A Lebanese-American acquaintance years ago once observed, “in my country, we generally avoid talking about history in public because history is dangerous.” It’s dangerous because everyone is deeply attached to a reading of history that validates their own identity and worth—over others’. If both Israelis and Palestinians stopped using their own accounts of (and obsessions with) history to validate themselves and demonize the other, they might get along a lot better!

To me, the grim irony in this whole horrific predicament is that in their futile quest to crush Hamas by force (while annihilating and traumatizing untold numbers of non-combatant men, women, and children), the IDF and Netanyahu are doing exactly what Hamas wants them to do—playing right into their hands—in order to advance their own agenda of turning the world against Israel while swelling their own ranks of sympathizers and aspiring terrorists throughout the Arab world. Hate breeds more hate, and always has.