Retired Israeli General Moshe Ya'alon has recounted the story of the last decade and a half of folly and woe that followed upon the Oslo Peace Accords here:

http://www.azure.co.il/article.php?id=474 

Ya'alon's piece is excellent. Yet even Ya'alon still holds out hope for eventual "peace with the 'Palestinians'" once their civil society has been transformed, corruption ended, the middle class developed, and suchlike. In this respect he echoes or seconds Sharansky's remarks about democracy not being imposed but created, necessarily, from the bottom up, and requiring the development of a"civil society." Ya'alon, in other words, still has an insufficient grasp of islam, and is therefore not nearly as bleakly rational as Moshe Sharon, the retired Hebrew University professor who, recognizing what Islam inculcates, and what minds on Islam are like, argues that the Israelis themselves must abandon all hope for negotiations, and peace treaties, and permanent changes of Muslim hearts and minds, and simply get on with the business of solidifying control over what Israel now controls, making sure not to surrender a single dunam more, and also to furthering an understanding of Islam in the imperilled countries of Western Europe, one that will,  naturally, also serve to explain and justify Israel's refusal to engage in any more surrenders of tangible assets.

And perhaps Ya'alon's approving reference, en passant, to the Haganah's intolerable firing on the Altalena -- the ship under Avraham Stern (who was killed by the Haganah forces led by a young the Yitzhak Rabin)  was bringing military supplies that were essential to the imperilled  and nearly defenceless Jews of Palestine  -- hints at something that apparently remains within him and that prevents him from following his understanding all the way to where it logically should lead. So after you have read the Ya'alon piece, read one or two of the much bleaker ones by Moshe Sharon on the subject of Islam. Several can be found on-line. They are forthright and very bleak.  The bleaker, the truer. The truer, the safer in the end who read them all will be.  

For some, truths nearly impossible to accept. But they must be accepted. In Israel. In the countries of Western Europe. And, in the end, even in the mighty, not-quite-so-impregnable-as-many-may-once-have-thought United States.