Palestinians evacuate children injured by an Israeli home demolition in the Rafah refugee camp of the southern Gaza Strip. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

The one obvious lesson to be drawn from this summer's conflict between Israel and Hizbullah is that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is indispensable for the two principals, the region and the world. The problem is, a great many people haven't learned a thing.

The Israeli establishment has apparently failed to notice the total bankruptcy of a strategy based on force and unilateralism, and is busy debating technical issues. A consensus now rejects "over-reliance" on air power in the vain hope that better intelligence and more commando forces will produce a better outcome "next time."

Some Israelis and their American supporters are even trying to spin the Lebanon fiasco into some sort of "success," so unwilling are they to acknowledge the political limitations of the science of killing.

Meanwhile, far too many Arabs have been seduced by the illusion of a "divine victory" that may have enhanced Hizbullah's image as a vanguard in the struggle with Israel, but which left much of Lebanon and its economy in ruins. Once again one hears the old siren song that if the Arabs were only united enough, steadfast enough, or religiously fanatical enough, they would defeat Israel on the battlefield.

The truth, of course, is that neither Israel nor the Arabs can improve their position by blowing each other up. Can any Palestinian or Israeli - other than self-serving demagogues - seriously claim to have gained anything from the incessant violence that has wracked the Occupied Territories and, from time to time, Israel since September 2000? Which Palestinian honestly believes that Israel can be driven out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by guerrilla warfare or suicide bombings? Is there a single Israeli still clinging to the delusion that disproportionate force, the unilateral drawing of borders and concrete walls, especially after Hizbullah's rocket attacks, constitute a security strategy?

Related stories Palestinian collapse hurts all Condemned to desolation Gaza's poor struggling to survive in the face of an economic blockade The painful deception How did the latest major round of Israeli-Palestinian violence begin?

The second intifada was a disaster for Palestinian diplomacy because of some of the indefensible tactics that came to define it. Israel's already very poor international reputation suffered badly as well, and took an even more severe blow following its bombardment of Lebanese civilians and infrastructure last July and August. For much of the rest of the world, Israel has become synonymous with racism and brutality, and Palestinians synonymous with terrorism.

Another clear lesson of this summer's bloodletting is that the region, Lebanon above all, will continue to be destabilized as long as there is an ongoing struggle between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is simply extraordinary that some Lebanese commentators would suggest that the best course of action for the international community would be to allow the Israelis and Palestinians to continue to battle it out until exhaustion might bring them closer to an agreement - apparently without recognizing that this sentences Lebanon to the certainty of continued chaos and probable periodic calamity.

It is obvious that Israelis and Palestinians, as well as their neighbors, all urgently require a negotiated agreement to end the conflict. Solid majorities of both peoples consistently say this is what they want. The outlines of such an agreement are well-known: mutual recognition of Israel and a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories with some agreed land-exchanges; both parties' enjoying sovereignty - separate or joint - over Jerusalem; and a compensation package and the return of some refugees, within a framework that does not undermine the concept of two ethno-national states living alongside each other.

To read the full article, please visit the Daily Star's website.