Israel and Palestine: How peace is possible

IF YOU WANT to understand how desperately Israelis and Palestinians need peace, consider what would become of them in a state of perpetual war. Against a vastly superior Israeli army, the Palestinians’ most powerful weapon would remain the death and suffering of their own people. Israel’s fate would be woeful, too, if it wants to be a flourishing, modern democracy. If Israel permanently relies on its army to subjugate the Palestinians, it would become an apartheid-enforcing pariah. Israelis carrying out daily acts of oppression punctuated by rounds of killing would themselves be corrupted. For two peoples locked in a violent embrace, peace is the only deliverance.

But how to get there? Israelis are still reeling from the rape and murder of October 7th; Palestinians are watching the mangled bodies of women and children pile up in Gaza. Amid the carnage, outsiders’ urging of peace seems naive. Besides, jaded Palestinians and Israelis see endless talks as a mechanism for delaying peace, not forging it. Negotiators in the past have thrashed out almost every imaginable permutation of land swaps and security arrangements. All failed.