Karen

In 1955, Egypt's Nasser started Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), and in 1964 added its political wing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Both organizations were designed for the "liberation of all the Palestinian soil," i.e. the annihilation of Israel. PLA collapsed. PLO became both, political and military. Together with Syria and Jordan, Nasser lost the 1967 war against Israel, and in 1968, lost the PLO to Arafat (Saudi). After 1973 Egypt and Syria's defeat to Israel, and Gulf oil embargo's flop, all Arab military plans fizzled away and were replaced by getting Palestine, or part of if, through peaceful means. Egypt, Saudi (and Arafat), Jordan settled for whatever they could get to construct a Palestine, the radicals (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Algeria) and a majority of Palestinians (including American Palestinians i.e. Said, Khalidi) insisted on the whole land. The Arafat faction went for two-state. The rest designed a non-military plan to annihilate Israel based on the South African blueprint that forced racial segregation (apartheid) regime to collapse. A major factor behind Black South African success against apartheid were US colleges and their divestment campaigns. Therefore, Palestinians designed an identical own boycott and divestment plan, and enlisted US colleges. This is where the radicalism that you're seeing today at Columbia, Harvard, and other US colleges, encouraged by America's own militant identity politics, is coming from. The only problem for the peaceful plan to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestine is that while the South African case was a slam dunk, the Palestinian case is weak and riddled with illogical arguments and demands. The Palestinian case flares up during war, when global sympathy with civilian casualties surge. If Palestinians ever abandon their idea of destroying Israel, there will be tons of possible peace outcomes for this century-old conflict. The world understands this, which makes a repeat of the South African experience improbable since South Africa had only one way out -- dismantling the existing regime. Israel is not South Africa and the Palestinians are not helpless victims like Black South Africans. The faster US college kids understand that, the more trouble they will save their colleges and the more money they will save mom and dad.