A Religious War – Forever
There was a time, a period of decades, when Israelis hoped and thought that the Arab world would become reconciled with the idea of a Jewish state in their midst. A hope, an expectation, and a prayer, that rationality, pragmatism, and economic interests would eventually result in the integration of Israel into the Middle East. For decades the saying was that the neighbor to the north, Lebanon, would become the second state to make peace with Israel. Eventually, Egypt, Jordan, and a few Gulf states signed agreements with Israel while still leaving the conflict with the Palestinians unresolved.
Israeli prime ministers and political leaders have tried for generations to pretend the Palestinians and their refugees were not there or would disappear. In June 1969, on the second anniversary of the Six-Day War, Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969 to 1974, stated in an interview that “there was no such thing as Palestinians.” Arthur Ruppin, a key Zionist planner, told a Jewish Agency Executive meeting in 1938: “I do not believe in the transfer of the individual, I believe in the transfer of entire [Palestinian] villages.” While Ben Gurion never said “The old will die and the young will forget,” the misattributed quote certainly reflected his wishful thinking. Nonetheless, 77 years after 1948, and the third and fourth generations have not, and are unlikely to forget, nor will their progeny.
When a conflict arises between two nations concerning ownership of land, borders, security, resources, or other tangible matters, then it is always possible to negotiate, find a compromise, to compensate financially, to settle the matter, and move on. To date, all of Israel’s conflicts with the Palestinians, and failed approaches to end the conflict, were based on the premise that the root of the conflict is about land, who owns or has a right to the land.
Over the last 40-odd years we have seen the rise of two fundamentalist religious groups that have both gained significant influence and power in their respective constituencies. Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, aimed at the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and religious Jewish messianists, while not represented by any particular group or movement, are unified and united around the drive to permanently settle the West Bank and formally annex it to Israel.
Hamas was founded in 1987, after the First Intifada, to establish an Islamic Palestinian state across historical Palestine. It offered a religious-nationalist alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by Yasser Arafat at the time. In its original charter, Hamas called for the elimination of Israel through armed struggle. The new, revised 2017 charter presented a more moderate stance by accepting a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas has never recognized Israel’s legitimacy. In 2006 Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative elections and has ruled over Gaza since.
Since 2007, Hamas has engaged in multiple major military confrontations with Israel, which included significant wars in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, and 2021, culminating in the surprise attack of October 7, 2023, leading to the current Gaza War. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Israel has, to a greater or lesser extent, aided and supported Hamas over the years, perceiving it as a counter to the PLO, and a means to divide the Palestinians politically, thereby enabling the Israeli claim that there is no unified representative of the Palestinians to negotiate peace with.
The first group representing Israeli Jewish messianists was Gush Emunim, the Bloc of the Faithful, founded in 1974 and dissolved in 2010. Messianic Jewish settlers believe they are fulfilling a divine mission to reclaim the biblical Land of Israel, Judea and Samaria also known as the West Bank, for all the Jewish people. They believe the 1967 war and the resulting occupation of the West Bank were divine signs to establish a renewed biblical Jewish kingdom. The movement views all of the West Bank as the ancient, God-given homeland of the Jewish people, and they reject any form of territorial compromise. Settlement has been framed by leading rabbis as an irreversible step towards the messianic era – the coming of the messiah. Settlement of the West Bank has been covertly and overtly financed, supported, and enabled by every Israeli government since 1967 through the provision of security, infrastructure, and financial benefits. Settlements established as part of this religious movement were often placed in regions with a large Palestinian population in order to secure Jewish dominance over the territory, prevent a Palestinian state, and secure the entire West Bank for Israel.
While Jewish nationalist messianists were initially a minor fringe group in Israel, they have become a larger sector in secular, national religious, and ultra-orthodox groupings to the point where 42% of Israeli Jews support the annexation of the West Bank without granting equal rights to the Palestinians. Israel’s current governing coalition is wholly representative and supportive of Jewish messianism, with many ministers fervently supporting messianic aims and Jewish supremacy. On July 23, 2025, Israel’s parliament voted, in a non-binding motion, 71-13 in favor of annexing the West Bank. A widely held belief is that democracy is not required or a necessity and should be replaced by a Jewish kingdom ruled according to halachah and Torah law. Halacha is the body of Jewish law, encompassing the legal, ritual, and ethical aspects of Jewish life derived from the Written and Oral Torah. In other words, Israeli democracy should be replaced by a theocracy. Demographic trends alone dictate that within 20-30 years, the ultra-Orthodox together with the national religious will constitute a majority in Israel. Their combined birthrates are nearly triple those of secular Israelis.
The Jewish messianists believe their god gave them sole rights to all the land for the Jews. The Islamic fundamentalists believe that their god dictates that only Muslims can own and rule over the land. The two beliefs are obviously incompatible. Both groups are willing, eager, and intent on using violence to impose their vision on the other. Both groups are willing to fight, struggle, and sacrifice to achieve their vision. Both groups have no shortage of volunteers willing to take up arms and pay the supreme sacrifice if required. Both groups share a common vision and militaristic ethos to enable the further use of violence. Both groups will tell you that they only take up arms and support violence because of the violence emanating from the other group. Both groups believe that if they only use a ‘bigger stick’ the other will be deterred and give in to their vision.
One cannot negotiate, reason, or compromise with anyone who believes they are enforcing the will of their god. The Gaza War of 2023-5 has enabled the full-blown eruption of a religious War between Israel and Hamas. This war, driven by the hundred-year Israel-Palestine war, has evolved to a religious War which has every sign of enduring as a forever war in one form or another.
