Some added comments Pournelle made since yesterday, at the same site. Appended onto previous comments:

Israel must understand that they can claim as much of Judea and Samaria as they want, but they will have to deal with the Israel-hating inhabitants, and while the US is willing to help with compensation (and US private citizens will as well) the resources aren't infinite, and claiming too much of the territories will have terrible consequences. Not to be snide, but take all you want, but eat all you take.



I think any competent military strategist could draw reasonable boundaries between Israel and Palestine. The Palestinian State will necessarily be broken into non-contiguous parts, and travel between Gaza and Nablus is likely to require a restricted access highway. That's still cheaper than war. Jewish settlers outside the new line will have to be brought inside it.

Palestinians inside the new borders of Israel will be the greatest difficulty. The military will want to pay them off and drive all of them out. Humanitarians will want to give them a chance to become non-Jewish citizens of Israel, subject to Israeli law, and subject to charges of treason. There will come serious questions: if one member of a family commits acts of war against Israel, is Israel justified in expelling the surviving members of the "freedom fighter's" family? To what degree of kinship? Will the sins of the sons be visited on the mother? I am glad that isn't my problem; but were I an Israeli I would rather have that problem than continue with years and years of what is going on.

Good soldiers do not make good butchers. They do not make good "peace keepers." Professional soldiers, some of them, can break things and kill people without working themselves into a killing rage; but most citizens in arms can't do that. The Western Way of War has always been to get it over with, go crush the enemy and get back to our lives. In the past that has involved razing cities, slaughter of the inhabitants, and selling survivors as slaves. That was very nearly the fate of Athens after the Peloponnesian War, and it was the fate Athens meted out to some of her enemies. All this in aid of getting the war over with. Citizen soldiers are not suited to long wars without clear goals.

The Israeli command has to know this. The incentive to do what it takes to get this over with has to be overwhelming. I know of no way to get it over with except establishing borders and building walls and barbed wire fences and mine fields and check points, and separating peoples who can no longer live together. Until that happens little will change in the Middle East.