There will never be peace in the Middle East because each side portrays the other as terrorists and has a long memory.
It is politically convenient to represent Israel as a great evil that needs to be fought. As long as politicians make this argument they will have success for taking a strong position on their country’s enemies. However, this also means that the political power that these politicians have is dependent upon the existence of Israel: if Israel were to disappear, the politicians would no longer be able to rally their constituents.
Israeli politicians also benefit from this: by portraying their enemies as terrorists out to destroy Israel they are able to take a strong position and gain support. Of course the same relationship of dependency exists for the pro-Israel politicians as it does for the anti-Israel politicians.
Both sides need and feed off each other for continued political success.
So what happens? Even if one side has been particularly nice for a few years, this little concession doesn’t wipe away the stain of the past fighting. The bloody history will always make it relevant to construe the other side as evil terrorists, even if they aren’t (I’m taking no position here). Therefore, until people can look past the history or make it politically inconvenient to construe their neighbors as evil, there will be no peace.
The best we may take from this analysis is that it makes no sense for either side to greatly escalate their military action with the aim of annihilating the other: both need the other’s continued existence for certain purposes. This just leaves us with civilian deaths, something both sides seem to be conceding.
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