Jerome, why are you assuming that the Israeli are losing the war? From where I see it, the longer the conflict, the less will the Palestinian state be, it is in the Palestinian Authority to stop the war right now. I have read on a right wing movement in Israel now requesting their Parliament to pass a new law. For each act of "Palestinian Violence", a new "town be built" in the Palestinian Territory (I understand there is little chance such a law will pass, but it tells where "things are going", such a law may not pass today, but after three more years of Intifada, who knows).
Before long, the Palestinian will not have much left. That will be for them "losing the war". I am sure that part of the settlements established after the 1967 war, will be permanently a part of the future "Israeli state", and the longer the conflict continues, the greater the number of these settlements that will be part of the Israeli state. The Israeli, apparently are winning both the battles and the war. Until the PA understands that the longer they wait, the less they end up with, they may lose all of it and end with Jordan as the Palestinian state (after all, Jordan has already 3 MM Palestinians, and the Hashemites are not even Jordanian, they are Saudi). Arafat made a colossal mistake not accepting the Clinton/Barak offer. He'll never get such a good offer again.
Zeev |
