Nine Wars Too Many
Let's run down the list: A majority of Israelis are fighting a war for the right of a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East, roughly along the pre-1967 borders. But a minority in Israel today want a Jewish state within the pre-1967 lines and a Jewish state in the West Bank and Gaza. This was amply demonstrated by Bibi Netanyahu's stunt at the recent Likud Party convention, where he tried to advance his political career and embarrass Ariel Sharon by getting the lunatic core of the Likud to reject any Palestinian state ever in the West Bank. These Israeli rightists and settlers deliberately label any Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as "terrorism" in order to rope the U.S. into supporting Israel's continued hold on the occupied territories as part of America's global war on terrorism. Beware.

The same is true inside the Bush administration. The State Department sees the Mideast war as a war over Israel's 1967 boundaries, and its focus is "conflict resolution" — diplomacy aimed at getting Israel to trade occupied land for peace. But over at the Pentagon, the view is that Yasir Arafat is no different from Osama bin Laden, and the other Arab leaders are worthy only of contempt. The Pentagon sees the Israeli war to crush Mr. Arafat as an extension of the U.S. war on terrorism and believes that the most you can do with Arabs and Israelis today is "conflict management," not conflict resolution.

This view is reinforced by the fact that the Palestinians are fighting two wars. Yes, many Palestinians are simply fighting to get Israel out of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem so they can establish a state there — not because they acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in pre-1967 Israel, but because they know they lack the power to eliminate it. But some Palestinians, and Mr. Arafat is among them, have not abandoned hope of establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza today — through diplomacy and armed struggle — and a Palestinian state in pre-1967 Israel tomorrow — through a baby boom and securing the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees. Israel still does not appear on many of Mr. Arafat's maps. So let's cut the nonsense that the only thing that all Palestinians want is an "end to the Israeli occupation." I wish that were true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/opinion/15FRIE.html