For 50 years, with brief interruptions, Israeli governments have been handling the conflict with the Palestinians according to a familiar, simplistic formula: If the use of force doesn’t work, try using brute force. However, the use of force often results in collateral damage — or as a Russian proverb explains it, when you chop wood, chips fly. Sometimes, as in the deadly Jan. 9 terror attack near the West Bank outpost Havat Gilad, those struck by the chips are Israelis. Usually, as in clashes last month between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters in several West Bank towns, Palestinians are the victims.

This goes on while Israel is allegedly still part of the imaginary Oslo peace process that began almost 25 years ago and parallels the ongoing growth in the number of Israeli settlers on Palestinian lands in the West Bank. Barring a dramatic shift in the plot in the coming days, all that will be left of the landmark Israeli-Palestinian agreement is a popular Broadway play. Israel will be the biggest loser if the curtain comes down.

If the Oslo Accord (signed by the left-wing Labor Party) did not exist, the Israeli right wing would have had to invent them. While serving as head of the civil administration in the West Bank in 2007-11, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai told me years ago that his biggest nightmare is having the Palestinian prime minister hand him the keys to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA, established in the mid-1990s as an integral component of the Oslo Accord, replaced the Israeli military officers who had governed Palestinian affairs since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. The Palestinian security forces formed under the agreement have since acted as de facto subcontractors for Israel’s army and Shin Bet security agency, serving vital Israeli interests.

Until the PA was established, Israeli taxpayers were saddled with the bill for the West Bank occupation and Israeli settlements there. Since then, Arab and Western states have been footing a significant portion of the bill, partly through a grouping of donor states established by the Clinton administration to buttress the peace process. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Jan. 14 announcement about the death of the diplomatic process also sounded the death knell for that financial arrangement. Abbas said, "Today is the day that the Oslo Accord end. Israel killed them.” The day after, the Palestinian Council decided to promote turning the PA into a state under occupation and called upon the PA to suspend its recognition of Israel and stop security coordination with it.