zlacker

>>ahmetc+(OP)
Why though, what does it achieve? Do they want to make sure that there will be terrorists / freedom fighters in the future so that they have a reason not to negotiate? Because they expect to "win" if violence continues?

>>ahartm+e5
From Israel's perspective, Palestinians are a problem. Long term, they have a few options:

1) Give them their own state. This is difficult for quite many reasons, and Israel (by which I mean the current government) doesn't want that

2) Give them full citizenship rights equal to Israel's citizens, make sure they have a proper minority representation, and let them participate in the regular political processes. The current government certainly doesn't want that, and I have no idea what part of the Palestinians would want that.

3) Continue to treat them as sub-human, and deal with the consequences of the hatred that fosters. That seems to have been the "strategy" before October last year.

4) Try to exterminate or exile them, or at least decimating them to such an extend that the problem becomes smaller.

Since 1) and 2) are (again, from the perspective of Isreal's government) undesirable, and 3) has stopped working, 4) seems to be their current strategy.

>>perlge+L9
Ongoing war has been a crucial component of the current government's re-election campaigns for decades, so any option that ends the war is a non-starter.

I fear their plan is to expand military operations into additional countries until they can get back into a pseudo-stalemate scenario. That'd explain the bombings in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.