So, Israel is out on the streets again, trying to score another peace conference. To pay for her latest fix - the public relations highs of press conferences, of jetting off

Out on the streets again, trying to score another peace conference.

dramatically to make "painful compromises," of landing in the white light of a thousand cameras, of honor guards, hand shakes, big conference tables, more handshakes, more press conferences, and always, always, the pure political gold of breathless, superficial and simpleminded media coverage - Israel will release hundreds and ultimately thousands more terrorists, cede the country's capital and heartland, and, with a new border precisely nine miles wide, lose most of its remaining security.


Treating this kind of recurring, self-destructive behavior requires that we understand its underlying cause. Here's why that won't be easy.


Built into nature is a learning mechanism first identified by the pioneering behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, which he named "operant conditioning." Operant conditioning is the process by which organisms learn behaviors by accidentally triggering rewards or punishments while interacting with their environment. Specific behaviors or actions that trigger rewards are, eventually, learned and repeated. Behaviors which produce negative results are eventually avoided. To take a laboratory illustration, if a gerbil pushes a lever in its cage and a piece of cheese is dispensed, then it will become increasingly likely that the gerbil will repeat this action. However, should there be an electrode attached to this piece of cheese that delivers a shock every time the gerbil goes for it, the gerbil will learn to stay away.


Our difficulty is, if a gerbil can figure this out, why can't the government of the State of Israel?


After the Oslo and Wye concessions brought Israel suicide bombers and the first intifada, after the Camp David and Taba concessions brought Israel the second intifada, after the Lebanon and Gaza concessions brought Israel years of rocket attacks on civilians and the kidnapping of its soldiers, followed by the Second Lebanon War, why is Israel still reaching for that electrified piece of cheese?


The answer lies in one major difference between humans and animals. While operant conditioning is the determining factor in animal behavior, most psychologists agree that for humans, a cognitive element must be added. Factors such as religious beliefs, moral frameworks, will power, pride, prejudice and seemingly unrelated past experiences all play a role in our cognitive makeup and thereby have a hand in influencing our behavior.

If a gerbil can figure this out, why can't the government of the State of Israel?

Since this cognitive element is often at odds with the operant conditioning element, the outcome is not always cut and dry. Even when clarity of purpose and decisive action are desperately called for, cognition may still overrule what is obvious to our instinct.


In combat, social as well as physical, this cognitive takeover happens all the time.


When sparring, it is common for a fighter to fall into a cognitive repetitive rut. What happens, to continue the martial arts analogy, is you attempt a technique and, lo and behold, it works! Often, that lasts only once or twice, as any half-decent opponent can usually come up with an adequate defense by that time, either blocking the attack or anticipating it and changing his positioning in such away as to neutralize it. In spite of this well-known wisdom, many fighters are habitual and go for the same technique even after their opponent uses it to score on them (and, at least in my dojo, when you get hit, it hurts). So why do some fighters cognitively override what should be the instinctive reaction of changing tactics?


Often, the answer lies in the fear of the fight. Fighting is scary. A fighter who is in a heightened state of adrenaline-induced fear, and who happens to score with a certain technique, can become cognitively locked into using that technique over and over again.


But isn't the fighter aware of this? Doesn't he realize he's not getting in and, even worse, getting hit because of it? The answer is yes, in some part of his mind, but the power of the cognitive short circuit is so potent, it doesn't matter. The fear of the unknown can be a greater deterrent than the familiar pain of failure. On the contrary, the familiar can be a great seducer.


Israel running after "land for peace" deals is operating within the same cognitive repetitive trap.


So, let's examine this cognitive element buried in Israel's psyche: When exactly did Israel's concession-laden peace process obsession become part of her cognitive makeup? When did she score that original success from which she cannot break away?


After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the President of Egypt, Anwar Al-Sadat, flew to Israel and made peace in exchange for Israel returning the Sinai. This move by Sadat essentially made land for peace the de facto goal of all of Israel's subsequent strategies when dealing with its Arab neighbors. It is safe to say that from that moment on, Israel has not fought a war-to-win-the-war, but rather to find a way of furthering the goals of land for peace. The pursuit of peace processes, peace "partners" and peace conferences rife with concessions became the sole preoccupation of Israeli governments.
Aside from the fact that Egypt has not been the best of peace partners, leaving its borders open to terrorists and allowing Gaza to turn into a massive weapons cache, this direction has proven to be ineffective when dealing with the Palestinian Arabs. More than that, it has left Israel and Jews the world over open to heightened anti-Jewish aggression

By adopting a new set of behaviors, Israel can... reduce its cognitive cravings for peace processing.

- physical, political, cultural and academic.


The good news is that by adopting a new set of behaviors, Israel can, over time, reduce its cognitive cravings for peace processing and concession making.


Israel could, for example, pursue strategies toward a new goal that more closely mirrors the Arab goal in their war against the Jews. The Arab goal, taught everywhere in the Muslim world and still enshrined in the PLO Charter, is to conquer and settle all of what nineteenth century British mapmakers named "Palestine." The Israeli goal mirroring that would be to conquer and settle all of the Land of Israel for the Jews. In other words, victory. Which, as history proves, is without exception the indispensable prerequisite to lasting peace.


Once a fighter finds the courage to break out of his cognitive repetitive rut and add something new to his fighting, there is every chance he'll begin to make progress. The very progress that, without ever having admitted it even to himself, he'd already despaired of seeing.


Should Israel do as much, we may very well begin to see the beginnings of true victory (and real peace) unfold before us.