This conflict has no military solution

We are in a period of loss of confidence in the peace process, when the chances of reaching a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear distant. Now, again, we hear Palestinian voices calling for a return to violent struggle. This seems like an appropriate time to review the history of violent clashes between the two sides--and their outcome.

The hostilities that erupted after the United Nations declared the establishment of two states on November 29, 1947--attacks on Jewish transportation and the siege of Jewish towns--led to an invasion of Israel by the armies of Arab states on the day Israel declared independence, May 15, 1948. Despite massive support for the Arab cause from Britain, this war ended with Israel holding 78 percent of the western Land of Israel, as against 56 percent allotted to it by the UN. A Palestinian state was not established, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes and property and became refugees. A display of violent defiance against a two-state solution ended in a disaster for the Palestinian people.

Acts of sabotage inside Israel carried out by groups within the Palestine Liberation Organization from January 1964 until the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967 produced no political benefit. The June 1967 war, which was intended by the Arabs to cancel the outcome of the 1948-49 war, ended in the conquest by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along with the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula.

Palestinian attacks into Israel and the West Bank that were launched from Jordanian territory generated conflict, indirect and direct, between Israel and Jordan. The result was the expulsion of the Palestinian organizations from Jordan in September 1970--"Black September". This round, too, did not lead to any gains for the Palestinian people.

During the following 12 years, PLO groups established a base in Lebanon from which they undertook a worldwide terror war against Israel. They set up a military infrastructure and launched ground attacks against northern Israel, terrorist attacks in Europe and naval attacks on Israel's Mediterranean coast. Following one naval raid on the coast north of Tel Aviv in which some 30 Israeli citizens were killed, Israel occupied a strip of land in southern Lebanon, which it held until the year 2000.

The PLO continued to fortify its Lebanon base and developed a new military tactic: bombarding Israeli towns with Soviet-made rockets. These rocket salvos disrupted life in northern Israel to the extent that in one instance, in July 1981, the prime minister of Israel was obliged to accept a mutual ceasefire negotiated by American emissary Philip Habib. The PLO's "military option" appeared to have reached its apogee in terms of capacity and impact.

Yet when the Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon in June 1982, the PLO's military alignment collapsed within days, virtually without putting up a fight. The PLO leadership abandoned Beirut for exile in Tunis. It was clear to the Palestinians themselves that the "military option" had failed.

There followed five years of Palestinian political inactivity until, in December 1987, the first intifada erupted. Its significance lay in raising the profile of the "internal" Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as against the "external" leadership in Tunis. By taking their fate in their hands, the residents of the territories affected leadership decisions in both Israel and the PLO.

The violent face of the first intifada was suppressed by force. Yet within less than a year, Israel and the PLO were negotiating secretly in Paris. I represented Israel in those talks, alongside Canadian Jewish Professor Steve Cohen. In November 1988, Israel held general elections and it was agreed that if Labor leader Shimon Peres formed the next government, overt negotiations would begin between the two sides.

But fate intervened. A Molotov cocktail thrown by unaffiliated young Palestinians near Jericho incinerated an Israeli mother and her three children. This horrifying attack took place 60 hours before the polls opened. The next government was formed by Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir.

The signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993 was an outcome not of the first intifada but rather of different developments that can be discussed elsewhere. The wave of terror that visited Israel following Oslo was led by an Iranian-supported organization, Islamic Jihad. Scores of Israelis were murdered in bus and restaurant explosions. These attacks led to victory by Binyamin Netanyahu in the 1996 elections and to the slow death of the Oslo accords.

The next outbreak of violence, the second intifada, took place in September 2000. It was far more armed and violent than the first and, accordingly, destructive for both sides. Some 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians lost their lives. Palestinian society and the Palestinian Authority suffered disastrous damage. The cause of a Palestinian state was not advanced by a single millimeter. The Israeli political right was strengthened, and it never really extended a hand to the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who was courageous enough to criticize Palestinian reliance on violence.

Since 2006, and particularly since Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, armed Palestinian violence has returned, with Gaza as its base. The suffering of 1.5 million Gazans and the frustration of any chance for an agreed Israeli-Palestinian solution are the indisputable outcome.

This, then, is a brief historical reply to the question: whom has violence served. But it is incomplete without the Israeli side. We too have learned that this conflict has no military solution. Our military might is necessary for victory in war, yet it cannot produce an agreement. For that, there is no alternative to negotiations, particularly when the principles of an agreement are known to all. Both sides to the conflict must recognize this simple fact of life.