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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-902014
Israel Needs a New Security Doctrine
(Jerusalem Post) Shimon Refaeli - 26 years ago, on July 11, 2000, at Camp David, under the auspices of U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in an attempt to reach a permanent-status agreement and bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end. At that time, Israel was prepared to transfer more than 90% of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians and discuss the division of Jerusalem. But despite all the sweeping concessions that were offered, the Palestinians said no. Arafat's rejection exposed the truth: the Palestinians never intended, and still do not intend today, to establish a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. The true and unchanging objective of the Palestinian national movement is the establishment of a state over the entire Land of Israel, on the ruins of the State of Israel. The result of those concessions was the outbreak of the Second Intifada, a planned wave of terrorism that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis. The Camp David Summit definitively shattered the assumption that territorial concessions would bring reconciliation. It proved that the root of the conflict is not Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria, but the very existence of a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel. Even at the point of Israel's maximum willingness to compromise, it became clear that a historic compromise was not the objective of the other side. From this we understand that lasting arrangements are not achieved through territorial gestures, but are built upon strength, deterrence, and security. Only when the other side becomes convinced that it cannot defeat Israel or alter reality through terrorism, international pressure, or rejectionism, and that the continued illusion that the Jewish presence in the region is temporary bears no fruit, will the foundation for a stable and realistic arrangement truly be laid. The writer, a Senior Fellow at the David Institute for National Security Policy, served as a policy assistant to former Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.