It is time to let Hamas lose

Anne Applebaum:

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... the trouble with all of these peace efforts, peace conferences, peace initiatives and peace proposals is that none of them recognizes the most obvious fact about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It's not a peace process; it's a war. At the moment, at least, both parties are still convinced that their central aims will be better obtained through weapons and military tactics than through negotiations of any kind. To be more explicit, Hamas and its followers believe that the continuing firing of rockets into southern Israel will, sooner or later, result in the dissolution of the Jewish state. The Israelis -- both on the "peacenik" left and the more bellicose right -- believe that the only way to prevent Hamas from firing rockets is to fight back. Intervention -- whether by well-meaning Europeans, U.N. delegations, Russian envoys (or even Condoleezza Rice, who has wisely stayed home, so far) -- can postpone the conflict but cannot halt the violence, at least not until one side or the other surrenders.

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Until then, there is no point in bemoaning the passivity of the Bush administration, the silence of Barack Obama, the powerlessness of Arab leaders or the weakness of Europe, as so many, predictably, have begun to do. It's no outsider's "fault" that the fighting continues, and pretending otherwise merely obscures the real issues. Diplomats might be able to slow its progress, but this war won't be over until someone has won.

This conflict has lasted sixty years because outsiders are always intervening to keep it going under the guise of a peace process. That has prolonged the conflict and the misery of both sides.