People find it easier to accept canned deductions than to make their own. Consequently, flashy but shallow assertions become the prevailing wisdom of the day. One favored idea is that of preserving and integrating multi-ethnic societies. Force ethnic groups that hate each other to stay together, and eventually they will make peace. What a flight of fancy! In reality, it's like a pressure cooker with a weak lid that blows off. Eventually the favored idea's failure becomes obvious, as the body count rises.

This issue was investigated by Lehigh University's 1998 Institute for War and Peace Studies, where Chaim D. Kaufmann studied several attempted solutions by territorial partition and by population exchange. ("When All Else Fails: Population separation as a Remedy for Ethnic Conflicts," Jewish Political Chronicle, 7/2003, p.26). He found out which works and under what conditions. As you will see from his statements, however, he does not understand enough about the Arab-Israel conflict to apply his own theory properly, which otherwise makes sense. In foreign policy, generalized rules require local refinements, and that takes specialized knowledge.

The areas studied included Bosnia, Kosovo, India-Pakistan, Ireland, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, and Greece-Turkey. Findings were:

1. Population exchange is the solution to irreconcilable differences.
2. Partition without separation is not.
3. If a critical mass of the departing ethnic group is left behind, whatever a critical mass may be, so is rivalry.
4. Unless carefully planned and managed, population exchange can create problems, usually temporary but often tragic. The extent of the problems and tragedy depend on the extent of the mismanagement. The extent of the exchange limits the potential massacre.

Violence followed Ireland's partition, because it did not separate the two faiths. It left a large minority in Ulster. India became violent when British occupation no longer guaranteed security. Strife was fanned to the extent that the population exchange was unplanned, refugees were forced to travel through a war zone, and separation was not complete in Kashmir and with the Sikhs. International powers blunder when forcing a warring country to take back an ousted ethnic group, as in Bosnia.

The UN partition plan proposed a hodgepodge of Jews and irreconcilable Arabs. These would be neither strife-free states nor viable ones. The inevitable population exchange in the 1940s and 1950s has reduced tensions, so that two Arab states have signed treaties with Israel, Kaufmann concludes.

The reintroduction of Jews into Yesha has produced points of friction and therefore a `new security dilemma.' `Most infamously,' Kaufman says, was `the placement of 400 Jews in the middle of the 100,00 population city of Hebron.'

Demographic separation has its critics. They complain that the separated states discriminate against left-behind minorities through restrictive immigration, citizenship, and language laws, and denial of effective political participation. Kaufman could reply that obviously, the separation was incomplete.

The critics also complain that Israel's famous Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jewish immigrants. However, official languages and citizenship laws or immigration practices which favor the majority are also used in such liberal democracies as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, and Italy. Such practices are normal in nearly all nation-states.

I would add that the P.A. is more extreme. It not only excludes Jews, it murders Arabs who sell land to Jews.

The author ignored or is mistaken in several ways about the Arab-Israel conflict, on which he commented superficially:

1. Israel has the best legal, historical, and moral claim to the Territories, which he would leave with the Arabs.
2. Separation and partition both are inadequate to deal with jihad, which Israel faces and Kaufmann did not consider.
3. Israel still has a large Arab population, a fifth column that should be removed.
4. He favors another partition, but failed to acknowledge that Palestine already was partitioned: when Jordan was barred to Jewish national development, but many Arabs were left in the rest of the Mandate. Civil and foreign war developed.
5. Contrary to his optimistic notion, treaties don't prove peaceful intent, not when the Arabs don't believe in them and regularly violate them, as when both Egypt and Jordan, to which he refers, violate their treaties with Israel by freezing relations with Israel and inciting their populations against Israel.

Another example of a treaty soon broken was the Hitler-Stalin pact. It served to render the Soviet Union more defenseless against the initial German invasion. Fortunately, for the Soviets, they enjoyed the greatest strategic depth in the world, so that they could re-establish defensive lines before their population centers were wiped out. By contrast, without Yesha (and the Golan), Israel would have just about the least strategic depth. Kaufmann thinks that separation is sufficient, but unless Israel has defensible borders and strategic depth, the Arab jihadists will pursue Israel.

If Arafat's Arabs get a separate state, it would transfer out hundreds of thousands of Jews from Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and perhaps Jerusalem, without making peace. The question then is: who gets transferred? Since the Arabs have been the aggressors, it would be fairer to transfer them.

Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com.

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