There was a general feeling that this long conflict was being resolved. Unfortunately, the past 10 years have witnessed a painful setback in many areas. Individuals and peoples are capable of enduring difficulties if there is a sense that the future will be better and conflicts resolved. But a sudden backward regression can lead to despair, which we feel today.
Why is it that struggles far more complex than the Israel-Arab conflict - apartheid in South Africa, the partition of Germany, or the collapse of the Soviet Union - all seem to have been resolved, usually without bloodshed, whereas the Middle East conflict, after more than a century, claims more victims every day? One reason is that this conflict is unparalleled in human history. There is no other example of a nation that returned after a 2,000-year absence to a territory that it never stopped regarding as its homeland. So it is no wonder that the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, remain unable to comprehend, existentially or morally, what has befallen them. The Jews' return to Israel was not colonialism, as the Arabs thought. Not only did the Jews lack a mother country, but in Europe they lived as a foreign nation, leading to expulsion and annihilation. The Jews did not come to exploit Palestine's resources or subjugate its residents in order to transfer the economic benefits elsewhere. Nor did they come like the American or Australian settlers in order to build a new identity and assimilate the natives into it.
