World-recognized cellist Amit Peled played the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah on board a Southwest Airlines flight.

A crewmember introduced the performance,

We’re going to show you a little love with some music. For this kind gentleman up front Amit, we are going to play for the people of Israel. His daughter is there. She is safe. We’ll dedicated it to her and all the people that are at war for Israel right now. So, enjoy you guys.

Thank you @SouthwestAir for allowing me to share Hatikva התקווה for my beloved Israel on today’s flight ❤️#wewillneverforget #israel❤️ pic.twitter.com/IgVJ7PGMOf

— Amit Peled (@PeledAmit) October 28, 2023

What’s happening now in Israel, both for all of the people there and for the rest of the world since conflict risks spilling over much more broadly. Unfortunately there appears to be no way out, because there’s ultimately no compatibility between Israeli security and demands for the destruction of Israel.

• The reason Hamas killed civilians, including children, was to ensure Palestinians would be killed in response. Hamas doesn’t wear military uniforms, they hide amongst civilians, in religious buildings, hospitals and schools; and told Palestinians not to evacuate Gaza in advance of Israel’s invasion (about one-third in Northern Gaza did not evacuate).

• Hamas doesn’t want a two-state solution. Israel was on the verge of normalized relations with Saudi Arabia. The goal was to ensure that Israel couldn’t have peace. Hamas wants Israel destroyed. Between 1995 and 2008 there was a real possibility of a two-state solution, but Hamas blew that up. They’d have killed Arafat for agreeing to nearly everything Palestinians said they wanted at Camp David in 2000, and Mahmoud Abbas couldn’t agree in 2008.

• Hamas has destroyed peace but there is no end game. Even if Palestinians would agree to a two-state solution, Hamas has ended any chance of that for a long time. If Israel could accept Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza and even if they offered Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem (as capital of a Palestinian state!) as they offered in 2008 the West Bank and Gaza need to be connected without Israel in the middle, and Israel can’t accept its own country bifurcated. Israel offered a corridor between the two in 2008, under Palestinian control but Israeli sovereignty. Hamas has ensured that Israel cannot accept this scenario because they’ve demonstrated it leaves them too vulnerable to.. Hamas.

Palestinian leaders cannot agree to a two-state solution because their own radical factions want Israel destroyed, not relations normalized.

Israeli leaders cannot agree to a two-state solution because radical Palestinian factions have shown they will kill Israelis.

There’s no good end to this. Israel can’t govern Gaza. Decapitating Hamas may just lead to a replacement rising in their place.

All of this leads to a humanitarian disaster for Palestinians. While public polling suggests Gaza residents support Hamas, it’s unclear how reliable that polling is (even if the methodology and samples are good, see ‘preference falsification’). A majority of residents weren’t even alive the last time Palestinian leaders permitted them democratic elections.

Perhaps there’s a solution in annexation of Gaza by Egypt (Egypt does not want this, they care about the Palestinian cause as an issue, not the plight of actual Palestinians) and of the West Bank by Jordan – or an independent Palestine consisting of the West Bank and Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, while Egypt is bribed and threatened into extending its sovereignty over Gaza.

Palestinians whose primary goal is something other than the destruction of Israel and Jews have been poorly served by their leaders. Most could have grown up in a world of self-determination, under a two state solution on the table a generation ago and subsequently presented several times since. These rejections, and continued incursions into Israel and killing of Israelis, have created a population that supports leaders unwilling to take that same risk to their security.

The last great Israeli leader of peace was Ehud Olmert who offered 94% of the West Bank, with pre-1967 buffer zones split in half and a land swap of the balance from pre-1967 borders (involving land Israel acquired for its security after it was invaded). While Israel would exit small settlements in these areas, their own politics would not allow them to exit Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel hence the need for land swap, giving up land near Afula-Tirat Tzvi, Lachish, Har Adar, Judean desert.

The offer included to cede sovereignty over the holy basin in Jerusalem which includes sites of importance to Muslims, Chritians and Jews – to be jointly administered by a group of nations including the Palestinian state. And they offered an international fund for Palestinians. But Palestine would not have its own military and would not enter into a military agreement with a government that does not recognize Israel (the Jordan border might be policed by NATO)

Condoleeza Rice, then U.S. Secretary of State, noted at the time that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated for offering much less. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal, and Palestinians have continued to suffer, just as Arafat rejected a Palestinian State at Camp David in 2000.

What happened in Israel three weeks ago was horrible, and I feel for the people in Gaza who are suffering now (as I feel for those in Sudan in perhaps the world’s worst humanitarian crisis we hear little about). They continue to get the short end of the stick, not least of which from their own leaders. The question, though, is what is to be done? How does Israel protect itself from Hamas? Is there any way of doing this which also protects the people who are ruled by Hamas?