Since there will be no more carrot in the offing, one has to assume that there will be a lot more stick. If so, it will not work. Surely it must be obvious by now that after over half a century, a policy aimed at breaking the Palestinian spirit has failed. They will not submit, no matter how high the cost and no matter how long they must suffer. Surely the second intifada has made that clear.
Palestinian irredentism is incandescent and inextinguishable.
It is a sheet of flame with which the Palestinians will light their future or by which they will be consumed. Force has already resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded. At least 1,000 are said to have sustained serious, permanent injuries. It has been estimated that over a thousand acres of olive groves, factories and other buildings have already been leveled. In Gaza there is almost 50 percent unemployment.