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That political violence is more likely to produce countervailing political violence than it is any kind of resolution acceptable to both sides is, or anyway should be, a law of political physics. Those who ignore or dismiss it tend to bring down catastrophes on their own people, as both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians should have long since learned, but tragically have not.
As The Washington Post reported last week, recent polling by the Israel Democracy Institute of both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis shows that most Jewish Israelis—63 percent—oppose the establishment of an independent and demilitarized Palestinian state. Fully 77 percent of those Jewish Israelis who describe themselves as “left” do support establishing such a state, but the share of Jewish Israelis who describe themselves that way had dropped to very low levels even before the October 7 attacks.
The drivers of actual policy on both sides of the conflict are ultranationalists: Hamas for the Palestinians, and the settlers-über-alles members of Netanyahu’s cabinet for the Israelis, who seek to drive all Palestinians out of both the West Bank and Gaza. Both those drivers envision an ethnically homogeneous state from the river to the sea, however effectively impossible...