Many years ago, I learned one of the most important lessons for a lawyer, and actually for anyone: “Don’t fight the problem.”
This has been a mantra for me because it applies to all decision-making in life, although it is phrased as if it is advice responding to a question on an exam. It means exactly what it says. You have to accept whatever facts confront you and find the best solution based on that reality, and not think that the problem can be changed by wishing, hoping, or bemoaning the actuality of the situation and solving a problem you wish you had, rather than the one you do.
This reality confronts me in evaluating the situation in the Middle East. The reality is clear: Hezbollah and Hamas want to destroy Israel. Israel continues to occupy the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights since it seized them in the war in 1967.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the death of 1,200 people.
Hezbollah has regularly rocketed Israel after Israel’s retaliatory actions in Gaza, which so far have resulted in over 40,000 deaths of Palestinian civilians and Hamas combatants. Both sides claim numerous violations of international law, including the original mandate from the United Nations establishing the state of Israel, the occupation of the territories seized, and the rocketing and terrorist attacks on Israel’s citizens. Those are the facts. What do you do if you are Israel, Hezbollah, or Hamas?
All parties have regularly violated international law, both in the attacks, the rocketing of civilian populations, the occupation of territory conquered in 1967, the treatment of civilians in the occupied territories, etc. No strategy on either side has worked. Hamas has not been entirely destroyed by the current Israeli actions (and its own military command acknowledges such); Israel is not being destroyed by Hezbollah’s indiscriminate shelling (although its citizens in northern Israel have been displaced and world opinion has generally been to condemn the actions of Israel in Gaza). Israel continues its occupation, and the populations of both sides are regularly killed and displaced in Gaza, the West Bank, and northern and southern Lebanon.
There is no solution, and there hasn’t been one since Israel was established and the occupied territories were seized. If there was one, some proposal may have been accepted over the years. Arafat was close to signing one and was lobbied heavily by Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states to do so, but in the end he refused. To date, U.S. attempts to negotiate peace have also failed; neither Carter’s nor Clinton’s efforts, both noble in their breadth, had any chance.
Obviously, some of the smartest minds in the world have tried. Individual Arab states have been able to resolve issues between themselves and Israel, and those treaties have been successful, but the underlying problems remain. Right now, there seems to be no possibility of any solution, only the faint hope of a ceasefire and an ongoing hatred waiting to erupt again.
Perhaps if there was a way to engage other nations, with some sort of international peacekeeping force, a more permanent ceasefire could be arranged. In a negotiation, both sides have to be willing to compromise—that is a lot to ask after thousands have been killed on both sides. The politics in Israel and the Middle East are also an impediment to either side coming to a peace conference or a cease-fire negotiation.
Where is there another Sadat on either side when we need him?
The result of over 70 years of mistrust and hatred seems to be a continuous state of war—sometimes hot, sometimes tepid. Israel cannot defend its borders continually to the extent it is doing so now; it is a changed state after October 7. The terrorist organizations (as defined by many nations) have been dealt massive blows but are no closer to the destruction of Israel.
I am not an Israeli or a Palestinian. No one other than the combatants can or should dictate conditions to bring peace, whether temporary or permanent, but perhaps a remote possibility is to have multiple states or the United Nations facilitate discussions. As the deaths and displacements continue, both sides are destroying their sons and daughters in an orgy of hatred. Peace is elusive and perhaps unobtainable in the near future.
