Lesson #3: The Occupation is Hurting Israel's Ability to Fight Other Threats

For a couple of decades now, the primary purpose and focus of Israel's military has been implementation of the occupation in the Palestinian Territories. Just the U.S. occupation of Iraq has proved to be a distraction against the fight against terrorism in other areas, in particular the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories and its continued expansion of illegal settlements, have distracted its attention away from other, larger, existential threats. Worse, it has eroded Israel's moral authority and given cause and justification to its enemies.

The Israeli author David Grossman, a peace advocate whose son was recently killed while serving with the IDF in Lebanon, makes this clear in his article "Mistaken Path" from ynetnews.com. "For nearly 40 years," Mr. Grossman explains, "Israel's development as a nation, a society and as a country has been displaced to a barren, mistaken path that has led Israel to a dead end. A large part of Israel's internal discourse has been conducted around the question of occupation, or at least with some link to it. Other meaningful debates, and dealing seriously with Israel's real problems and with the truly threatening dangers that lie ahead have been pushed aside."

He continues: "I am concerned: What will we do the day we really have to fight, when we face a greater, more complex threat than anything we have previously known, but the army is unprepared because it has spent decades policing the occupation?

"The IDF has been occupied all these years with clashing with Palestinian civilians and settlers alike. All these years, all our blood has gone towards the occupation and its complications, the occupation and its hallucinations. The occupation became the largest national, economic and identity project Israel has ever known.

"This latest clash makes an agreement with the Palestinians even more urgent: The occupation must end, not because it will be "Ëœgood for the Palestinians', but rather because only thus will Israel be able to return quickly to a military and diplomatic agenda such a fragile country needs."