How the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Must End

I have been following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for as long as I can remember. Because it does not directly affect me, I am in a position to look at it objectively. I realize that neither side is fully responsible, that neither side is really trying to end the violence.

It has become extremely clear to me that there is only one way for this to end in peace.

First, we need to accept that Israel is not going away. It is there to stay, and there is nothing the Palestinians can do to stop that. It's not going anywhere.

Secondly, we have to acknowledge that it is going to be a bloody and horrible process, which isn't much different from what's going on right now. Scores of lives will be lost, definitely in the thousands, probably the tens of thousands, possibly upwards of one hundred thousand.

The way it must end is this: a total and crushing defeat of the Palestinian resistance by Israel.

I'm certain that a lot of people will argue this, and that is because they simply have not spent enough time thinking about this and are too stubborn to cede a point. Read on before you reply, as I am going to cover quite a bit.

Why can it not be any other way? Because

1) the Palestinians will never defeat Israel. Israel is simply too powerful, and they could never win. If they <b>could</b> win, it would be the other way around, and I would be saying that the Palestinians needed to crush Israel. But this is laughable.

2) the Palestinians currently support suicide bombing and the killing of innocent civilians as resistance against Israel. By "the Palestinians" I mean "a vast majority of", somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty percent (that's 80%). This is because suicide bombing has not been punished in an extreme enough manner, because Israel has managed to restrain itself. So as long as suicide bombing is a viable option, it will continue, and there will be bloodshed and tit-for-tat responses from Israel. This support has to be crushed.

3) We know that Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (the three most active militant groups involved in this) will attack Israel during times of relative "peace". Therefore, Israel cannot sit back and not respond to attacks, because by doing so they are inviting more attacks.

4) Because of popular support, and the damage it does, Palestinian terror groups will not stop their attacks while they are intact. If they did, this would be perhaps the fastest route toward peace, because it removes Israel's justification for attacking Palestinian targets. However, these groups know this, and they cannot stop because it means they become irrelevant. They also know that they are not going to be severely punished for their attacks, so they are free to continue.

What I forsee happening: Israel stops restraining itself and makes the prospect of suicide bombing so horrifying to the Palestinians (because of the response it will draw) that popular support drops. The public needs to say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! STOP THIS MADNESS!" This can only happen if the public that supports suicide bombing is severely punished as well. This means the killing of "innocent" civilians, albeit those who support the killing of innocent civilians.

Israel will need to completely eradicate the terror groups, and probably their families as well. Hamas support demonstrations and the like will almost certainly need to be attacked by Israeli warplanes and helicopters. Israel will need to take a hard line stance on this, a full-out declaration of war on the militant groups. It must be so miserable to support the groups that no one will do it any more. The Palestinian public must say "Please stop. We will stop supporting Arafat and anyone else that pushes this. We just want a normal life." Many propagandists and misinformed people say that this is what they are saying already, when in fact it is far from their mind set. If that is what they wanted, they would stop their support of those that kill innocent people.

This is obviously not the most ideal solution to the problem, nor is it even a pretty one. It is ugly, and will be ugly when it happens. Unfortunately, it is the only way to end this situation, as it is the only one that removes the root of the problem - the extremists that instigate violence.