Subject: Re: Hmmmm
The correct answer (that will never happen) is to pull back to the legal borders of Israel, and take the lesson that both the US and USSR had to learn at different times: you can't kill an idea with bombs.

You can't kill an idea with bombs. But you can all-but-destroy a terrorist organization by killing its members and leadership, if you really try. Just look at al Qaeda. The "brand" of al Qaeda is still out there, of course - but the actual organization that committed the 9/11 attacks has been eliminated.

It is very hard for countries to squash domestic insurgencies/rebellions in faraway theaters. The insurgents are fighting for their lives, and the foreign countries always have the option of leaving - and because they have the option of leaving, they face an asymmetrical set of consequences for ending the fighting. So the foreign powers eventually give up, if the insurgency/rebels fight enough. Which is why the US and USSR took the "lessons" that they did.

But that does not apply to local insurgencies or rebellions. There's no retreating across an ocean (or being a Kazakhstan away). It's right there. In those circumstances, history is replete with examples of insurgencies/rebellions being ultimately crushed by force of arms by a conventional power. The rebels don't always win. The idea of destroying or pushing out the conventional power might still linger - no doubt there are aboriginal populations around the world that think about having self-determination - but the organizations and armed forces that might act on those ideas are utterly gone.