Introduction

Suppose that several armed foreigners suddenly entered the home in which you live and told you, “We lived on this land for a period more than four thousand years ago. Therefore, you must leave immediately,” and then forcibly expelled you. Your anger would not subside merely upon recovering the land and buildings that had been taken from you. Even after regaining them, your anger would probably persist for a long time, and you would never cease to be vigilant against those who had dispossessed you, lest the same thing happen again.

If property that had been taken were returned to its original owners and their anger gradually subsided, the matter might eventually be remembered simply as something terrible that happened long ago. But that is not what has occurred. The seizure of land and buildings has continued to expand, while the bloody state of war has grown increasingly grave.

It is not difficult to understand this situation.

If those who seized the land could calm their enraged, almost animal-like state of mind and return what they had taken to its original owners, the matter might be resolved relatively simply. Yet their expulsion of the people already living there possessed not even the slightest legitimacy. It was sustained only by the determination to say, in effect, “Give us the land, or we will kill you.”

Those who seized the land, therefore, could never live with complete peace of mind. They themselves understood that the previous inhabitants would eventually strike back. Consequently, they remained constantly on guard. Their own historical experience of having once been persecuted and driven from their homes also led them to adopt excessively severe countermeasures. They may consequently have entered such an extreme psychological condition that they believe they cannot feel secure unless they annihilate the previous inhabitants.

If the two peoples in conflict lived far apart, the frequency of their clashes might at least be reduced. Instead, the inhabitants are expelled, new homes are built almost immediately beside them, and the newcomers move into those homes as if deliberately displaying their presence. Thus, the two sides continually encounter one another as enemies on the same battlefield, and conflicts involving the violent taking of human life have repeatedly occurred on both large and small scales.

The conflict is further complicated because, in addition to the most primitive struggle over living space and the right to survive, it contains the equally troublesome element of religious confrontation. As a result, the increasing number of casualties on both sides has not served as a deterrent. On the contrary, it has poured oil upon the fire.

The holy places of Islam and Judaism are located in the same territory. They are so important to both religions that each side believes it must possess them exclusively, lest the credibility of its religious doctrine itself be undermined.

Here we encounter a logical weakness inherent in religion. The power of a religion arises partly from requiring its believers to accept the absolute authority of its doctrines and everything surrounding them. But this produces the conclusion that there can be only one place in which God may sit. It becomes a kind of game of musical chairs. When children play such a game, it is merely amusement; when gods play it, it becomes a major war.

The Palestine–Israel question has been placed under the profoundly tragic fate that it cannot be resolved until one side has suffered complete defeat.

This essay is written with the intention of proposing a way to bring this extremely difficult conflict to a conclusion through the complete defeat of one side at the earliest possible time. Stated differently, the decisive factor in resolving the conflict is to compel the losing side to exercise wisdom. Doing so may reduce, even slightly, the number of people killed and injured.

The inability to make an early decision sends large numbers of people needlessly to their deaths. This essay is therefore intended as a message to the defeated rather than to the victor—a plea that the defeated side, namely the Palestinian people, employ the worldly wisdom necessary to prevent more needless deaths.

Naturally, this will also require decisions from Israel, the victorious and overconfident fighting power. The burden of those decisions, however, is far lighter than the one that must be borne by the Palestinian side. I shall return to this matter later.

Before doing so, I shall briefly review the history of the Palestine–Israel question, with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

A Brief History of the Palestine–Israel Conflict

1. From Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century

This region—present-day Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank—has been important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims since ancient times.

The Jewish people established kingdoms in this region in antiquity. After the Roman Empire conquered Jerusalem in AD 70, many Jews were dispersed throughout the world. Even after settling in various countries, however, they preserved the religious and cultural tradition of someday returning to Zion—Jerusalem.

This historical connection became one of the grounds upon which the Jewish people claimed the right to return to their ancestral homeland.

At the same time, predominantly Arab inhabitants lived in this region for many centuries, and the Ottoman Empire ruled it for approximately four hundred years.

2. The Zionist Movement in the Late Nineteenth Century

Antisemitism intensified in Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The idea that “the Jewish people also need a homeland” consequently spread through the Zionist movement, and many Jews began migrating to Palestine. Arab inhabitants—the people now known as Palestinians—were already living there. From this period onward, conflict over land and political power began to develop.

3. From the First World War to 1947

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

At the same time, Britain declared that the rights of the non-Jewish inhabitants already living there must not be harmed. Reconciling these two commitments proved extremely difficult and subsequently produced a major conflict.

After the First World War, Palestine became a British Mandate. During this period:

• Jewish immigration increased.
• Arab opposition intensified.

Riots and armed clashes consequently continued.

4. The Second World War and the Holocaust

Approximately six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany. As a result, the belief that it was necessary to establish a Jewish state gained strength throughout the world.

5. The United Nations Partition Plan of 1947

The United Nations proposed the creation of two states:

• a Jewish state; and
• an Arab state.

This proposal was adopted as United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181.

The Jewish side accepted the proposal, while the Arab side rejected it. The Arabs believed that an excessively large amount of land had been allocated to the Jews, even though the Jewish population was then a minority.

6. The First Arab–Israeli War of 1948

Israel declared its establishment as a state in 1948. Immediately afterward, Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria attacked it.

The result was:

• an Israeli victory; and
• the flight or expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians.

The Palestinians remember this event as the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe.” Israelis, by contrast, remember it as their War of Independence.

7. The Six-Day War of 1967

In only six days, Israel occupied:

• the Gaza Strip;
• the West Bank;
• East Jerusalem;
• the Sinai Peninsula; and
• the Golan Heights.

The occupation problem that continues to the present day began at this point.

8. The Question of Israeli Settlements

Israel constructed numerous Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinians opposed these settlements because, in their view, the land upon which their future state should be established was steadily being taken away.

Israel, on the other hand, maintained that the settlements were necessary for security. This remains one of the most serious points of contention.

9. The Oslo Accords of 1993

Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized one another, and peace negotiations aimed at achieving coexistence between two states began.

However, terrorism, assassinations, and the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements prevented the peace process from advancing.

10. The Rise of Hamas

In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election. A political division subsequently developed:

• the Gaza Strip came under the control of Hamas; and
• the West Bank remained under the Palestinian Authority dominated by the PLO’s political successors.

This division continues today.

11. Developments Since 2023

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale attack against Israel. Many civilians were killed, and numerous people were taken hostage.

Israel responded by launching a large-scale military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

This resulted in enormous numbers of casualties and a grave humanitarian crisis, which continues to be a major concern for the international community.

The Principal Questions That Remain Unresolved

The principal unresolved issues include:

• Where should the national borders be drawn?
• Which side should claim Jerusalem as its capital?
• How should the right of return claimed by Palestinian refugees be handled?
• How can Israel’s security be guaranteed?
• What should be done about the Israeli settlements in the West Bank?
• In what form should a Palestinian state be established?

The history of this conflict cannot be reduced to the simple proposition that one side alone is entirely right. Each side attaches great importance to its own historical experience, national security, and right of national self-determination. The prolonged collision between these competing claims has produced the conflict that continues today.

(The preceding historical outline was prepared by ChatGPT.)

From the Palestinian Perspective

Palestinians strongly object to the historical account presented above. They argue that:

• this was the land on which they had lived for generations;
• they had no reason to bear responsibility for the persecution of Jews in Europe; and
• the United Nations partition plan treated them unfairly.

The people now called Palestinians are not the unchanged descendants of a single ancient ethnic group. They were formed through the intermingling of many peoples who lived in this region throughout history, including Canaanites, Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Arabs. Their collective identity was shaped particularly by the Arabization and Islamization of the region after the seventh century.

Consequently:

• there was no ethnic group called “Palestinians” in the modern sense in ancient times; but
• many peoples other than Jews nevertheless lived on this land.

This is an important point in understanding the present Palestine–Israel question.

Historians do not generally believe that present-day territorial ownership or political rights can be determined solely by asking who first inhabited a particular land. Numerous peoples and states have lived in and governed this region over thousands of years, making its history exceedingly complex.

To understand the present conflict, therefore, it is necessary to examine the continuous course of history from ancient times to the present.

From the Israeli Perspective

Israel maintains that:

• the Jewish people have a profound historical connection with this land;
• after suffering persecution throughout the world, the Jewish people needed a state in which they could live safely; and
• Israel was established on the basis of a decision by the United Nations.

The international community’s recognition of the establishment of Israel resulted from a combination of the following considerations:

1. the historical connection between the Jewish people and the land;
2. the international community’s profound sympathy after the Holocaust and its determination to prevent such persecution from recurring;
3. the collapse of the British Mandate’s ability to govern the region; and
4. the United Nations’ attempt to resolve the conflict by establishing two states.

Palestinians, however, regarded the decision as a division of their land imposed without their consent. This became the source of deep resentment that continues today.

Consequently, two questions continue to be debated in parallel:

• Was the establishment of Israel legitimate?
• How should the injustices and disadvantages suffered by Palestinians during that process be judged?

The Geographical Origins of the Jewish People

There is also the question of where the Jewish people originated and first established themselves geographically.

The origins of the Jewish people lie in the region encompassing present-day Israel, Palestine, and western Jordan. In ancient times, this territory was known as Canaan.

The broad historical account is as follows:

• Approximately four thousand years ago, around 2000 BC, the Hebrews—regarded as the ancestors of the Jewish people—are traditionally believed to have begun living in Canaan.
• According to the Bible, their ancestor Abraham migrated from Mesopotamia, near present-day southern Iraq, to Canaan under God’s guidance.
• Some of these people subsequently moved to Egypt and later returned to Canaan. This is the story of the Exodus described in the Old Testament. Archaeologists continue to debate how much of this narrative can be established as historical fact.
• Around 1000 BC, the Kingdom of Israel is believed to have been established during the reigns of David and Solomon. The northern Kingdom of Israel was later destroyed, while the southern Kingdom of Judah survived.

The words “Jew” and “Jewish” originated from the name Judah.

After the Roman Empire conquered Jerusalem in AD 70, many Jews were dispersed throughout the world. This is known as the Diaspora. For approximately the next nineteen hundred years, Jewish communities lived throughout Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and other regions.

The Jewish people, therefore, did not originate in Europe. They originated in Western Asia—the Middle East. Large Jewish populations came to live in Europe only after the Jewish people had been dispersed from their ancestral homeland.

Even if the Jewish people established the Kingdom of Israel in antiquity, they were not the only people living in that region. Ancient Palestine, or Canaan, was inhabited by many different peoples.

From the nineteenth century to the present day, an estimated 100,000 to 130,000 Palestinians and approximately 25,000 to 35,000 Israelis have died in connection with the Palestine–Israel conflict.

The Palestinian Dilemma in the Palestine–Israel Conflict

The Jewish people were a dispersed people who nevertheless stubbornly refused to abandon Judaism. They established distinctive communities of their own and did not readily assimilate into the societies in which they settled. Under the conditions of human society as it existed in earlier periods, it may have been almost inevitable that they would be persecuted by the populations already living in those places.

That fact, however, cannot justify what subsequently occurred in Palestine.

No state called Israel existed before 1948. Regardless of Britain’s actions, if Jewish immigrants entered territory inhabited by Palestinians and attempted to establish themselves there permanently, the people already living on that land would naturally try to drive them back with even greater force.

The Jewish people undoubtedly possessed a profound sense of victimhood resulting from centuries of persecution. Nevertheless, I conclude that the actions of Jews who entered territory inhabited by Palestinians imposed an extraordinarily severe burden upon the Palestinian people. This was the principal cause of the Palestine–Israel question.

Those who should originally have been restrained were the Jewish settlers.

The Palestine–Israel question has therefore remained in a continual state of fever. If this condition is simply allowed to continue, the conflict may remain unresolved for many years. Yet I believe that it will ultimately converge upon the unconditional surrender of Palestine.

I shall now present some important data explaining why I have reached this conclusion.

The following comparison of the military power of the two sides was prepared with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Comparison of Military Power

As of July 28, 2026, Israel possesses overwhelming military superiority. Strictly speaking, however, there is no unified regular force that can be called a “Palestinian army.” The forces on the Palestinian side consist primarily of armed organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

Fumihiko Takeda is the founder and Representative of the Lincoln Club, an independent political and policy research organization that he established in Japan on November 19, 1993. The Lincoln Club is his own organization and is not affiliated with, or a branch of, any organization in the United States.

In 1974, he founded the Cooperative Center, an information service company that conducted research and analysis for Japanese government agencies and major newspapers. In 1977, he established the Institute for Ultimate Democracy and has since devoted his career to the study of democracy, constitutional reform, electoral systems, and institutional design.

From 2006 to 2014, he served as a lecturer at the Graduate School of Law, Keio University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on democratic governance and political reform, including works on direct democracy, constitutional issues, and election systems. His policy proposals have been discussed in major Japanese publications and public policy forums.