into Israel creates no inconvenience for the mainstream Arab population. Israeli-Palestinian situation is most reminiscent of the Mexican gangs’ attacks on the United States, which were only ended when the US annexed the lawless parts of Mexico.

It is important to realize that no peace process or even economic development would end the Arab terrorist attacks on Israel. It is unrealistic to imagine several successive Palestinian governments conducting Ataturk-like propaganda to make a generation of Palestinian Arabs accept Jewish state on the land they consider theirs, and even Ataturk’s reforms eventually failed, as can be seen in the Islamization of modern Turkey. The returning Palestinian refugees are so heavily indoctrinated than no amount of the contrary propaganda would make them forfeit their grievances against Jews. Unless Israel crashes any hope of return to the pre-1948 situation, Palestinians would hope to return to it.

What suffers a faster attrition: Palestinian hopes or Jewish patience? The passing time diminishes Palestinian hopes of reclaiming their entire land, but it also wears down the patience of Jews who expect terrorist attacks daily. Arabs are in the way better position: hope can be sparked while patience cannot. Any signs of Israeli weakness, whether military, ideological, or political encourage the Arabs. And a democratic country has no shortage of political swings which encourage her enemies.
This analysis bears out historically. Thirty years ago, even the left Jews rejected Palestinian statehood, but now many conservatives accept it. Polls indicate that the support for Palestinian state among the Jews increases after major terrorist acts. Palestinian Arabs, submissive in 1970s, now overwhelmingly demand statehood – and achieved it de facto.

Israel cannot bear the political attrition. Modern Jews, unlike ancient Romans, don’t accept war as a permanent state of affairs. Rome fought our Carthaginian relatives for centuries, but Jews today are unwilling to fight for our core lands for decades.
Crushing military response is not an option. No elected Israeli government would bomb the real terrorist nests: the refugee camps. Sending Jewish soldiers there without artillery cover, as in Lebanon, to control the Arab civilian death toll at the expense of Jewish corpses, is an option too immoral to advocate for even indirectly. Egypt wisely abandoned Gaza to Israel; arm every person in Harlem with automatic rifle, and you would still get a Switzerland there compared to Gaza.

Palestinian guerrillas need to take a single step to turn the tables: develop Qassam rockets with reliable ten-mile range. They already had successful launches of that type. Such technological advance would allow them to launch rockets at Ashkelon from Jabaliya refugee camps. Though Israel conducts routine raids into Jabaliya, she won’t be able politically to massively retaliate for continued attacks from the camp. Likewise, Israel cannot occupy Jabaliya because of the sniper fire. Cleansing the place of terrorists and leaving is also impossible because new terrorists are easily recruited from the jobless Arabs.

Employing all the Arabs in Gaza is impossible. The place is overcrowded, lacks resources, and Arabs are anyway unsuitable for productive activities. Four generations lived in Gaza on the UNRWA handouts. The place is a hopeless slum without a hope of rebound.

It is possible that Gaza’s population would grow hostile to the guerrillas. Such outcome, however, requires continuous Israeli retaliation against Gaza’s population centers and the hope of considerable improvement should they drive the guerrillas out. Neither proposition is true. Moreover, guerrillas are deeply entrenched in Gaza. They buy loyalty with Iranian-funded charities and threaten the population into loyalty by exemplary punishments of non-complying civilians. Though the popular mood in Gaza can change, no preconditions for it are observed.

The only way to end the Gaza’s problem is to end Gaza. Israel punishes Gazans by restricting emigration. On the contrary, let them go. The young Gazans won’t return home after attending universities in Egypt. Ban any Gazans from entering Israel, except possible in transit to the West Bank; Jews need not give jobs to Gazans. Retaliate for the terrorist attacks against civil infrastructure, preventing Gaza from developing any industries – which it is unlikely to develop, anyway – and to show the Gazans sheer hopelessness of building anything. In thirty years, Gaza could be reduced to the network of dying villages. In a generation, Gaza would be empty.

And safe for Jews.

Why the Palestinian Arabs don’t proclaim a state? Nominally, they declared independence twenty years ago at the PLO meeting in Algeria, but have never followed it through with real state-building. Palestinians have all the pre-requisites for a de facto state: foreign exchange through transfers and aid, decent by the Arab standards economy, established political parties, recognized police force, government’s infrastructure from education to courts, and substantial control over their territory.

Palestinians would need some political equilibristic in proclaiming statehood, as they have to strike a balance between nationalist aspirations (the entire Palestine including Israel) and precluding Israeli invasion if their hostile intents are announced. Still, they can settle for weasel wording, such as declaring their right to the entire Palestine but recognizing Israel.

Independent Palestinian state risks Israeli blockade or at least the cessation of power and water supply, but in such a case Egypt and Saudi Arabia would supply free oil for Gaza’s power station. Drilling and water desalination can alleviate water shortages. Israel may close her borders to Palestinian labor, but Gaza is thus closed for seven years, anyway. Independent Palestine will no longer receive UNRWA subsidies, but drug revenues can substitute for the lost aid.

Jews, too, hesitated to proclaim our state. Jews could have declared independence already in the 1919 after the Balfour Declaration, but even in the 1948 many Jews doubted the independence. Ben Gurion’s declaration of independence came in the last moments of the window of legal opportunity the UN resolution offered the Jews.

As if taking responsibility for the nation were not enough, independence poses severe moral problems for Palestinian leaders. They need to betray up to three million of their kinsmen who harbor for four generations a hope of return. Palestinian state would be economically unable to absorb the refugees or even to resettle them. The relatively affluent West Bank Palestinians resent the influx of their compatriots from Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza who long lost work skills and evolved into a truly lawless bunch. The influx of refugees would be a real catastrophe for the West Bank Arab society.

Palestinians are also afraid of Jordan, a petty state which appealed to the US and Israel for protection against Syria, but plays an imperial power with the West Bank. Fatah has its own reason for avoiding independence: without being propped by Israel, that shallow egg laid by Arafat would crack open. For the Palestinian guerrillas, independence spells the descent from the gun-toting social status into unemployment. Arab governments want the Palestinian issue smoldering, both as an excuse for themselves to refuse recognition to Israel, and for their subjects to vent the hatreds on Jews.

Israeli establishment pays Palestinian leaders to avoid independence. From Israeli oligarchs who derive huge income from the monopoly trade with Palestine, to Israeli religious demagogues who speak of Jewish Judea so long as it remains under nominal Israeli occupation, to Israeli government which needs a low-intensity conflict to keep the Jewish population obedient, to Israeli security services which use the West Bank for training ground – every influential stratum of Israeli society resists de jure Palestinian independence.

Arafat miraculously refused independence in the 2000 when the Palestinians were on the brink of it. Abbas similarly rejected independence ahead of the Annapolis conference even though Israeli government only wanted him to minimally rein in the Palestinian guerrillas.

Nothing precludes Palestinians from grabbing their independence immediately. Israeli government agreed to abandon Judea and Samaria to Arabs, destroy small Jewish villages and exchange the larger Jewish towns for equal tracts of land, partition Jerusalem and give Arabs its most sacred area, and hinted at its readiness to aid the Palestinian state in absorbing the refugees.

The West’s left refuse to recognize an evident thing: there are no willful takers for the Palestinian independence.

In 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ahmed Yasin. All members of the UN Security Council except America approved a resolution condemning Israeli raid.
In 2005, police of Saudi Arabia, a major US ally and weapons buyer, arrested forty Christians in a private house in Riyadh for non-Islamic worship. The Saudi action caused no official condemnation.

For if the nations of the world should say to Israel, "You are robbers, for you conquered by force the lands of the seven nations [of Canaan]," they will reply, "The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whomever He deemed proper When He wished, He gave it to them, and when He wished, He took it away from them and gave it to us." Rashi on Genesis 1:1.

It is simplistic to imagine that Olmert rushes for Palestinian statehood. Olmert is a master of political intrigues and unfulfilled promises. He repeatedly promised to remove checkpoints, but most are still in place. He also vowed to remove the outposts, but preserves them for two years now. He faces a powerful peacenik lobby of self-hating Jews bent on destroying the Jewish state. They strive to give the Temple Mount to Muslims and effectively relinquish Israeli control over the Old City of Jerusalem. Divesting of the Temple Mount has nothing to do with helping the Palestinians, but with crushing Jewish nationalism. The unnecessary destruction of Gush Katif was the first step. The defeatist camp successfully destroyed a huge community of Jewish zealots; until now, most cannot recover from psychological trauma and have no place to live in. Giving away the Temple Mount, the Old City, Hebron, and Judea will extinguish Jewish hope for returning to the Promised Land. Tel Aviv beaches lack biblical significance. Jews conquered Jewish land and gave it away; no nation can recover from such a shame for generations. The leftists need to give away the Temple Mount to assure their continued rule over demoralized, ideologically emptied Jews.

What is the alternative? Palestinians won't sign a peace deal with us unless we give them the Temple Mount. Fine, forget the Palestinians; why do we need peace with that primitive crowd? An alternative to peace is pacification, and Israel has enough tanks to pacify the hostile mobs. Palestinians fight for the Temple Mount; conservative Jews can fight, too. With the similar methods. More efficiently. The Knesset members who consider voting for relinquishing Jerusalem to Arabs must understand the resultant mortal danger to themselves and their families. Police won't protect them forever, and cannot protect thousands of their relatives and associates. Voting for relinquishing Jerusalem to Arabs should be a suicide, literally.

But we cannot rule the millions of Palestinians indefinitely. Nor do we need to. The number of Palestinians is vastly exaggerated both for political and economic (UN subsidies) reasons. The real number is closer to two millions. Polls indicate that at least a third of them want to emigrate, including 70% of the young. Leftist Israel actually impedes their emigration instead of wholeheartedly encouraging it. Being helped with visas and resettlement bonuses, young Palestinians would leave the West Bank and Gaza an aging society, dying out in the matter of a generation. Blockades and curfews, limited water supply and closure of Israeli markets would force working-age Palestinians to emigrate.
Even now, one percent of Palestinians live on the 58% of land in Judea and Samaria. The land is empty, prone to Israeli annexation without significant dislocation of the Palestinians.

But the world, what would it say about Israel? It will keep saying the same things Jews should have gotten used to during the two millennia.

Residents of the Bronx are ethnically and linguistically similar to those of Californian suburbs. They share the same history, goals, and enemies. Even so, no reasonable politician would apply to them similar prescriptions. Yet Israel insists on treating Gaza and the West Bank as a single entity. Such an approach won’t work. Palestine drifts into a split into two failed states: Hamas’ Gaza and the pro-Jordanian West Bank.

Egypt has no habit of refusing land acquisitions. It confronted Sudan over a minor border dispute, but readily abandoned its right to the Gaza Strip. The place is not worth acquiring when it includes a million Palestinians with it. Those are the worst Palestinians: 59 years away from their land, refugees living in cramped camps on the UN handouts, lacking either employment or any prospect thereof, seething with hate and resentment, claustrophobic as in a prison cell, with no connection to the outside world, used to weapons and violence - they represent the ultimate human waste. That’s not a reason to kill them, but a good reason to abandon them and their territory. Sharon knew the Gazans better than anyone: as a military governor, he managed to keep Gaza quiet with drastic police actions. Sharon had good sense to disengage from the Gazans; he erred by evicting the Jews rather than the Arabs from Gaza.

Gaza is overcrowded, unemployed, humiliated, and drastically different from the relatively peaceful and affluent West Bank. Gazans are driven to the edge. Unemployed Gazans breed huge families on international welfare. Jews severely restricted their movement to the West Bank and their labor migration to Israel. The desperate Arab population supports radicals and breeds suicide bombers. Young Arabs with no life opportunities, with no money to marry, readily die for high ideals. Gaza, a notoriously irreligious place, quickly becomes a hotbed of Islam. Palestinians, unable to achieve anything in this life, look for otherworldly goals. They see no benefit in living, and aren’t afraid of dying; they take suicide missions matter-of-factly. Israel and the UN let the steam out of Gaza with humanitarian aid, prolonging the suffering. Either push them to an explosion, or let them live – which they cannot if Gaza remains isolated. Israel pushes Gazans to the wall and offers them the only hope of relief through terrorism. Not surprisingly, Palestinian terrorists killed more Jews in the six years since Oslo then in a similar period of Intifada before the Oslo. Jewish casualties in terrorist attacks exceed the Yom Kippur war’s 7268. Militant groups fight Israel as the only way to curry support among Palestinians. Hamas or the PIJ cannot better the Palestinians’ lives, and fighting Israel is their only electoral platform.

Very few Palestinians engage in terrorism, and many others rat on them to Israeli security services, but the few are enough to perpetuate terrorism – and other Palestinians who quietly hate Israel support them. Palestinians, weary of war and hardship, might elect moderates, but the brewing discontent would continue churning out suicide bombers. Palestinians, actually, did vote for moderation – but not for moderates because none are available. In the conundrum of hatred and discontent, terrorism and retaliation, unemployment and propaganda, moderate parties cannot arise; it took the WWII devastation and years of stability for moderate parties to appear in Germany. Only 4% of Palestinians voted for the PFLP – strictly a guerrilla group with no immediate political agenda. Pre-election polls indicated that Hamas’ 44% electoral support included about 15% non-decided; only a third of Palestinians supported Hamas months before the elections. A drop of public support for Hamas during its clashes with Fatah shows that many Palestinians voted for Hamas – a charity, anti-corruption, and decent Islamic organization rather than a guerrilla group. Of the 41% of Palestinians who voted for Fatah, some imagined that Abbas would bring peace with Israel while others simply voted for the currently ruling party; 15-20% of any population always votes for the governing party. The most telling thing about the Palestinian 2006 elections was a 3/4 voter turnout in Gaza. Such a turnout is high for most countries, but note that Gazans are largely unemployed; elections are a form of entertainment for them. That a quarter of Gazans abstained from voting shows their deep frustration with all political parties. The Arabs of Gaza hate Israel and would love to see her destroyed and themselves returning to their old villages. They cheer attacks on Israel, but prefer a minimally safe life for themselves. They enjoy Hamas’ struggle with Israel, but hate Israel’s retaliation. Gaza’s Palestinians would love to live in peace and affluence. In practice, that’s not possible. Gaza is just not a viable territory.

Israelis are used to primitive moralizing which presumes that one side is right, and another – wrong. Jews, therefore, consistently picture the Palestinians as hateful terrorist scum with no right to the land. But try visiting Palestinian refugee camps. Their residents dream of Palestine so strongly that the dreams are hardly distinguishable from reality. They talk of their grandparents’ villages they never saw but which exist in their dreams, of the number of olives trees and sheep they had. They are ready to fight and die for the land – and kill, too. They are honest, determined people made to live unbearable lives. The Jews need this land, and have to expel the Arabs to make a Jewish state. That’s a fact of life. But the other side has a strong moral position.

Israel made a zoo out of Gaza; she gives Palestinians water and food, but keeps the place closed. The most prominent feature of a zoo is the overwhelming disparity between guards and animals. When Arabs bark with homemade Kassams, Israelis fly in on fighter jets and attack helicopters and punish the Palestinians with precision rocket fire. Animals in the zoo have to accept their lot, but become angrier day by day.

The zoo is profitable to its keepers on both sides. Abu Mazen’s son owns six companies in Israel. Barak gave Arafat a gas field to lease to British Gas for kickbacks. Israel’s secret police officer Yossi Ginossar handled Arafat’s accounts in Israel. Shin-Bet officers do business with Palestine. Israeli oligarchs monopolized the commodity trade with Palestine. The IDF declared that invasion of Gaza poses no threat for kidnapped Cpl. Shalit, even though he is held by the extreme Palestinian militants; such certainty reveals an astonishing degree of cooperation between Israeli security services and Palestinian terrorists. The Shin-Bet security service catches almost all suicide bombers even though the guerrilla operations are highly secret; officials of the terrorist groups betray their suicide bombers to Israel in return for large rewards. Terrorist groups refrain from attacking Israel’s soft underbelly – foreign Jews and Israelis abroad – in return for Shin Bet’s normally not arresting top officials of the terrorists.

Palestine was quiet until Shimon Peres brought the PLO from Tunis. Israel supported the PLO against Hamas, and later supported Hamas to contain the PLO. Hamas predictably won, ascending in a political tide too strong to control militarily: Palestinians want an honest government which, in that context, could only be Islamic – atheist Palestinian leaders see no reason to abstain from corruption.

Stop oppressing the Palestinians. A frightened skunk doesn’t smell good. Kick him out of our backyard.

Israel occupies Palestine in an unusual manner. Other countries occupy lands for sensible purposes: economic profit, annexation, or cleansing of hostile elements. Israel spends a lot on policing the territories, and even transfers customs duties to the PLO-Hamas government. Israel refused annexation from day one and urged the fleeing Arabs to stay, and discriminates against Jews in the territories in terms of property ownership and security. Arabs are allowed to buy houses without restriction and build without permits, while the Jews are evicted even from legally purchased houses. Arabs own cheap illegal machine guns; Jews have to make do with expensive pistols purchased officially. During the years of Israeli occupation, the PLO became entrenched in Palestine yet succumbed to the even more anti-Israeli Hamas. The occupied population receives job opportunities and benefits in Israel while supporting Hamas. The governing party of the occupied territories showers Israel with rockets and aims at her total destruction.

Either annex the territories and expel the Arabs to Jordan, or seal the Palestinian entity off and deal with it as with a state: ban migrant workers, stop issuing any visas, block all shipments, and wage total war when attacked.

Wars that merely repel an aggression can be likened to kicking a robber out of the house and returning to sleep. The robber will likely come back, and so will the repelled enemy. Societies have three approaches to dealing with robbers: prevention, correction, and discouragement.

Prevention is dubiously effective; felons show a high rate of repeated commission of offense. After years in jail, criminals lose a connection to peaceful, law-abiding life. Jails prevent the criminals for only as long as the criminals stay in jails. The foreign policy equivalent to prevention is sanctions. America’s sanctions against Iraq after expelling it from Kuwait were fairly effective in crippling the Iraqi military capability. Israeli sanctions against Hamas-ruled Gaza suitable damaged Palestinian society, but not Hamas. Sanctions are inefficient against micro-targets that can be re-supplied by smuggling and donations. Sanctions, like jail term, end one day, leaving an embittered enemy alive.

Correction is rarely practiced with criminals for its obvious futility, but cowards and idealists love correcting enemy nations. A common idea is that a nation forcibly given affluence and democratic institutions will become peaceful. The failure of that approach can be witnessed in Iraq and Gaza.

Discouragement is the only consistently effective strategy of curtailing crime. Discouragement is “an eye for an eye” strategy, aimed at inflicting enough suffering on perpetrators to make their trade non-feasible. Discouragement consists of corporal punishment or mutilation, extremely harsh jail conditions designed to break criminals physically and morally (a politically correct mode of mutilation), or – on the international arena – of the extreme destruction of the enemy country. The utmost discouragement is execution for criminals and ethnic cleansing for nations. The Torah doesn’t hesitate to prescribe capital punishment for heinous criminals and annihilation for sworn enemies, while Machiavelli asserts that ethnic cleansing is the only reliable seal on a victory.

Israel cannot punish Hamas; the death of a few dozen, even a few hundred members is no blow to Hamas, but will only reinforce its military credentials. After Hamas engages Israel for a week or two, the group will confirm itself a formidable guerrilla force and attract more donations. Hamas doesn’t even care about losing the support of Palestinian voters; in the short term, bullets overcome ballots.

Israel has two strategic alternatives. One is tolerating the violence for years or decades to come; the violence could eventually subside as the former enemies grow used to each other or, more likely, the determined Arab enemy will be sinking its teeth into Israeli defenses. Israel voices no claim on Gaza; Hamas demands the entire Israel. The balance of will is on Hamas’ side; Arabs’ constant aggression erodes the Israeli passive defense and causes incessant concessions. Another alternative means recalls the Torah and preferably Machiavelli as well. The evacuation of Sderot must be repaid with the evacuation of Gaza. Evict all the Arabs to Jordan.

Just like in Lebanon, Israel cannot win in Gaza for a single reason: the government did not specify a political objective. Rabin headed for Oslo negotiations with the idea of closing Gaza off and leaving the Palestinians to kill there each other off and starve for the lack of economic opportunities. That was a dubious but rational objective. Subsequently, it was replaced with peace process. Anyone is yet to explain why does Israel, with her relatively good economy and strong army need peace with some Palestinian Arabs worthless in economic and military terms. Why, in particular, should Israel who won all wars against Arab aggressors, now capitulate to Arabs and withdraw, compensate the refugees, and divide Jerusalem with Palestinians? Peace process requires a peace partner, even if there is none. International community of spiders in a can suitably appointed Fatah. Never mind that Fatah, rendered leaderless by Arafat, cannot prevail against highly motivated Hamas.

The IDF’s proper response critically depends on what does Israel want. Punishing the Palestinians for the attitudes of Canaan’s residents toward Joshua bin Nun? Then blockade Gaza, cut off water and power supply, and let the Arabs enjoy independence. Ending the flow of suicide bombers? Ban Arab migrants from Israel. Ending the rocket barrages? Keep invading Gaza once in a while, destroy Hamas caches of explosives, training camps, buildings, and Kassam workshops; raze and withdraw. Signing peace with Palestine? As an occupying force, ban Hamas from elections, render a Fatah-only Palestinian parliament, have it sign a peace treaty and enjoy the worthless paper. Want durable peace with Arabs? Go settle in Uganda.

God gives Jews chances, several chances. Totally irrationally, the Arabs fled Israel in 1948 instead of staying and democratically voting the Jewish state out of existence. In a matter of weeks, Arabs reduced from 45 to 25% of Israeli population. At that point, Ben Gurion’s government rested, and allowed the rest of Arabs to stay and breed. Ben Gurion similarly didn’t push Jordan out of Jerusalem.

The second chance came by in 1967. Arabs fled Judea and Samaria – again, for no apparent reason. Moshe Dayan stopped the refugees, and gave the Arabs every Jewish sanctuary from the Cave of the Patriarchs to the Temple Mount.

Now is the third chance. Hamas does the Israeli job of creating unbearable conditions for the Palestinians. Why help Fatah for an elusive peace process? Help Hamas. Let Hamas fight Fatah and win. Let Hamas run primitive workshops for primitive rockets. Let it at Israel. Let it turn Gaza into fundamentalist Muslim state full of training camps. Show the world that the Palestinians – as any Arabs – are incapable of governing themselves with any decency. Then run the Palestinian Arabs off to Jordan. Cleanse Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Leave no Arab trace there: no house, no mosque, no olive tree. Help Hamas. End the Arab presence in the Land of Israel.

Israeli government learns from Winograd report. This time, the government invited Livni when deciding to… To do what? That’s neither a war, nor invasion. Israel again has decided on low-casualty, high-cost, politically correct no-war. Kassam rockets cost not even a thousand dollars a piece; Hamas members are cheap-to-free; Kassam “launching pads” are any strip of Gaza’s land Israel abandoned in 2005. Fatah receives Western money to fight Hamas; Hamas receives Iranian money and Syrian weapons to fight Israel and Fatah. Hamas is happy to lure Israel into Gaza to show its members and sponsors some action; Fatah welcomes Israel in Gaza to fight the rival Hamas. Common Palestinians are sick of Israel, Fatah, Hamas, and Iran, but no one asks them.

Brainwashed Israelis won’t connect the current invasion of Gaza with the 2005 disengagement, but Olmert still hesitates to order the IDF troops into the Arab enclave. Israel Air Force pounds cars, gatehouses, and individual Hamas members with hyper-expensive air strikes. A couple of IAF helicopters downed with RPGs or a few Merkava tanks blown with C-4 explosive traps will show that modus operandi untenable. Israel cannot bring many ground troops into Gaza; there is no politically correct way to win urban fights, and Hamas will be shooting at the IDF troops from windows and alleys while using women and children as shields (Israel forgets that sharia sanctions killing of women and children in any numbers if that’s necessary to prevail against defenders). The only workable mode of war in Gaza is the police war. Shabak’s Palestinian informants and Olmert’s Palestinian friends among Fatah will deliver Hamas militants and weapons caches to Israeli forces. The Gaza operation is the Border Police’s war.

To clear a small, isolated Gaza from weapons stocks and training camps is easy. The problem is, what next? Fatah won’t reign in Hamas; at the least, Hamas is stronger and more determined than Fatah. Both are deeply interrelated: Hamas works closely with Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is Fatah’s unit. Many guerrillas enlisted in several groups simultaneously. Extended Arab families often have some members in Fatah and others – in Hamas. The same Palestinian voters elected Abu Mazen president and Hamas – the ruling party. Who will fight whom? Once Israel withdraws, Hamas will reinforce itself. Israel can keep destroying the sheds where Kassams are produced (why wasn’t that done before?), but Hamas can switch to suicide bombers, RPG attacks on Israeli vehicles, and launch terror against Fatah-affiliated Palestinians deemed Israeli collaborators.

Modern people, brought up in rationalist tradition, imagine that all problems can be solved. No. Some problems just go away – after centuries. Yitzhak Shamir realized that no Israeli actions could bring peace; the peace depends on the time passed, not on actions. Shamir, accordingly, adopted a wise do-nothing policy, but zealous Israelis pushed him to do more for the sake of peace. Nothing can be done. Nothing Israel does in Gaza will stop terrorism. Subsidized Israeli electricity or water won’t make the Palestinians to love Israel. Jews cannot make a million Gaza’s Arabs affluent and content with their lot. Even though, enough Arab zealots would feel disaffected by living in overcrowded, tiny spot of what was once their land.

Both Jews and Arabs want peace; neither wants the peace process which means formally conceding to defeat. Israel shrink from abandoning Judea and Samaria to Arabs; Arabs shrink from abandoning their homeland to Jews. Paper treaties cannot withstand the fire of enmity: Hamas and Fatah broke plenty of cease-fires between themselves, and PLO and Hamas broke several truces with Israel. State of Egypt temporarily stopped fighting the State of Israel because military consequences were too painful for Egyptian state; Hamas leaders do not identify themselves with Palestinian community and don’t care about Israeli reprisals.

Intractable enemies reconcile, then fight again. There is no permanent peace on this earth, and certainly not in the Middle East. Borders are soaked with blood. The IDF can achieve tactical victory against Hamas in Gaza. Strategically, there is no immediate solution.