How to end the violence of a civil war, Part III

Okay, so now let's look at prior civil wars -- the U.S. Civil War, the South African Civil War, and others -- and see how to end them.

First possibility is the military solution. This was mentioned by BBC earlier. The only military solution that works is Stalin's solution: "No people, no problem." This was the solution used in 1948 with a mass expulsion of 90% of Israel's non-Jewish population as a deliberate policy (see: New Historians). The application of that principle to the West Bank and Gaza Strip requires the mass deportation of the population of the Gaza Strip and West Bank to... where? That is indeed the problem, since these populations lack passports allowing them into any existing country. We all know what happened when Hitler ran into the same problem dealing with his Jewish population (no country willing to accept them), and what his "Final Solution" was to that problem. Let's hope that Israel does not adopt this same "Final Solution" to their Palestinian problem, but it would solve the problem, at least insofar as the West Bank and Gaza Strip are concerned.

What about other military solutions? Nope, won't work, because remember our fundamental principles of ending the violence of a civil war:

1. People become violent when they feel powerless, and being subjected to military force that they have no control over makes them feel powerless.
2. Collective punishment doesn't work (Israel has 30 years of futility proving this point, yet still keeps doing something they know doesn't work, just because, I guess).

Now, the question of Israeli military action against Palestinians is addressed above. But what about the inverse question of Palestinians or surrounding Arab nations using military action against Israel. Will that work to end the violence? Once again, the only military solution that works is "No people, no problem", and justifiably the residents of the world's largest concentration camp for unwanted Jews are not particularly interested in experiencing that "Final Solution" again.

In short, genocide is the only military solution that will work for either the Palestinians or the Israeli government, a situation which has led to a stalemate of violence for the past 25 years as neither side in this new outbreak of civil war (that dates fundamentally to 1968 when Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip) is able (for the Palestinians) or willing (for the Israelis) to commit genocide. Various random attempts to break the stalemate via political action are typically swiftly derailed by subsequent military action re-establishing the stalemate in some slightly different configuration that makes no significant difference in the low hum of violence that keeps going on, and this will continue to be the outcome as long as the delusion that violence will end violence in a civil war continues to be the prevalent view.

Okay, so we know now how not to solve the violence of the Palestinian-Jewish Civil War. Military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip did not work, just as it did not work in the South in the aftermath of the active military campaigns of the American Civil War. Collective punishment did not work, just as it did not work for the Reconstruction government of the South in the Civil War. So now we can turn to what would work... see: the next segment of How to end the Violence of a Civil War.

-- Badtux the History Penguin