It has been said, over and over again, that war and suffering will end one day. Historical examples abound: the Hundred Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, the colonial wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the wars of independence that followed. The generation before mine thought World War I would never end, but it did. Then World War II broke out, ending tragically with the first and, so far, last use of nuclear weapons. Afterwards, the US and Japan forged one of the closest friendships in international relations, crowned by a mutual defence treaty. My generation saw the Korean War, then the Vietnam War come and go. We also saw two Afghan wars, one involving the Soviet Union and the other the US. Those two, along with the Iraq War, also came to an end. In each case, the end did not mean peace. It meant the cessation of hostilities, a truce, a period of calm for countries to catch their breath and make some changes.  Sometimes close relations would develop and lead to an alliance in keeping with the Egyptian saying, “true affection grows after enmity.”

Only one war refuses to obey the historical rule, the one known as the Arab-Israeli War or the Israeli-Palestinian War. That never ends. It had its origins in the Zionist conference in Basel in 1897, which launched the call for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time but would fall under British colonial occupation after World War I. Other conferences must have been held in that Swiss city and elsewhere in Switzerland, but none had the effect of generating so many wars.

The 20th century has ended and a quarter of a century of the 21st is nearing its end, and the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli War drags on after the liberation struggles of all other colonised peoples won their independence. Indeed, by the end of the Cold War, only Palestine remained occupied. Whether you call this occupation complete or partial, the occupied people still do not control their own fate on their land.  

One dimension of the conflict has ended. That took the form of peace treaties between Egypt and Israel and then Jordan and Israel, though it is more accurate to describe this as a cold peace. There followed the so-called Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab countries. That, too, did not deliver the promised warmth. Before long, one of the parties involved, Sudan, was plunged into its own Civil War. Meanwhile, Palestinian-Israeli War continued to seethe and rage beneath and above the surface. Even when the opportunity came in the mid-1990s to establish the first Palestinian national authority on Palestinian land, the international summits and conferences changed little. Life in Palestine settled into two types of war: the popular intifada, which was peaceful in the 1980s, and the militarised intifada following the turn of the century. Then came five Gaza wars, the fifth of which is currently in progress. Not only is there no end not in sight, even a truce is out of reach. What is possible, rather, is for the Gaza war to spread into a regional one engulfing the Levant, the Gulf, the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The current war appears unlikely to end, whether bilaterally between the Palestinians and the Israelis or, if it expands, multilaterally with the inclusion of regional parties, namely the Arabs, Iranians, and the Turks. So, the US will inevitably be involved, which means that the UK and NATO will also step in.

The question as to why this war is so intractable has boggled many minds. Yitzhak Rabin suggested a reason soon after the signing of the Oslo Accords. Addressing Israelis, he said that when they arrived in that land there was another people there. By that time, the problem had become entrenched. In translation it was the “Promised Land” to the Jews and an “Islamic endowment” to Arabs and Muslims. But having come to this sacred land, the Israelis have never understood that only peace could realise their dream for stability and happiness.

On the other side of the equation, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement failed to understand that attaining its goal of establishing a Palestinian state entailed building institutions, development and identity. One of the basic conditions of statehood is that it requires a single unified leadership, as opposed to 14 factions which have spent half their time in Cairo, Algeria, Mecca, Ankara, and most recently Beijing trying to reach a form of unity. All these factions are armed and take decisions pertaining to war and peace. Then, when hostilities flare, people wonder where the Arabs are while the Israeli prime minister is being welcomed in Congress.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly