How do we win without war?

The title of the article is inspired by the title of US President Richard Nixon's book "Victory Without War". After Israel's defeat in the 1973 war, the US president believed that military confrontation was a risk, and that superiority in armaments did not mean a guarantee of victory. He wrote his aforementioned book. His main idea was based on the question: How do we win without war? No price. One of the effective weapons, according to Nixon, is launching an intensive media campaign against the enemy, and the other weapon, which is no less important than the first, is possessing the forefront of science and technology and preventing that from the enemy, and the enemy in its concept is one who refuses to obey. By science, germ warfare is meant. On the other hand, the American writer Joseph Nye answered this question with soft power, which is no longer the monopoly of major powers only, but all countries and peoples possess this power and vary in its degrees. This question applies to Arab-Israeli relations, and is being raised today at the Palestinian-Israeli level. Was war as an option succeeded in resolving the conflict in favor of one of the two parties? In the Arab world, war has dominated relations, so we witnessed five wars that did not achieve their goal, as it is said that war is an extension of politics, and the 1973 war may be a translation of this saying that it ended with the signing of peace agreements between Egypt and Israel after Egypt succeeded in regaining its land in the Sinai that Israel occupied in the 1967 war And to open the door to peace treaties with more than one Arab country. The conviction in these treaties is that war is not the best option for any party to end the conflict. Neither Israel is able to defeat the Arab countries, nor the Arab countries are able to defeat Israel because of the alliance and the American commitment to the security and survival of Israel. Not to mention that these wars cost huge material and human losses, which explains the economic problems that the region is suffering from today. This is on the Arab side, and what about the Palestinian and Israeli sides? First: The Israeli force cannot be compared to the military force possessed by the Palestinian resistance factions. Second: The concept of war does not apply to the Palestinian-Israeli situation, in the sense that Israel, with the power it possesses, can destroy all the Palestinian lands, and on its part the resistance today, with its relatively advanced weapons, and by virtue of the geographical contiguity, can inflict great losses on Israel, meaning that we are facing a model and the option of demolishing the temple. over everyone's heads. Third: The military option on the Palestinian level requires budgets and large financial spending that is not available, and if it is available in a limited amount, it will be at the expense of spending and economic structure, which means high poverty and unemployment. One of the conditions for a successful war is to provide a strong economic and social structure capable of withstanding. Fourth: Geographical determinants, land unity, overlapping, and demographic overlaps turn war into a destructive option. What confirms these hypotheses is that Israel has launched four wars on Gaza, causing it great damage, increasing the rate of poverty and unemployment to more than fifty percent, and turning the Palestinian people in Gaza into an unproductive dependent people waiting for aid. Also, Israel, despite its great power that exceeds the capabilities of other countries, cannot take the option of war far.

The question is what is the alternative to war?... The answer is found in the book "The Art of War" by the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who wrote it 2,500 years ago. In the book, he sets time stages for defeating the opponent, and says: The best way to defeat the opponent is to nullify and corrupt all that he represents in terms of sayings, narratives, values, and ethics. And not to be left to live as he wants, and to give advice to pretend to be weak when you are strong, and to pretend to be strong when you are weak. And he gives advice to the Palestinian case, when he is comfortable, start by exhausting him, and do not let him be comfortable. For his part, the Soviet Yuri Bezinov, believes that the conflict goes through four stages, the first is the overthrow of morals, which is a stage that needs 15-20 years, and the second is destabilization and requires 2-5 years. What is meant here is to stoke ethnic and sectarian strife, then the stage of crisis, which may result in a civil war.

Far from this chronology and its application to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the lesson here is the general meaning of these stages that we see today in Israel and what it suffers from internal crises that threaten its survival and existence. The key to defeating Israel is from the inside and not from the outside. The outside unites Israel and the inside highlights the contradictions within it.

The Palestinians possess many elements of soft power and alternative options and approaches to war, the first of which is the demographic component and how to maintain its steadfastness and roots in its land. The second is the strength of historical and civilizational rights that affirm the Palestinian right. The third is the strength of international legitimacy and its activation. The fourth is the establishment of a consensual democratic political system. The fifth is the activation of the role of Arab and Islamic communities in many countries, especially America, which we see some of the harbingers of change and support for the Palestinian side, and we have an example of that. Representatives of Palestinian origins in the US Congress, the sixth is restoring the status of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world and internationally, and the seventh is employing Arab peace to end the occupation by giving Israel the choice between peace and war. The eighth is adopting the one-state option by exposing the racism of Israeli policies and the illusion of Israeli democracy. It remains that if the Palestinians possessed nuclear power, it would not achieve peace for them. Rather, building peace with the strength of previous approaches and options is sufficient to create pressure forces on Israel and make the occupation costly and its price is high through popular peaceful resistance. Finally, how do we make the power of peace defeat the peace of power.

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