From an Israeli point of view, it certainly opened up enormous possibilities. Gone were the days when people in the Middle East and elsewhere doubted whether Theodor Hezl's dream of having a Der Judenstaat in Palestine would ever be fulfilled.

If on May 15, 1948, Israel had acquired a tenuous existence, the 1967 war confirmed beyond any shadow of doubt that Israel was there to stay. The Arabs had no other option but to accept Israel as a neighbour, and Israel held all the cards to make it possible.

Israel could now reach a just and lasting settlement with the Arabs from a position of strength, using the formula "land for peace and security." Instead, emboldened by victory and intoxicated by religious zeal, it decided to become a colonial power.

Since the end of the war, and the subsequent occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli government policy of both the conservatives and the socialists has been driven by one single vision -- that of establishing a Greater Israel on Palestinian territories.

While paying lip-service to peace negotiations, Israel vigorously pursued, and is still pursuing, a policy of ruthless colonisation. It has dotted the whole of West Bank with hundreds of garrison-like settlements, fenced highways connecting the settlements (for settlers' use alone), watchtowers and innumerable checkpoints.

Leaving aside the day-to-day suffering and humiliation inflicted on the Palestinians, this policy has destroyed Palestinian economy and has produced "ever smaller and disconnected cantons" (World Bank). In the words of Prof. Newman of the Ben Gurion University: "These West Bank settlements are not a few temporary outposts … the settlement network is a collection of small towns, industrial and commercial areas, schools and colleges, roads and public services. When one travels around the settlements, it seems they have put down roots for good."

The separation wall, built on Palestinian lands, delves deep into Palestinian territories and snakes through the West Bank to include the major Israeli settlements. According to Prof. Dugard of the University of Leiden: "It (the wall) is manifestly intended to create facts on the ground."

The intention is to annex much of the West Bank as part of Greater Israel, destroy the Palestinian society and contain the growing Palestinian population as virtual slaves in isolated enclaves with no geographical contiguity on 40% of the occupied territories.

According to Prof. Chomsky, in comparison with these Palestinian dungeons, the Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa looked "like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination."

Roger Cohen of the New York Times commented recently: "The West Bank, after 40 years under Israeli control, is a shameful place." This abominable situation dismayed a group of Holocaust survivors to such an extent that they recently published a manifesto decrying Israeli society's descent into a "quagmire of violence, brutality, disrespect for human rights and contempt for human life."

How could such a thing happen? While preaching democracy and freedom, how could the West allow Israel to pursue such a policy of ruthless colonisation? How is it possible that no one could get beyond the narrow perspectives offered by Israel's short-sighted policy and look at the situation from a big-picture long-term perspective? How could anyone think that this policy of colonisation will not have wider repercussions?

The 1967 war bestowed on Israel a certain sense of invincibility. It felt that the Palestinians could never pose any threat to Israel. Therefore, there was no need to negotiate with them.

It felt that with the unconditional support of the US, it was in a position to impose its terms on the Palestinians. If necessary, they must be starved into submission. In fact, in the words of Professor Chomsky, it has been made possible by "unremitting US military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel."

The role played by Europe has not been very dignified, either. Instead of imposing sanctions on Israel to force it to change its policy, it has sometimes taken measures, which have inflicted further miseries on the Palestinians. Otherwise, how can one justify the economic sanctions imposed by it on the Hamas-led government?

Actually, the West as a whole has often been accused of practising double standards. It preaches democracy when it suits its purpose. It is difficult to justify its boycott of the new Hamas-led government when it won the internationally supervised elections in a free and fair manner.

It is worth mentioning here that it was Israel which helped to create Hamas to undermine President Arafat's position. It was the West which, during the days of Arafat, insisted on the separation of powers between the president and the prime minister.

Now that the results of that separation of powers do not suit the West's purposes, it is asking the president to exercise certain powers which he no longer possesses constitutionally.

Of course, Washington's role in all this is far more dangerous. By supplying weapons worth millions of dollars to the president's personal security forces, it is trying to foment a full-scale civil war between rival militias with the objective of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Palestine.

Of course, disunity and inaction of the Arab governments in the past must also take some blame for the current plight of the Palestinians.

Today, however, the situation on the ground is different from what it was forty years ago. Israel is no longer invincible. Now, non-state actors like Hamas and Hezbollah have replaced weak Arab governments as effective threats to Israel.

The nature of warfare has also changed. Today's technological revolution has empowered spontaneously organised small groups of highly motivated irregular forces to inflict damage "on such a scale that only a few years ago could only have been done by a superpower."

As Nicholus Christoff of the New York Times pointed out, if the present trajectory continues, "the terrorists will eventually turn to chemical, biological or radiological weapons."

Israel's hard-line colonial policy has radicalised young Palestinians, empowered the extremists, eroded sympathy for Israel across the globe, and created enemies in the entire Muslim world.

After the beginning of Bush's so-called war on terror, this conflict is no longer perceived in many quarters as a regional one, but as part of a much wider confrontation between Islam and the West.

Many Jews now realise that Israel had squandered the golden opportunity, given by its decisive victory in the 1967 war, to be accepted as a peaceful neighbour with secure borders in the Middle East.

Israel must realise that occupation is the root cause of all its security problems, and that "ultimately its security will emerge only from a peace agreement with the Palestinians."

So what should be done now? Well, in a way, it is quite simple. Without any further excuses, it is imperative to jump-start the final status peace process to end the occupation. No one could have put it more succinctly than the prestigious Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In a recent editorial it wrote: "Instead of constantly trying to decide which Israeli manipulation will work best, the government should immediately state that it adopts the 2002 Arab League peace initiative, and that it is willing to negotiate over its basic points with any authorised Palestinian party."

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam is a columnist for the Daily Star