"given that the Oslo phase of Israeli-Palestinian relations is over, what comes next?"
Any answer I give, can be answered, as you did for UW, "and then what?
Some points:
1) Given the nature of the the Religion and the level of tension, there is an unlimited supply of terrorists available who can be talked into blowing themselves up.
2) For the same reasons, if you killed off the Terrorist leadership, there is a second and third level ready to take over and keep the terror going.
3) No Israel Government can remain in power that does not answer these continuing acts of terror with force.
4) They are constrained by the pressure from us, caused in large part by the 2 Billion or so we give them every year, and world opinion.
5) Attacks on the general Palestinian population is exactly what Hamas and the rest of the extreme terrorist's groups want Israel to do.
So what to do? Nobody knows.
If I were Sharon, I would tell the Palestinian leadership to stop the Hamas and the rest of the terrorist leadership or I would take the Palestinian leadership out. And then what? Continue to move on the Leaders.
Is this a long run solution? Of course not. There are no permanent solutions, in that area, in the foreseeable future. But people don't live in the long run. They live now. IMO, the only thing that will give results, short term, is the use of force, and lots of it. |
