In an article titled "Israel Shuns Victory," Daniel Pipes says, "As Israelis go to the polls, not one of the leading parties offers the option of winning the war against the Palestinians. It’s a striking and dangerous lacuna."
He helpfully summarizes where each party stands on the question of the Palestinian conflict and concludes: "All manage the conflict without resolving it. All ignore the need to defeat Palestinian rejectionism. All seek to finesse war rather than win it."
And so, they experiment with compromise, unilateralism, enriching their enemies, and other schemes. But as Douglas MacArthur observed, “In war, there is no substitute for victory.” The Oslo diplomacy ended in dismal failure and so will all the other schemes that avoid the hard work of winning. Israelis eventually must gird themselves to resuming the difficult, bitter, long, and expensive effort needed to convince the Palestinians and others that their dream of eliminating Israel is defunct.
Should Israelis fail to achieve this, then Israel itself will be defunct.
UPDATE: Pipes elaborates his point in an April 5, 2006 article. It concludes with the following paragraph, though the whole needs to be read.
Ironically, Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian war morale would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinians. It would mean their finally giving up their foul dream of eliminating their neighbor and would offer a chance instead to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and culture. To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinians need to undergo the crucible of defeat.