The constructive destruction option

David Satterfield, the low-level U.S. envoy sent to Jerusalem about two months ago, took some time off to attend a strategic briefing by Major General Giora Eiland and senior IDF General Staff officers in Tel Aviv. One of the options for resolving the crisis in the territories suggested by the officers was the "constructive destruction" option: laying waste to the Palestinian Authority, reinstating full Israeli control of the kind that existed before the first intifada, and reaching an imposed settlement with obedient canton administrators. Although the generals quickly wiped the constructive destruction option from their slate, echoes of it reached Jerusalem and Washington. (...)

Another Palestinian minister told an Israeli friend this week that an increasing number of Palestinians are convinced that the only choice Sharon has left them is between another naqba (catastrophe) and a return to the days of enlightened occupation. He says the Palestinians will fight to the last bullet. That is the real road map.
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