It will end in one of two ways: the elimination of Jewish nationalism as an ideology or the elimination of Palestinian nationalism as an ideology.By Elad Nachshon, JFeedThe right refuses to acknowledge the existence of Palestinian nationalism, believing that recognizing it is incompatible with opposing a Palestinian state. Instead, it prefers to focus on Islam as the root cause of the conflict.Certainly, Palestinian individuals and organizations often cloak themselves in religious garb; certainly, Islam can lend their struggle particular intensity and cruelty; certainly, there are elements in Islam that are hostile to Zionism and systematically discriminate against Jews; certainly, there are cases where Islam alone can drive a Muslim to take up arms and kill Jews or fight Israel.But Islam is not the root cause of the conflict, and this can be demonstrated in two ways.First, most Islamic countries have never fought Israel and have done little against it beyond verbal condemnations and refusing diplomatic relations. If only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were limited to that.Even those Muslim countries that did fight Israel did so, in the vast majority of cases, under secular regimes that attacked Israel in the name of secular pan-Arab nationalism, not Islam.Iran is a rather unique case of a regime attacking Israel for religious reasons.In contrast, Azerbaijan, Iran’s Shiite neighbor, maintains warm and friendly relations with Israel. Even conservative and religious Muslim countries do so, for example, the United Arab Emirates or Morocco.In other words, there are versions of Islam that are deeply hostile to Israel and those that are not, but none of them wage a war against Israel on the scale of the Palestinian struggle.Second, Palestinian nationalism has always been committed to this all-out war, whether led by religious movements or not. Some of its leaders were even Christians.There is a profound difference between Palestinian nationalism, which cannot exist without a commitment to Israel’s destruction, and other movements or regimes in the Arab and Muslim world, which can be hostile to Israel, friendly toward it, or shift between the two without undermining their own raison d’être.The refusal to recognize this profound difference led large parts of the right to oppose the peace treaty with Egypt, assuming we were doomed to an eternal war with it, and this same inability to recognize the difference leads some on the right to believe, even today, after 45 years of peace, that it’s still a ruse.The left, on the other hand, has no problem acknowledging the existence of Palestinian nationalism. But it struggles to grasp its full significance because it struggles to grasp the full significance of any nationalism.For the left, the deep and basic needs of all human beings are peace, equality, prosperity, and individual freedom. Nationalism, at best, is a decoration: charming folklore, traditions, and symbols. At worst, it’s a manipulation wielded by the powerful over the masses.Even when the left supports nationalism, it imbues it with its own values, concluding that the goal of Palestinian nationalism is to bring Palestinians peace, equality, prosperity, and individual freedom.Palestinians fight because they lack civil rights or suffer from poverty; surely millions of Palestinians aren’t truly willing to sacrifice their peace, equality, prosperity, and freedom just to continue waging an eternal war in hopes of gaining a bit more of what the left dismissively calls “rocks and dirt.”But from a Palestinian national perspective, the two-state solution is utterly impossible. From their viewpoint, the entirety of the Land of Israel is their indisputable homeland, and Jews have no connection to it whatsoever; they are complete foreigners who came from afar and seized it by force.To tell Palestinians to accept that Jews will forever hold three-quarters of this homeland and make do with two disconnected fragments of it, both likely dependent on Israel indefinitely, is an indescribable insult.We wouldn’t accept that. I struggle to think of any other nation in the world that would.The Cypriots and Serbs were asked to give up far less than that, and they’ve consistently refused for decades. To translate this demand into progressive language, asking Palestinians to recognize Israel and settle for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is like asking the feminist movement to accept that women will never have the right to vote or equality and to settle for not being considered property.That’s not a reasonable compromise, it’s a betrayal of the core of your ideology.The furthest the Palestinian national movement has been willing to go, and even this is doubtful, is to agree to a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in exchange for the free immigration of millions of Palestinians from around the world into Israel within the Green Line.In short: agreeing to the establishment of two Palestinian states, one with a Jewish minority.Thus, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not end in compromise. It will end in one of two ways: the elimination of Jewish nationalism as an ideology or the elimination of Palestinian nationalism as an ideology.It’s hard to find parallels for this in the world because often two nations fight over a specific territory, but each recognizes the other’s right to the rest of its land.That’s not the case here. Our territorial claims completely overlap. Nothing we’re willing to give up comes close to satisfying the Palestinians, and nothing the Palestinians are willing to give up comes close to satisfying us. An unbridgeable chasm separates the demands of the two sides.For the same reason, none of our conflicts with any other Middle Eastern country even remotely resemble the conflict with the Palestinians. The Iranian regime wants to destroy Israel, but if that regime falls, peace with Iran is possible.We’re in a constant state of war with Syria, but if al-Julani decides he wants peace, peace is possible. The same is true for Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or any other country you can name.Our existence in the region doesn’t contradict the existential interest of any nation, except the Palestinians. But it does contradict the existential interest of the Palestinians, and that fact cannot be changed.The post Two flags, one land, no compromise: Why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can’t be solved – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.