You have to live with these people

Tom Segev, in Haaretz:

During the past 39 years since the Six-Day War, the United States did not force Israel to pull out of the West Bank, but more than once acted to block Israeli military actions. Over time, we have grown accustomed to the Americans saving us, not only from the Arabs, but from ourselves too. Not in this war. It is still unclear whether this war was coordinated with the United States; only the release of government records of the past three weeks will shed light on this. Whatever the case may be, the impression is that the Americans are linking the events in Lebanon to their failing adventure in Iraq....

It is hard to avoid the impression that the routine brutality of oppression in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is also reflected in the unbearable ease with which Israel has forced out of their homes hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and bombed civilians. No less than three weeks have passed, and only now is Rice beginning to make noises suggesting that enough is enough.

If Europe had some say in the region, Israel may have started negotiations with Hezbollah on the release of the soldiers it abducted - and hopefully, it still will do so - instead of getting mixed up in war. For some years now, more Middle East-related wisdom emanates from Europe than from the United States. It wasn't Europe but the United States that invented the diplomatic fable called the road map; it wasn't Europe but the United States that encouraged unilateral disengagement and is allowing Israel to continue oppressing the population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The United States is not engaged with Syria; Europe is. Syria is relevant not only for settling the situation in Lebanon, but also in managing relations with the Palestinians. This is the real problem. Because, even if the United States conquers Tehran, we will still have to live with the Palestinians. In Europe, they already understand this.

We've had enough of the juvenile fantasy that the "bad guys" can be defeated forever and we'll all live happily ever after. Eventually, you have to make peace with these people, even if you still hate them.

I wonder if this is the fundamental difference between Europe and the United States. America has, through military victories, usually destroyed its enemies outright, or so humiliiatingly defeated its enemies that future conflicts have been unthinkable. In Europe, those kinds of victories simply haven't existed. France was never able to destroy Germany, nor vice versa. Russia was never able to crush Finland, for that matter. Finally, after centuries of trying, Europeans have realizes that you can't destroy the enemy - you have to learn to live with them.

Because of their undoubted military prowess, neither Israel not the US have learned that lesson, and it shows in everything they do. Whether it's refusing to talk to the Kim regime in North Korea, or repeatedly smashing the Palestinian leadership into impotence, there's a hostility to the very idea of negotiating, as if it were beneath them.

It should go without saying that this is a very, very dangerous viewpoint for superpwers to hold.