Dr Clam said

Do you notice that you have implicitly assumed my definition of what an Israeli win would constitute, since striking against suspected terrorists anyplace, anytime, is certainly acting towards the "denying the Palestinians what they want" war aim? :)

Oh, sorry, I meant to "Explicitly" assume your definition of what an Israeli win would be (That's why I asked the question) for argument's sake, and that they are in a state of war (I'm not sure about that one but we'll assume it anyway). Perhaps, we can assume that a win for Palestine would be to grow up and obtain "status" as a country, but a stalemate with the current intifada continuing indefinitely would be the next best thing. Now, an assumption the Israelis make is that the elected leader of the PLO "ought" to be able to control its "army" the way Israel controls its. Now I find it hard to swallow, because, correct me if I'm wrong, the various terrorist organisations are essentially private multinational units that profit from the war continuing (Adam Smith's invisible hand working again)and even though they "battle" (ie. kill innocent Israelis) nominally on behalf of the Palestinians, they don't care whether the palestinians are closer to their goal of statehood. A bigger problem is that these terror units are better armed than any security the democratically elected PLO leader has access to. So in a sense, Israel "ought" to arm the PLO leader if they are going to make that assumption. Adam Smith's invisible hand will also work on the Israeli side, because the army will continue to get more money while the battle continues. The net political and economic motivations are for the battle to keep raging - this is the cycle, not "morally equivalent" tit for tat retributions that happen in certain other conflicts.