The path of concessions is not endless. When concessions come slowly, splashed across decades or centuries, both sides adapt. One side gets almost everything it wants, and the other side gives away as much as it can. At some point, demanding further concessions is not worth the effort, and agreeing to further concessions causes too much damage to national pride. After reaching that tentative equilibrium, both sides live in peace until the balance of power swings.
Concessions that come too soon do not lead to equilibrium. One side is emboldened by success and presses on. The case of the giving side is more interesting: it can grow demoralized or strike back.
Israeli concessions to Muslims are fast-paced. They started with the Camp David agreement on Sinai, gained speed in Oslo, and temporarily climaxed when Israel evacuated Gaza. There is little doubt and plenty of evidence that Israeli concessions embolden the Muslims. The return of Sinai to Egypt put diplomatic pressure on Israel over the Golan Heights and the Palestinian state. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza produced a shower of rockets on southern Israeli towns in support of the Palestinian demand for Judea and Samaria. Abandoning Lebanon to the Hezbollah prompted the guerrillas to fight for the Shebaa farms and Galilee. Israeli acquiescence to a Palestinian state suggested Palestine’s demand to partition Jerusalem, as if Palestinians have anything to do with that city. Seeing the Israeli concessions, Muslim countries ask for the return of the descendants of the 1948 refugees; other Muslims do not want Palestinians in their midst.
Israeli society consists of three major types: a number of self-hating Jews who masochistically appease the Muslims, a perhaps somewhat larger number of strong Jews with religious or nationalist ideals, and a large mass of people who long for peace and safety but otherwise have no firm opinions. So far, the leftist self-hating Jews marshaled public opinion and led or controlled the government. Mainstream Israelis acquiesced to the leftists because they promised peace. The reasoning is very intuitive: the strong and possibly aggressive position of the Right provokes a fight, and concessions bring peace. That reasoning works in interpersonal, but not international, relations.
Among the people, concessions bring peace, because states enforce basic rights for everyone. Regardless of how much concessions embolden the winner, he cannot press his demands on the loser too far: he cannot ask the loser to die, move abroad, or surrender his most personal possessions.
Among states, there are no police or similar last-resort enforcers of basic rights; the hapless UN protects no state. Winning states can press their demands on losers to the end, all the way to annihilating the losers. Only a devastating fight for every concession inhibits further demands. France received Alsace-Lorraine, but demanded nothing else from Germany because France did not want to repeat WWII. Israel gave away Gaza without resisting the intifada seriously, and the Palestinians demand further concessions.
The term international community is misleading. Each country stands for itself, and each tries to exploit others. Morality is an intra-group phenomenon. Relations between states are not moral. States are too few and too big, like a market with several regional monopolists trying to expand into each other’s territory. Only systems with many small, statistically equal players are efficient. A system with only several big fish is inefficient and entails constant changes in the balance of power which bring clashes, opportunities, and readjustments. States can exploit some without fearing retaliation from others. States cannot expect statistical justice in society: be nice to others, and most of them will be nice to you.
Israelis will see that the Left’s arguments are only superficially rational, and concessions bring no peace. What will happen then? Apathy and the despair of living in a ghetto-size state at the mercy of Muslims? Emigration? Or resistance?
The Israeli population will hardly elect real right wing politicians. If the war with the Muslims escalates, a right-of-the-center prime minister may give the green light to the real Right, like the sane Sharon supported the Gush Emunim.
More likely, the Muslims will not escalate the war. They can take Israel over peacefully by breeding. Muslim states can wait a few decades, reducing Israel to insignificance by chipping away Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Galilee, and East Jerusalem.
