Upon being congratulated for defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 b.c. during the Pyrrhic War, King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had lost half of his army during the battle, said something to the effect of “Another victory like this, and we’re done for.”  Hence the phrase “Pyrrhic victory,” which could probably be applied to what many Israelis regard as their “victory” over Hamas during the so-called Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

And not unlike the Romans, who lost more men than Pyrrhus did, the Palestinian casualties—4,336 Gazans were wounded, and 1,284 killed (894 of them civilians)—were higher than those of the Israelis (10 soldiers and 3 civilians killed, and 512 wounded).

The Israeli government is boasting two important “achievements”: the end of the rocket attacks from Gaza into civilian areas in southern Israel; and the sealing of the Gaza-Egypt border, including the destruction of tunnels through which Hamas was able to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza.

Moreover, Israeli officials insist that the large number of Palestinian casualties and the enormous destruction that Israel inflicted on the Gazans will deter Hamas and other anti-Israel movements and regimes in the region, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and its chief patrons, Syria and Iran.

However, Hamas leaders will maintain that Hamas’s survival as a political and military force after a confrontation with the mighty Israeli military machine amounts to a huge victory and will point to the fact that the Israeli army, worried over the potential for a large number of casualties, decided not to invade Gaza City and risk bloody house-to-house fighting with Hamas guerillas.

Israel may have achieved a military win of sorts in Gaza.  But the Palestinians—as well as the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims who were following the 22-day Israeli offensive, viewing the horrifying images of death and destruction in Gaza on Al Jazeera television—will have a different perspective.  Those who see Hamas fighters as heroes will argue that this episode demonstrates that, sooner or later, the current crop of Arab military dictators and corrupt monarchs who are lackeys of the United States will fall from power, a weaker and less confident America will be forced to end her presence in the Middle East, and a new generation of militant Islamic leaders will rise up to deal the Zionists in the Holy Land the same tragic fate as the Crusaders.

More likely, the challenge to the current status quo in the Middle East will result in the disintegration of some of the states in the region, including Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, and ignite old and new conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and non-Arabs (Persians, Kurds, Berbers).  Meanwhile the geostrategic importance of the region and its energy resources will continue to draw in rising great powers such as China and India.  If anything, the Palestinian national movement, spanning the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led West Bank, will not be able to pose any serious military threat to Israel in the coming years.  And Israeli nuclear military power will be able to serve as deterrence to a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israel demonstrated to the Palestinians that they cannot defeat her in the field, but with Jewish settlers continuing to expand their presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, many Palestinians are concluding that the two-state solution of creating an independent Palestinian state that would live side-by-side with Israel is passé, and that, instead, the Palestinians should demand the establishment of a single, binational state to be shared by Jews and Arabs.

This one-state solution presents a long-term challenge to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state.  In the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean—the Land of Israel or Palestine, which includes Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza—the current demographic trends will make it likely that the number of Palestinian Arabs will equal the number of Israeli Jews in a year or two, and the Palestinian Arabs will become the majority by the end of the decade.

More than 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Arabs who constitute a majority in parts of Galilee and the Negev.  Some of their leaders are calling for transforming Israel from a Jewish state into a “normal” state whose identity reflects that of all its citizens rather than that of a shrinking Jewish majority.

The gradual demise of the two-state solution will create new conditions under which the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza will demand to be granted the same rights that Israeli Arabs have today, including the right to vote in Israeli elections.  Indeed, the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert predicted in a 2007 interview that the collapse of the two-state solution would mean that “the state of Israel is finished.”

While President Barack Obama has reiterated American commitment to the two-state solution and selected former Sen. George Mitchell as a special envoy whose task would be to revive the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” the reality on the ground in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead looks bleak.  One ethnic-religious community is ruling over another ethnic-religious community in what is gradually becoming the de facto binational entity of Israel/Palestine.

As Israelis and Palestinians become more radicalized in their positions, the notion that Washington could help them bridge their differences over core existential issues such as the fate of Jerusalem, the “right of return” of the Palestinian refugees, and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank sounds more and more like a fantasy.