Wars & Civil Wars

Submitted by Ludvikus (United States), Jan 22, 2018 at 09:11

It is important to distinguish Civil Wars from other kinds of wars, especially those among different countries.

The American Civil War is a complicated counter-example because it was a country, the United States, composed of a collection of other "countries," the states. The South maintained it wanted to return to the original Confederation (of countries), and called the rebelling 13 countries the Confederacy. But when the North won, the Union was established - a more "perfect" Union, an anti-oxymoron is such a thing is possible.
Nevertheless, because it was won as a civil war, it took another 100 years, until the 1960's to resolve or conclude.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more like a civil war than an international war - Palestinians are attempting to secede from greater Israel. Such a war ends much later than a regular international war, especially since other countries have a say in which "secession" is supported.

Nevertheless, Daniel Pipes is correct, to the extent that Israel must define its Victory, by which it is to define its frontiers on its own terms. However, contrary to the expectations of Palestinians, time is on the side of the Israelis - the longer it takes to conclude this civil war the more land will Israel acquire. The strategy of the Palestinians, to stick to its maximum irredentist demands, the less likely will the dispute be resolved in favor of the Palestinians. Accordingly, it may be argued that "peace" is not favorable to Israel in relation to winning over the Palestinians directly. In fact, even the other Arab and Muslim war-enemies of Israel are loosing momentum in the struggle against Israel; Israel is getting stronger in historic time while Muslims and Arab countries are literally disintegrating as in Iraq and Syria and even Iran.

So, counter-intuitively, a state of war against Israel appears in the interest of Israel, not the Palestinians.

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