In Letters to a Palestinian Neighbor, Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli who now spends much of his time fostering Jewish-Muslim dialogue, makes the case for Israel to the Palestinian people. He has even made an Arabic translation of his book available for free online. In an interview with Adam Rubenstein, he explains why peace has so far proved impossible:

The conflict [with Israel] is at the heart of Palestinian identity in a way that’s not true for [Israel’s] other neighbors. The Palestinian national movement, in all its factions, tends to see compromise [with the Jewish state] as a betrayal of justice. What we’ve just seen on the Gaza border in these last weeks is an expression of what’s wrong with Palestinian national identity. Why are Palestinians who live in Palestine demanding the “right of return” to a country that is no longer Palestine? Return to where from where? Leave Gaza—Palestine—and go to Israel? Why, for that matter, are there refugee camps in Gaza—in Palestine? Aren’t they already home? Or does the Palestinian right of return only play out literally, to the actual ancestral homes that were lost in war 70 years ago? Those homes are never going to be retrieved; in most cases they no longer even exist. No Israeli government will agree to national suicide by allowing the descendants of refugees to move to the Jewish state.

The Palestinian demand for right of return to the state of Israel is an expression of the rejection of Israel’s right to exist. . . . I believe that that rejection is the source of the conflict. If there was an indication that even part of the Palestinian people was publicly challenging the official narrative about Israel and the Jewish people—namely, that we are thieves and colonialists and liars who have invented our own history—if there was only some indication on the other side that this is now being debated in Palestinian society, that would be a moment when many of us in Israel would say, “well, maybe we really do have a partner.” In the absence of any debate within Palestinian society over Israel’s legitimacy, it’s hard to argue with the Israeli consensus that there is no partner for peace among the Palestinian leadership.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.