January 31, 2025: For over seventy years Russia and Israel have been on good terms. Russia was one of the first countries to recognize Israeli statehood in 1948. That all changed in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and found itself mired in a long war it seemed incapable of winning. Desperate for allies, Russia turned to Iran, which had been recently humiliated by Israeli airstrikes and was seeking allies for its counterattack on Israel.

Meanwhile Israel was briefly distracted by problems with Hamas militants in Gaza. Hamas had to be eliminated for Israel to have any peace. Hamas was dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and enthusiastically advocates killing Jews whenever, and wherever they can. But this brought up another issue, that of finally settling the Palestinian question. Part of the solution was agreeing on what the borders for the new Palestinian state should be. Palestinians wanted the original 1967 borders, while the Israelis want to make some modifications, like keeping control of Jerusalem. It got worse, with Palestinians insisting that those who fled Israel in 1948, and their descendants, be allowed to return.

Israel decided that there was another solution; the no-state solution. Instead of continuing the arguments over the 1967 borders, why not go back to the 1967 politics. In short, convince Jordan to take back the West Bank. Jordan ruled the West Bank until 1967, and claimed it as lost territory for two decades. Then in 1988 Jordan ceded control to the Palestinians. Trying to convince Egypt to take control of the Gaza Strip was difficult, even though Gaza had been part of Egypt for most of the last few thousand years.

Israel and Jordan worked out a deal, perhaps with some international organizations, for running Jerusalem. Israel tried to get Arab states to stop treating all the Palestinians like refugees and absorb them as Israel did for all the Jews driven out of Arab countries after the 1948 Arab Israeli war.

Egypt might seem an unlikely host for 1.5 million Arab refugees in Gaza. But Egypt is well aware of the fact that Gaza is becoming a refuge for Islamic terrorists who direct their attacks at Egypt, as well as Israel. If Egypt wants to deal with that problem, the best way is to make all those refugees Egyptian citizens, and subject them to Egyptian law and counter-terrorism efforts, if need be.

And let us not forget how the problem started. The Arabs that left what-is-now-Israel in 1948 were convinced by the Arab countries to remain refugees for 60 years, on the promise that the Arab world would crush the new state of Israel. That didn't happen and isn't likely to ever happen. The Arab world has been getting more and more impatient with the Palestinians, and their inability to get along with each other, rule themselves or work out a deal with Israel. Then it was proposed that since the two-state solution wasn't going to work, give the Arab refugees a place to call home. At this point the Palestinian refugees were the children and grandchildren of the original refugees. It was suggested that they settle down where they were in the West Bank. That seemed reasonable because the alternative is more head-butting by the Palestinian Arab radicals and misery for the refugees who, if they were treated like the 1948 Jewish refugees, would be a lot better off today.

In other words, get over past defeats and move on. But the chance of this solution getting accepted was low. The Arab world has been in the habit, for centuries, of adopting failed solutions and sticking with them no matter what. This has resulted in poor economic, educational and political performance despite all the oil wealth, literacy, economic growth and all manner of performance indicators are among the lowest on the planet. We are dealing with a self-destructive culture that likes to blame others for their problems, problems they could easily solve themselves. Throughout the 1970s and 80s communist Russia supported the Palestinians.

By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, the new Russian government decided to restore good relations with Israel, the only Middle Eastern state that was stable, prosperous and militarily invincible. That fell apart in the 21st century when Russia became allies with Israel’s arch enemy Iran. That did not work out because in 2024 an unexpected change of government in Syria sent the Assad clan, the rulers of Syria for half a century, off to exile in Russia. At the same time Israel destroyed most of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, eliminating many members including most senior leaders.

This left Hamas as the last obstacle to peace in the region. Going into 2025, Israeli forces are still battling Hamas remnants in Gaza because the Israeli government doesn’t want to pay the political cost of occupying Gaza and its very anti-Israel population until the Palestinians finally decide to be good. This may be the end of Hamas because they have no allies. Iran and Russia both have few resources to provide more than minimal support for anyone in the Middle East.