For more than 75 years, since the founding of the State of Israel, there has been conflict in the Middle East, not just between Israel and Palestinians, but between Israel and most of the Arab countries surrounding it. The cause of the ongoing conflict boils down to the following: The Arabs who have lived there for centuries understandably consider the entire area their homeland, while Jews, Zionists, consider the land to be their homeland, it being the land of Israel in Biblical times.
Politically, the land was not part of any modern state. Prior to WWI the land was part of the Turkish Caliphate. After WWI, the area became a British mandate called Palestine, which after WWII, the British proposed dividing into two states - Jewish and Arab. In 1948 Jewish Zionist leaders unilaterally declared the creation of the State of Israel within the boundaries set by the British. The Arabs countries rejected the division and launched an attack against the new Israeli state.
Ever since that time, Israel has claimed its right to the land and has defended it, while the surrounding Arab countries and Palestinians living in the territory outside Israel claimed it was their land and sought to drive Israel back to the sea and eliminate its existence.
All the wars that have occurred during this period - 1948, 1967, 1973, and present - were started by the Arab countries and/or the Palestinians in an attempt to destroy the State of Israel, wipe it off the map. I should note that Egypt and Jordan signed peace agreements with Israel in 1976 and 1994 respectively. Most recently, the UAR and Bahrain entered into a normalization of relations agreement with Israel in 2020.
After their defeat in the 1967 "6-day war" and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (it had been under the control of Jordan since the 1948 war), the Arab League made clear its stand once again: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
The conflict worsened when, after the 6-day war and the Arab League statement, Israel began to build settlements in the occupied territory. Initially the Labor Party government established a small number of settlements in the West Bank for security reasons. But the conservative/ultra-right parties that have governed for most of the time since 1977 have considered the occupied land part of Israel (it was part of the Biblical Jewish land) and have through aggressive settlement building in the West Bank, especially in the past 2 decades, made the West Bank de facto part of Israel and have made a Palestinian state almost impossible to configure.
During the late 1990s, international diplomatic efforts resulted in the PLO - the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by Yasser Arafat, the recognized voice of Palestinians for decades - removing the offending clause calling for the elimination of Israel from its charter so that the two-state process could move forward.
Israel in fact made two offers, in 2000 and 2008, to end their occupation and for the creation of a Palestinian State, but those offers were rejected by the PLO. Regardless, in 2005 Israel unilaterally - that is to say with no conditions or agreement - evacuated all Israeli settlements in Gaza and the army withdrew.
That action did not result in any lessening of the conflict. While the PLO still maintains its stance accepting Israel, Hamas, which has become the more prominent Palestinian movement, seeks nothing less than the destruction of Israel. The peace offers in fact resulted in more hostile actions by the Palestinians led by Hamas - suicide bombings, etc. with more than 1000 Israelis killed.
This ongoing conflict is an example of extremism on one side breeding extremism on the other. As much as I understand the desperate need after WWII for Jews to finally create their own nation, to do so in a land already inhabited by Arabs, without their agreement, was an extreme action. And that extreme action was met by an extreme reaction by the Arabs – their wanting to erase Israel from the map.
Israel's aggressive settlement building in the West Bank, which accelerated in the past two decades, has been a further extreme aggravating action by Israel, which was in turn partially a reaction to the extreme actions of the Arabs in repeatedly trying to destroy Israel.
I should note that regardless how much I question the wisdom of the creation of the State of Israel unilaterally, once it was in existence, I certainly support its right to defend itself. But in the current Gaza War, Israel under Netanyahu has gone beyond defense to seeing a chance to destroy Hamas regardless the civilian toll.
As a side note, Israel's aggressive actions in the Gaza War have provoked large-scale protests in the West. However, this war is not an example, as many protesters and Palestinians claim, of genocide. Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas and unfortunately has no concern if in the process tens of thousands of civilians are killed and homes reduced to rubble. But Israel has no intent or desire to eliminate the Palestinian people. Also, people need to be reminded that the war was a reaction to the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7. If that had not occurred, and if Hamas' actions - rape, killing, kidnapping - not been so horrendous, the war would not be occurring and the tens of thousands of civilians and their homes would not have been destroyed. Israel is guilty of overreach, and stopping the war is critical, but the immediate situation was caused by Hamas' action.
So to answer the question posed in this post's title, there is no solution to this conflict so long as the Arab countries and the Palestinians do not accept Israel's right to exist. Only then is the 2-state solution imaginable. Because, understandably, only then will Israel feel secure in turning the occupied territory over to a Palestinian state.
As has always been the case, the ball is in the Palestinians' hands - either they truly accept Israel and seek to live in peace next to Israel or they maintain their position and be subjected to the eternal enmity of Israel. There is nothing Israel can do other than once again being on record as being in favor of the 2-state solution (that is not currently the case) on condition that the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states accept the right of Israel to exist and cease all hostile actions. At such time, Palestinian citizens of Israel should no longer be second-class citizens but be given equal rights and responsibilities with Jewish citizens.
