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History is a cruel teacher, even for those who learn. Those who dont, as philosopher George Santayana quipped, are condemned to repeat their mistakes. What, then, can we learn from the history of the Palestinian-Israeli saga? Basically, three interrelated lessons.

• To call the Palestinian- Israeli quagmire a «conflict» is a misnomer. As Norman Podhoretz recently elucidated, the «Palestinian-Israeli conflict» denomination suggests a nonexistent mutuality of intentions in what should be described as the «Palestinian war against Israel.» In fact, Israel has been defending itself against unabated Palestinian aggression for more than 50 years.
• The current Palestinian uprising is not a rebellion against «occupation» but rather the latest violent manifestation of the old Palestinian/Arab enmity toward a Jewish sovereign presence in the land of Israel or Palestine.

As early as 1920, in what at the time was called a pogrom, Palestinian/Arab nationalists attacked the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, killing five and wounding more than 200. In another assault the following year, 90 Jews were murdered and hundreds wounded. In the 1929 Palestinian/Arab attack, 133 Jews were killed and almost 400 wounded. Then, between 1936 and 1939, the «Arab Revolt» took the lives of 2,394 Jews. Each of these intifadas happened before the state of Israel was established. Once the state was founded, the Palestinians launched two more violent uprisings: the first from 1987 to 1992, and the current one initiated in 2000.

But pogroms, revolts or intifadas have not been the only weapons wielded by Palestinian/Arab aggressors. Indeed, Israel found itself under unprovoked military attack on at least five occasions: 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982 and 1991. Of these wars, the first two occurred before the Israeli «occupation» began. Also, the Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964 — three years before Israels capture of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Any fair-minded observer cannot escape the evident conclusion that the Palestinians are fighting not merely Israeli presence in the «territories» but Israel’s presence anywhere in the Mideast.

• All diplomatic proposals based on territorial compromise have been systematically rejected by the Palestinians. In 1937 the British Peel Commission recommended partitioning Palestine into two states: an Arab state on 90 percent of the land, and a Jewish state in the remaining 10 percent.

The Yishuv (as the Jewish community in Palestine was called at the time) fiercely debated this proposal, which departed considerably from past British promises to the Jews, but in the end accepted it. By contrast, the Palestinians/Arabs strongly rejected the proposal at a meeting they convened in Damascus.

Ten years later, a similar situation unfolded. The United Nations adopted Resolution 181, calling for two states in Mandatory Palestine — one Arab, the other Jewish. Again, even though this proposal fell short of its expectations, the Jewish community accepted it; the Arabs did not. Then, only three years after the Holocaust, the latter launched a war of extermination against the newly born state of Israel.

After the 1967 war, the United Nations adopted Resolution 242, giving birth to what is now considered a pillar of Mideast diplomacy: the land-for-peace formula. Israelis accepted it and even offered the Arabs a return of captured territory in exchange for peace. At a meeting in Khartoum, the Arabs replied with the now infamous «Three Nos»: no negotiation, no recognition, no peace. Eventually, and only after being persuaded of the futility of war, Egypt and Jordan embraced the «land for peace» concept.

But the Palestinians did not. So, when in July 2000 Israel presented them with a generous offer that met most Palestinian territorial demands, they chose to pay back with violence. In retrospect, we can see the Oslo Accords as a false truce in the spirit of the genocidal PLOs 1974 Phased Plan.

This pattern of the last 65 years is clear: Every reasonable territorial proposal raised by the international community and based on mutual compromise has been met with Jewish acceptance and Palestinian rejection. In light of this long, tragic experience, it’s hardly surprising that so many recent European proposals and U.S. missions have failed. Without a recognition of the true nature of the motives underlying Palestinian aggression against Israel, all diplomatic efforts unavoidably will fail as well.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.