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Notes -
I'm not sure this post proves what you want it to re: the utility/necessity of reprisals. As I read it, it claims that the insurgencies in Iraq were broken by:
(1) coopting moderate factions inside the (Sunni) insurgencies and relying on them to do the dirty work themselves (does anyone want to bet that those Sunni militias didn't target civilian supporters of the radical factions as well as combatants under arms?), or (2) allowing the (Shiite) insurgencies to more-or-less achieve their objectives, which included withdrawal of US troops and ethnic cleansing of enemy civilians from insurgent-controlled areas.
Neither of those are particularly happy outcomes, and neither would be acceptable in the Israeli/Palestinian context.
What do you think ‘acceptable’ means? I’m pretty sure that Israel will ethnically cleanse Gaza and get away with it in a way that west-of-hajnal populations couldn’t. Frankly I shed few tears for the plight of the poor Palestinians despite it being horrible what happens to them.
I apologize, I think I was not clear. What I meant was that the OIF comment @Ben___Garrison cited itself does not provide convincing examples of the proposition that a partisan war can be handled without reprisal against civilians, because the methods described both explicitly involved significant intracommunal violence up to and including actual ethnic cleansing.
Personally, I think physical relocation and/or separation can be, but isn't always, a solution to intracommunal violence. More important, to my mind, is that a situation be reached whereby all parties agree that one side has conclusively triumphed, the other has conclusively lost, and that further conflict is futile to change this result. That's the only way that both parties will settle down and start funneling resources into building their own prosperity rather than attempting to destroy/displace the other.
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Gaza is already ethnically spotless.
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