There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - opinion

For generations, Israelis and Palestinians have been trapped by the same fatal illusion: that enough force will eventually compel the other people to surrender its identity, rights, or national aspirations. It will not.

Military power can destroy buildings, kill commanders, seize territory, impose closures, and frighten entire populations. Armed struggle can kill civilians, destabilize societies, and force political questions onto the international agenda. But neither side can make the other disappear.

The Israeli belief in a military solution assumes that sufficient pressure will persuade Palestinians to give up their demand for freedom. Palestinian history demonstrates the opposite. The harder Palestinians are struck, the stronger that demand becomes. Military force can weaken an organization, kill leaders, destroy weapons, or delay a political process. It cannot eliminate the reason Palestinians resist Israeli domination.

A Palestinian child growing up under bombardment, military rule, displacement, checkpoints, settlement expansion, land confiscation, or the destruction of family life does not conclude that freedom is unnecessary. That child learns that freedom is more urgent.

Israel may defeat Palestinian armed groups in particular battles. It cannot bomb a national aspiration out of existence.

Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens. No state can accept attacks on its communities, the murder of civilians, hostage-taking, or rockets aimed at its population. But self-defense is not a political strategy. Military force may stop an immediate attack. It cannot answer the question that returns when the shooting ends: What future will Palestinians have?

Israel has repeatedly demonstrated overwhelming military superiority, yet it remains deeply insecure. The problem is not that Israel has used too little force. It is that force has been asked to produce permanent security without Palestinian freedom. It cannot.

The Palestinian belief in military liberation has been no less destructive.

Armed movements that promised to liberate Palestine through violence have not brought Palestinians closer to freedom. They have brought catastrophic death and destruction. They promised dignity but delivered devastated cities, shattered families, mass displacement, hunger, poverty, and lost generations. They claimed sacrifice would produce liberation, but ordinary Palestinians paid almost the entire price.

The so-called resistance did not protect Gaza. It turned Gaza into a battlefield on which Palestinians suffered unimaginable losses. It did not end the occupation. It strengthened the Israeli Right, weakened the Israeli peace camp, intensified Israeli fear, and empowered those who seek annexation and permanent control.

The deliberate killing of Israeli civilians is not liberation. Taking civilians hostage is not liberation. Launching an attack without the ability to protect one’s own population from the foreseeable consequences is not responsible leadership.

Palestinians have the right to struggle for freedom. But not every form of struggle is moral, wise, or effective. A strategy must be judged by what it produces.

Has armed resistance created a Palestinian state? Ended settlement expansion? Secured Jerusalem? Built democratic institutions, functioning hospitals, good schools, employment, or freedom of movement? The answer is no.

Hamas’s old-new leader Khalil al-Hayya’s recent speech following his selection as head of the Hamas Political Bureau should therefore alarm every Palestinian who cares about the national future. Hayya made clear that Hamas intends to continue along the same path of jihad, armed struggle, and “resistance.” He presented the October 7 attack not as a catastrophic error requiring honest examination but as a glorious stage in a historic struggle.

He expressed no meaningful regret for the destruction of Gaza and accepted no responsibility for the consequences of Hamas’s decisions. Instead, he repeated a maximalist vision of liberating all of Palestine, referring to Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Safed, Nazareth, the Galilee, The Triangle, and the Negev as Palestinian land that would ultimately be liberated.

It tells Israelis that Hamas’s objective is not ending the occupation created in 1967 or establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel but eventually eliminating their country. Such declarations strengthen those Israelis who argue that no withdrawal is safe and no Palestinian state can be tolerated.

Hayya also demanded full political partnership for Hamas while refusing to give up independent armed power. That is not democracy. No political movement can legitimately participate in national decision-making while retaining an army able to override an elected government and drag the population into war.

The principle must be clear: one legitimate authority, one law, and one security force accountable to an elected government.

Israel committed grave violations and war crimes in Gaza and bears responsibility for the enormous scale of civilian death, destruction, displacement, hunger, and devastation. But holding Israel responsible does not require absolving Hamas. Both truths must be stated.

Israel is responsible for how it conducted the war. Hamas is responsible for launching the October 7 attack, killing and abducting civilians, governing Gaza without democratic legitimacy, and pursuing a strategy whose disastrous consequences were foreseeable.

Many Palestinians understand this. They blame Israel for the destruction but also hold Hamas responsible for bringing catastrophe upon Gaza and failing to protect the people it claimed to lead.

Acknowledging Hamas’s responsibility is not treason. It is national responsibility.

To call October 7 a glorious victory while Gaza lies in ruins is to insult the dead, the wounded, the displaced, the hungry, and those who lost everything.

Victory cannot be measured by how many enemies are killed while one’s own society is destroyed. Leadership cannot be measured by the willingness to sacrifice other people’s children. “Resistance” cannot become a sacred word shielding leaders from accountability.

The extremists on both sides reinforce one another. When Hamas attacks civilians and speaks of liberating Haifa and Jaffa, it confirms the Israeli Right’s claim that Palestinians seek Israel’s destruction.

When Israel expands settlements, protects violent settlers, demolishes homes, promotes annexation, and denies Palestinians a credible political future, it confirms Hamas’s claim that Israel understands only force.

Each side uses the extremism of the other to justify its own. Each declares there is no partner, then acts to prevent one from emerging.

The alternative to armed struggle is not surrender. It is a disciplined national strategy based on democratic legitimacy, international law, regional diplomacy, popular mobilization, institution-building, and nonviolent resistance.

Palestinians need elections, accountable leadership, one national authority, and a strategy that makes freedom and statehood – not the destruction of Israel – the center of their international campaign.

Israel must also offer a real political alternative. It cannot demand that Palestinians reject violence while allowing diplomacy, moderation, and recognition of Israel to produce only deeper occupation and more settlements.

Neither people can defeat the other permanently. Neither is leaving.

The conflict will end only when Palestinians achieve freedom, sovereignty, dignity, and statehood, and Israelis achieve security, recognition, and regional acceptance.

Israel has used overwhelming force and remains insecure. Palestinians have pursued armed resistance and remain unfree.

More of the same will produce more graves, more destroyed homes, and another generation taught that war is inevitable.

It is not inevitable. It is a political choice.

Israel will never have genuine security until Palestinians have freedom. Palestinians will never achieve freedom until Israelis have security.

Rejecting Hayya’s path is not surrendering the Palestinian struggle. It is rescuing it from a strategy that has failed catastrophically.