Daniel Pipes sums it up.
Fortunately, at least one prominent Israeli politician advocates Israeli victory over the Palestinian Arabs. Uzi Landau notes simply that "when you're in a war you want to win the war." He had hoped to lead Likud in the current election but failed to win anything approaching a majority in his party and is ranked 14th on the election list this week, not even high enough to guarantee him a parliamentary seat. With Likud itself expected to get less than 15% of the popular vote, it is clear how deeply unpopular Israelis presently find the idea of winning their war.
And so, they experiment with compromise, unilateralism, enriching their enemies, and other schemes. But as Douglas MacArthur observed, "In war, there is no substitute for victory." The Oslo diplomacy ended in dismal failure and so will all the other schemes that avoid the hard work of winning. Israelis eventually must gird themselves to resuming the difficult, bitter, long, and expensive effort needed to convince the Palestinians and others that their dream of eliminating Israel is defunct.
Should Israelis fail to achieve this, then Israel itself will be defunct.
Unfortunately, it appears that Landau will in fact lose his Knesset seat. And the man who will lead Israel's next government? He's already acknowledged that he's both "tired of fighting," and "tired of winning." Chaval, indeed.
