This article was originally published by bitterlemons.org and is republished with permission.

Israeli soldiers prevent Palestinians from passing through Beit Iba checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus.

In the 41 years of Israeli occupation over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel has entertained a range of strategies and approaches for dealing with the Palestinians and the Palestinian territories. This has included strategies that were based on territorial compromise and functional compromise.

From time to time, however, the promotion of an economic approach as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian relations has been mooted. The recent unveiling of Binyamin Netanyahu's "alternative" approach for Israel to use vis-a-vis the Palestinians thus reminds us of several new-old proposals.

There is no doubt that there are many aspects to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including an economic factor. However, neglecting the other aspects and concentrating on the economy would lead Palestinian-Israeli relations down the same path of deterioration and violence that Israel's other approaches have always resulted in.

While it is true that there is a quite clear correlation between Palestinian economic deterioration and extremism, radicalization and violence, the years of occupation and the experiences of both sides have shown that there are other more important factors to the conflict.

Netanyahu's recent statements indicate that his response to the failures of the current Israeli strategy under the Kadima leadership and that of Ariel Sharon before Kadima will be to reduce Palestinian economic hardships and improve Palestinian standards of living in a way that will neutralize hostile attitudes and practices toward Israel and the occupation.

In other words, fill Palestinian stomachs and avoid violence.

In fact, Israel tried this approach in the early 1970s. Then, the rate of unemployment among Palestinians became almost equal to the rate of unemployment in Israel and the per capita income in the Palestinian territories was higher than that in most neighboring Arab countries.

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This was in addition to a relative freedom of movement in both Israel and the Palestinian territories, so much so that that the young generation lost track of where the green line was.

That period also witnessed an unprecedented political and social growth that saw the establishment and flourishing of many mass-based organizations and unparalleled growth in the popularity and activities of local and grassroots political organizations as well as the local branches of the political factions represented in the PLO.

The common denominators of the political and social concerns at that time were the Palestinian aims of achieving self-determination, end of occupation and freedom. At the same time, Palestinians under occupation insisted on identifying with Palestinians around the world, a solidarity expressed through a declared loyalty to the Palestinian political leadership that at the time was outside the territories.

These widely popular positions and demands surfaced in successive waves of popular uprisings and were reflected in the results of local elections in 1976. The insistence of the Palestinian people to end the occupation and achieve independence ultimately culminated in the first intifada of 1987. That finally caused the Israeli leadership to conclude that there had to be a solution based on ending the occupation, at least partially, and that such a solution needed to be reached by political means rather than by force.

Israel later tried a completely different approach with Sharon's unilateral strategy, which was based on determining the future of the Palestinian territories and Palestinian-Israeli relations by force without the need for negotiations or agreements. That approach included the withdrawal from Gaza, the erection of the illegal wall in and around the West Bank and the consolidation of settlements in the West Bank, especially in and around Jerusalem. The failure of this approach, symbolized most radically when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, renewed the debate in Israel over the best approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Ehud Olmert's era was a reflection of this confusion. Netanyahu, who appears the strongest candidate to win next year's elections, thus needed to present a different strategy. But instead of learning the lessons of all the previous and failed approaches, he is trying to revive this old-new trick of an economic solution.

Israel should have learned by now that the essence of the conflict is the occupation. The one thing that all past Israeli approaches have had in common is a desire to maintain Israeli control over all or part of the occupied territories. But there will be no end to the conflict without an end to occupation in a way that allows Palestinians to enjoy their natural rights of independence, self-determination and statehood. Until then, Israel can continue to go through the range of its same old policies. These only generate reasons for hostility, hatred and violence.

Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He is vice-president of Birzeit University and a former Palestinian Authority minister of planning. He holds a PhD in Middle East politics from the University of Durham.