There is no other small nation that has driven so much of world history or that of the Middle East as the State of Israel and the conflict within it between its two distinctive peoples. A nation the size of New Jersey, one of the smallest states in the United States, has come to define the Middle East in the minds of many and has created one of the most intractable international issues the world has known. The conflict has been the longest-lasting and most consistent foreign policy challenge over the last 75 years. During this time, the conflict between the two peoples in this narrow land has challenged the foremost intellectual minds of Great Britain, America, France, and the Soviet Union/Russia. This issue has evolved over the decades, experiencing periods of intense contention as well as calm observation, but it has never left the international scene.

While most people are familiar with the Palestinian-Israeli issue from 1948 to the present, the conflict actually precedes the establishment of the Israeli state by a few years. During the Second World War, the Grand Mufti of Palestine attempted to eliminate the Jews in Palestine through violence. He sought weapons from the German and Italian governments, intending to arm his followers and remove the Jews who had been in the land for centuries, long before the post-Holocaust European Jews arrived. The plan was never executed, and the Mufti was forced to leave Palestine. He wandered through Europe and parts of Africa but never returned to Palestine. It was in 1948 that his ideas found their fullest expression, albeit through different means. After the Holocaust, the Jews who arrived from Europe carried deep bitterness, anger, and resentment toward anyone and everyone. They saw the world as an obstacle and were determined to make the pre-war promises and hopes of Zionism a reality, even if it meant embracing terrorism. This animosity exacerbated the already manageable crisis in the land, flaring up into outward signs of increased hostility.

This began what could be labeled the Second Hundred Years War. The significant battle years are well-known: 1948 marked the fight for independence, 1956 saw Israel’s invasion of Egypt, 1967 brought Israel’s expansion at the expense of the Palestinians, and in 1973, Israel was threatened and nearly lost its position in the region due to a near-fatal blow from Egypt and Syria. These battles were fought between Israel and its neighbors, but within this context, the Palestinian people were deeply impacted, their lives forever changed. The Palestinians were displaced from their homes, forced to leave their jobs, possessions, ancestral homes, and land, and in some respects, their dignity, to survive and simply continue on. The transition of refugee camps into permanent homes testifies to the international community’s inability to address the issue.

The aforementioned battles are among the most visible signs of the conflict between these two peoples forcibly merged, but they are not the only forms of resistance. The predominant form of Palestinian resistance against Israel and its expansion has been through terrorism and more personal acts of violence. These forms of resistance include fighting Israeli confiscation of homes through the legal system, attacking Israeli settlers, setting fire to their cattle lands or olive groves, and conducting other general acts of social disobedience. These aspects of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict were mostly hidden, not reported on or noticed by the outside world, which was focused on other events. However, the world would soon be forced to take notice as tensions boiled over in the intifadas.

The First and Second Intifadas caught the unobservant world by surprise. The Palestinian people had had enough, and the eruption of street violence quickly escalated, finally revealing to the world the frustration and anger they felt after decades of local oppression. After decades of being relegated to second-class status and denied systemic rights in the lands occupied by Israel, the intifadas were the visible outrage of a people denied the ability to express themselves in a manner not related to some form of terrorism. The intifadas took the cause of Palestinian statehood and freedom from groups such as the PLO and PFLP and brought it back into the hands of the people.

This brought the world’s attention to Israel and what was happening, even if many were discovering the root issues for the first time. The Second Intifada was also an expression of this anger and resistance, though it may have been deadlier than the first. Between 2000 and 2005, there were 581 Israeli deaths and 3,781 wounded Israelis. This toll represents slightly fewer deaths than on October 7, 2023, when the majority were either killed or taken captive, with very few wounded. However, the Second Intifada did not engage the general public as much as it captured the attention of world leaders. It refocused nations on finding potential solutions to the long-running, seemingly intractable issue, marked by the proposals of the Two-State Solution and the Roadmap to Peace. The Bush Administration attempted to resolve the issue peacefully while it was heavily engaged in the war on terror in the region. Neither of these efforts gained traction, especially not in Israel itself. Around this time, global attention became divided, leading to fewer conferences, fewer plans, and diminished hopes of changing the situation.

With the 2005 Israeli evacuation of Gaza and the elections that divided the political leadership of the Palestinians between HAMAS and the PA, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cooled in the eyes of the world as a critical issue. The roadmap and the two-state solution continued to be mentioned, but there was an undeniable decline in interest and fervor towards finding a solution. In the intervening years, both Israelis and Palestinians found a means by which they could peacefully coexist alongside each other, with occasional outbursts of violence and rocket fire from Gaza.

This unstable coexistence came to a halt on October 7, 2023, when elements of HAMAS and randomly recruited men crossed the security barrier separating Israel and Gaza, killing 635 Israeli civilians, 395 Israeli soldiers and security personnel, 75 foreign workers, and 40 infants. This resulted in a death toll of 1,139 people, the largest single-day death toll in Israel’s history. It may seem simplistic to state it in such terms, but the world went to sleep with a peaceful Middle East and woke up to the largest conflict the region has experienced since the 2003 Iraq War. The world had changed overnight, and we are still living in the light of that conflict, with its outcome uncertain.

One of the greatest impacts of Israel’s presence and its conflict is the attention it brings to the Middle East region at large. Prior to the creation of Israel, the region was primarily the preserve of a minority of scholars interested in its ancient heritage or the issues concerning various Arab peoples. With the establishment of Israel, the audience and those concerned with events in the region, particularly Israel, expanded to include many religious and non-religious peoples.

The religious focus drew in those interested in how developments fit with their perspectives on how the world might end. In the secular arena, the interest was more on the political, social, and military dynamics of the region, often aimed at resolving the issues between the two parties. As a result, Arab studies and Arabic language programs emerged, driven by those who wished to understand the broader region to devise foreign policy solutions. Neither approach, especially the religious one, should be casually dismissed. U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and the religiously influenced Ronald Reagan all attempted to address the

Palestinian-Israeli conflict with personal knowledge of the perceived biblical implications of their efforts. Even the current foreign policy concept of the Abraham Accords speaks to a basic tradition in the Torah of Abraham’s role and ability to live in relative peace with his neighbors.

The Palestinian question has driven a large part of world politics. During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States sought to put their unique stamp on the conflict and its resolution. The problems of a nation that can be traversed in a single day are some of the largest and most intractable issues regularly dealt with at the United Nations. If the Israeli-Palestinian issue were removed from history, there is a significant chance that the Middle East region would be reduced to those oil and natural gas-producing nations. The politics of only those states and the lives of those within them would be of utmost concern, while the interests and needs of Palestine and the surrounding nations would be secondary or tertiary, only arising significantly in area studies or NGOs. With the conflict and its regional implications, it has become an integral part of foreign policy considerations, and organizations do not have to expend significant investments in bringing people to understand the importance of resolving the conflict.

The nature of the conflict and the participants poses the question of whether certain policy objectives will always remain elusive, especially when the two main parties are unwilling to compromise. The two parties must be willing to negotiate to reach a conclusion; otherwise, foreign policy should be oriented towards not a resolution but a containment of the issue. This almost happened with the Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords were brokered in a manner allowing for the tacit acknowledgment of the existence of Israel, setting aside issues of its legitimacy. However, even that goal remains elusive as we have witnessed Israel’s willingness to provoke Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and even Egypt during what was essentially the Israeli-HAMAS War. The current war has delayed the furtherance of the Abraham Accords by possibly up to five years. The reconstruction of Gaza will be a significant factor in that timeframe; indeed, the years needed to develop and execute a Gaza reconstruction plan will greatly delay Saudi Arabian and Israeli rapprochement. The Knesset’s rejection of the Two-State Solution and the likelihood that this rejection will remain permanent also raises further questions about whether there should be a shift in foreign policy approaches and whether as great an emphasis should be placed on this issue by international actors. The fundamental question is whether it is fruitless to help a country unwilling to help itself in the most meaningful ways. Is there a means of shifting focus onto the Palestinians that excludes the involvement of Israel in those plans? This cannot be answered here but ought to be explored.