History will not yield to power

Over the past three decades, I have written hundreds of articles and several books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, examining it from historical, religious, psychological, and geostrategic perspectives, as well as through the hard realities on the ground. After all this, one conclusion has remained inescapable: there will be no peace-none-unless it is anchored in a viable two-state solution.

Nearly six decades after the 1967 war, the conflict is not moving toward resolution but toward permanent rupture. What began as a national and territorial struggle has hardened into a zero-sum confrontation shaped by fear, trauma, and mutually exclusive narratives. Cycles of violence have become structural: Palestinian attacks, Israeli reprisals, the first and second Intifadas, repeated wars in Gaza, and persistent unrest in the West Bank. Each cycle has deepened mistrust and narrowed the already vanishing space for compromise.

The psychological and historical perspectives

The memory of the Nakba-the catastrophe of 1948 that led to the displacement of nearly 700,000 Palestinians-remains foundational to Palestinian identity and political consciousness. For Palestinians, the Nakba was not a singular historical event but the beginning of an ongoing experience of dispossession and exile, one that continues to reverberate across generations.

This is reflected not only in the persistence of refugee communities but in a deeply held conviction that historical injustice has never been rectified. This legacy shapes Palestinian attitudes toward the present conflict, reinforcing a sense that their struggle is not only about ending occupation but about reclaiming dignity, rights, and recognition denied since 1948.

Then came October 7, 2023-a watershed of horror. Hamas's attack, targeting civilians with brutality, massacring 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, shocked Israel to its core and reaffirmed a deeply entrenched belief within Israeli society-that Palestinian hostility is immutable and that powerful factions remain committed to Israel's destruction. In this view, past peace overtures failed not because of flawed conditions, but because the other side ultimately rejects coexistence.

But what followed fundamentally altered the moral and political landscape.

Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza, initially framed as a campaign to destroy Hamas, quickly evolved into something far broader and more devastating. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, civilian infrastructure was systematically dismantled, and tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed, including a vast number of children.

What began as a war of self-defense increasingly bore the unmistakable imprint of collective punishment, revenge, and retribution. In both scale and method, the campaign crossed a critical threshold: not merely disproportionate, but, in its cumulative effect, indistinguishable from what many legal observers define as genocidal conduct.

For Palestinians, this was not an aberration but confirmation of a long-held fear that Israel's ultimate trajectory is not toward coexistence, but toward permanent domination and displacement.

The reinforcement of perception

This perception is reinforced daily in the West Bank, where settler violence has escalated in both frequency and severity, often in the presence-and at times under the protection-of Israeli security forces. These acts are not random; they form a pattern:

Armed settler groups attacking Palestinian villages, torching homes and vehicles. Systematic uprooting and destruction of olive groves, undermining both livelihood and heritage. Physical assaults on civilians, including the elderly and children. Sustained harassment forcing entire communities to abandon their land. Arson attacks against mosques and schools. Interference with water access, including blocking or contaminating essential sources.

Taken together, these actions amount to a slow but deliberate process of territorial consolidation, what can only be described as creeping annexation.