Analysis: War is a cruel business

War is a cruel business and needs to be looked at accordingly. All the hype of trying to ensure minimum civilian casualties is good for public relations and added headaches for those who plan wars. If civilian casualties truly have to be stopped and "collateral damage" (the military euphemism for civilians who get in the way of its bullets, bombs, rockets, missiles and airplanes) is to be avoided, there exists a far simpler way: Avoid going to war.
Of course, resolving a conflict peacefully requires far more diplomacy and patience as well as understanding of the other side's needs and fears. Resolving a conflict peacefully also means being able to project one's self in the other side's state of mind in order to better understand its position at the negotiating table. However, the deep intransigence shown by the political leaders in the Middle East conflict has demonstrated time and again the inability of the leadership to think and react beyond their ingrained animal survival instincts.

War, as we know, is the failure of diplomacy, but ultimately armed conflict is also the failure of those diplomats and politicians to achieve what they have been chosen, elected or self-appointed (as the case may be in some parts of the world) to do.

Time will tell if Israel's latest war in the Gaza Strip was justified or not, from a historical and a military point of view. Let's put aside momentarily all ethical and humanitarian questions in this war, because it would be impossible to establish a fair basis for either. By that I mean that both sides are guilty. It really does not matter who started the fight. It remains impossible to justify the firing of Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians by Hamas; it remains unacceptable to continue to terrify a quarter of a million people and believe that there would not be severe consequences to pay.

Just as it is unimaginable and unacceptable to justify the killing of some 500 people in retaliation for rockets which in turn have claimed the lives of "only" five people.

I say "only" because every one of those five lives, much like every one of those 500 lives on the Palestinian side, represents an entire life. Each one of those deaths is someone who had a mother, father, possibly a sister or brother, a son and/or a daughter, or more. Each one of those lives is a human tragedy.

And so the Middle East fights another war in its long history of armed conflict, the eighth war since the founding of the state of Israel, and that's not counting border skirmishes, intifadas, air raids, suicide bombings, targeted assassinations and a whole sundry list of similar activities.

The question that needs to be asked (by both sides) is the following: What has armed conflict achieved in the Middle East conflict? Of all the wars fought on this disputed piece of real estate, it would be safe to say that the vast majority have contributed to making the Arab-Israeli conflict more complex.

In all the wars fought in the Middle East since the start of the Arab-Israeli dispute, only one -- the October 1973 War -- helped pave the way toward peace. The rest have regressed the peace process.

Why was the October War any different? Because of the June 1967 war.

The war that started on June 5, 1967 produced two very important results, which in turn had a direct impact on the region and its conflict for generations.

First, the Six-Day War humiliated the Arabs more than on the battlefield. In the aftermath of the Arab world's gravest defeat in the region's modern history, and the terrible loss of face it represented, the defeat of 1967 made it impossible for the Arabs to negotiate with Israel after such a loss of face. That needed to be rectified before any peace discussions could get under way. This condition set the tone for the October (or Yom Kippur) War of 1973.

Second, defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan by Israel also showed the Palestinians they needed to take their destiny into their own hands -- and thus, the creation of the Palestinian fedayeen, or guerrillas, to begin fighting an unconventional war against Israel.

The period following the June war became a time of reflection and soul searching in the Arab world.

The October 1973 War gave the Arabs an initial victory. It allowed the Syrians to achieve some initial headway on the Golan front (before they were repulsed by the Israelis), just as Egypt initially crossed the Suez Canal and stormed the Bar Lev Line, believed to be "impregnable."

The end result of the 1973 war was that the Egyptians, at least, felt absolved of the defeat of 1967 and now felt they could negotiate face to face with Israel. And that eventually led to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and subsequently with Jordan and eventually with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The other wars only helped stoke the flames of the conflict.

How will Gaza fare in comparison with the other conflicts? Why will this latest war in be any different? Time will tell.

(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times and a political analyst in Washington.)