If Israel would employ this strategy [detailed in the book] in dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah, I am convinced they would be able to achieve a lasting peace with the Palestinians. The ultimate goal of an effective counterinsurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the people themselves -- to establish yourself as the protector of the people in turning the tide against terrorism and the urban guerrillas who exploit the civilian population and endanger their lives and well being by hiding among them.

General David Petraeus has already offered his expertise to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and has toured the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians themselves. Indeed, Petraeus is the world's foremost expert actively working in the field of counterinsurgency technology [which includes law enforcement technology] and wrote the forward to the latest edition of this classic. He now uses it to train the American military and its principles became the foundation of "The Surge" in Iraq, which has miraculously begun to achieve stability there despite initial doubts expressed by Petraeus himself that it was already too late to win in Iraq after Rumsfeld's brutal policies radicalized the entire region and turned the civilian population against "The Great American Satan."

Currently, the IDF is conducting the same conventional military strategy in The Gaza that hopes to render short-term gains against the Hamas insurgents but will eventually set the Israelis up for the continued long-term struggle that has been the hallmark of their relationship with the Palestinians.

Rumsfeld's strategy in destroying Fallujah twice over with air strikes and heavy artillery is the classic example of this self-defeating brutality. Israel's debacle in South Lebanon in 2006 is another. They laid cluster bombs in carpeted attacks attempting to clear out the population of South Lebanon and thus create a safe zone wherein there would be no civilian population among whom Hezbollah could hide. The strategy was a humanitarian and political disaster. Mossad-trained Georgian troops recently unsuccessfully employed such brutality in South Ossetia, attempting to roll-up the civilian population and send them northward into exile in Russia and then following-up with bulldozers to destroy South Ossetian habitations in order to discourage their return -- just as they did in South Lebanon and in the West Bank. The Russian military intervened but was much more humane in her treatment of Georgia, leaving egg on the faces of the CIA and the Bush Administration who sponsored the debacle in an overreaching attempt to secure the oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian at Baku to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The fact that Israel refuses to deploy the more functional and civilian friendly counterinsurgency suggested by Galula and Petraeus can only indicate one tragic conclusion -- that Israel intends to hang onto a quixotic and archaic strategy of expansionism against the native Palestinians, institutionalized in the early 50s by the government of David Ben-Gurion and maintained to this day. The strategy is grounded in early 20th century Zionism with a grandiose but painfully understandable goal, given the tragic history of the Jews throughout European history, of recreating the ancient Davidic Kingdom of a "Greater Israel" beyond the current piecemeal boundaries they've achieved in establishing a Jewish homeland. Despite their idealism, the continued stubborn use of this strategy by Israel has led to polarization and radicalization of the native populations in the Middle East, resulting in the stridently Jihadist Islamism we see today taking over the region.

The United States alone has the influence and responsibility to insist this effective counterinsurgency strategy upon Israel in the interest of a lasting peace in the region. Again, its hallmark is its overall goal of winning the hearts and minds of the people themselves, winning friends and influencing enemies. Yet, American politicians continue to speak of "surges" in conventional military terms without having a clue about what they speak. The American people, who overwhelmingly support Israel's right of statehood, are even more disinformed.

This book should be read by every member of Congress, by Obama's new Chief-of-Staff and dual citizen Rham Emmanuel, by his National Security Adviser General James L. Jones, by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by Barack Obama and Joseph Biden themselves and by every member of the Israel Lobby who are so obsessed with the security of Israel that they don't see the solution under their noses.