According to Steve Chapman, that’s the lesson that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have learned. He writes:

Many Israelis, notably Ariel Sharon, have long fantasized that they could suppress the danger posed by Palestinian terrorism while holding on to everything that matters to them — an undivided Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, ultimate control over the amount of autonomy allowed the Palestinians, and so on.

A lot of Palestinians, including Yasser Arafat, have never abandoned the hope of eventually claiming all the land of Palestine and ridding themselves of the hated Jewish state — and they expect the Israelis to compromise with them anyway.

I think it’s a good point. It’s kind of a prisoner’s dilemma. Each side thinks they can have it all, but they’d both be better off if they compromised and settled for less than what they ultimately want.

But when are two dueling parties most likely to come to the table? When one of two things happens: (1) Both sides come to the realization that they’ll never win the war completely, or (2) one side does win the war convincingly and the other side has no choice but to surrender to "compromise."

And — let’s face it — this is not a war in which either side will ever yield to unconditional surrender. In the meantime, there’s nothing Colin Powell or any U.S. diplomat can do to change that.

To the contrary, as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has pointed out, U.S. involvement does little to improve the chances for Mideast peace, but does a whole lot to make enemies for ourselves among terrorists — and the nations which support them — in the region.

And I think Alan Bock was on track when he argued thusly:

It makes at least as much sense and probably more to suggest that the continuing conviction that the United States will eventually play an increasingly intense and involved role … is as much a deterrent to peace as a goad toward settlement.

If both sides believe that the United States … will eventually have to step in, then neither side has much of an incentive to take the idea of negotiating very seriously.

Read the rest of Bock’s column at Antiwar.com. He makes several good points.