Tom, you’re excluded, but only because you celebrate with those other guys.

Now we have the rockets and the occasional attacks, many of which have been on military targets. I prefer attacks on the IDF than on civilians, don’t you? In the meantime, the IDF kills a handful of their bad guys every day and doesn’t have to deal with control over another million or more Palestinians. No checkpoints, no house searches in the middle of the night, many fewer engagements with the enemy, and no situations where because of 7000 non-Palestinian inhabitants, you end up using your force as an army to quell resistance by so many others. Gaza is better off as far from Israeli possession as possible. It’s not just me thinking this, but it has now been two consecutive Israeli governments including one, currently that is led by both the center right and center left parties. Do you think you know something these guys don’t? You think they haven’t assessed whether they should go back in there?

Finally, with respect to leaving Samaria, I don’t know what I think. I think Israel should be out of there, but having Hamas take over that territory would create a difficult situation for Israel AND Jordan. Do I think the settlers should be out of there? Unless they are willing to live under Palestinian rule, the answer is yes. West of the fence or even back to the Taba offer lines is where I want to see Israeli habitation under Israeli rule end. Not because it shouldn’t be in Israel’s hands but because it has cost Israel much more to have it and it costs much more to hang on to it than is good for the country as a whole.

BenDavid, Ephraim, and me have been saying this all along. I’ve been saying this explicitly here since I discoverd the comunity. I don’t expect any kudos from you, but admitting that the ‘disengagement’ was a big mistake would be a good starter.

And yes, the Arabs are simply not ready. The problem is that the Israelis and their week leaders think if they do unilateral things, they can live happily ever after. Someone has to wake them up and remind them that geo-politics is not the same as fighting with an ex or the cousins you can’t stand.

I didn’t say ignore the Pals, Tom. Israel should respond forcefully when Hamas attacks Israel and continue to talk to Abbas about how many new garbage trucks he needs.

But, ultimately it doesn’t matter. You point out correctly that Hamas is doing all it can to provoke a major confrontation. Iran is behind this. They are driving things now, as I said, and peace is the furthest thing from their minds. Any Israeli plan has to take this into account.

For all of Abbas’s flaws, it’s to Israel’s advantage to continue talking with him. Middle’s right, the PA has the UN and much of world opinion on its side. It’s also true, though, that the UN, EU, world opinion etc. constrain the Abbas regime, moderate it to a large extent. A fairly quiescent West Bank is greatly to be preferred to Hamas-style radicalism. So, even if the ‘peace process’ yields nothing of real substance, it helps control Palestinian behavior.

Conversely, Olmert gives up nothing in periodically meeting with Abbas. (Surely the risk-averse Olmert isn’t carving up Jerusalem behind the public’s back.)

I can’t see how talks necessitate a zero-sum outcome, in which benefits to the Palis = harm to Israel. Put the Palis in charge of collecting trash in Jenin and Ramallah. As far as I know, even the Israeli hard right doesn’t advocate reoccupying the whole of the West Bank. Don’t virtually all Israelis support some form/extent of withdrawal? So put Abbas in charge of land Israel doesn’t want.

What’s the case for ignoring the Palis altogether? What benefit flows from that?

They should do what Egypt does when the Pals threaten to blow up the border again and invade Sinai: they put troops on the border and said that if the Pals blew down the border wall like they did a little while ago, they would shoot the Pals down “like rats” if they set foot on Egyptian territory.

Guess what happened? The Pals didn’t do it. Why? Because unlike Israel, when Arabs say to other Arabs that they will shoot them down like rats, they know they mean busisness.

OK, so the status quo is unsustainable. Fine. What would you have Israel do to change this? Negotiate concessions to an enemy that is committed to Israel’sdestruction? How would this help?Would it not just make the Pals stronger and Israel weaker?

Olmert is poison. He may be tired of fighting and winning, but somehow I think that most Israelis would find the alternative just a little less pleasant. He needs to go and be replaced with someone who is not such a defeatist.

Negotiations assume that a peaceful solution is possible through talking. The only thing that the Pals can offer Israel is a cessation of violence. Until that happens first, talking is worse than useless, since the Pals see they can get something without putting down their weapons. How can that accomplish anything?

In any case, Iran is driving everything now. There is no longer any independent Palestinian position, if indeed there ever was one to begin with (which I doubt). At some point Israel will be forced to battle Hamas in earnest whether they like it or not.

Sharon made Netanyahu, who is a fairly astute guy, look like a young puppy searching for his tail and then month in and month out showed incredible political survival skills. Olmert hasn’t shown the same strategic depth and also doesn’t seem to have a grander plan beyond survival, but he is an incredibly capable survivor and continues to outsmart everybody around him .

I suspect that if I had access to interview Olmert, it would also turn out combative. The man sits under a cloud and he thinks it’s unjustified.

Have you read Jeffrey Goldberg’s cover story in the Atlantic magazine? Apart from his extraordinarily combative interview with Olmert, it poignantly depicts the sense across much of the Israeli political spectrum that the status quo is unsustainable. Olmert’s remarks last year that Israel was ‘tired of winning’ put it quite directly.

You and Ephraim note the Palis’ propaganda successes (which really are dazzling, Orwellian, actually). But where Ephraim is mistaken, or at a minimum out of step with the Israeli political establishment, is that no negotiations isn’t an option. No negotiations means the status quo, which is unsustainable… why? Because at the end of the day, the Palestinians have something to give; they have leverage. (Mutatis mutandis, Kim Jong-il.) They can’t destroy Israel, but, with seeming impunity, they can deprive it of a normal life. This insight may be the Palis’ greatest strategic achievement to date.

I think ignoring what these guys are saying stems from not taking them seriously. I don’t mean you, Tom, but I think there’s an element of condescension towards the Arabs in the West. This is especially true among the useful idiots on the far Left. They speak as if they can help the Arabs where the Arabs can’t help themselves.

And yet, the Palestinians have done okay for themselves. They get the UN, EU and US to fund their existence for 60 years, with no end in sight. They get the world to believe that they’re the peace-seekers, not the Israelis. They have turned the equation of victim and attacker backwards in terms of historical definition of the Arab-Israeli conflict. They own the UN, as the ambassador points out genially. Most important, they are making headway inside Israeli society regarding what the territorial and even nationalistic red lines are. Twenty years ago, an Israeli PM wouildn’t dare to mention dividing Jerusalem but today it’s discussed openly as if there is no alternative. As the ambassador points out, if the Palestinians can cross that red line successfully, it will so seriously weaken the backbone of what constitutes Israel and its core beliefs, that taking over the rest of it might not be as challenging as these early steps.

It’s important to hear and read to what these guys are saying and it’s even more important to listen and understand that they’re not playing. They’re dead serious.