The Palestinians and Israelis have resumed their “blood feud.” We know that term from tales of ongoing violence and retaliation between families such as Italy’s Capulets and Montagues, America’s Hatfields and McCoys, numerous Albanian families over the centuries, and even mob “families,” such as Chicago’s Capones and Morans, which culminated in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a minor scuffle compared to the current mayhem between feuding Mexican drug cartels. We don’t usually think of conflicts between peoples, cultures, or religions as blood feuds. But they can be.

Examples of blood feuds involving large numbers of people over extended periods include Northern Irish republicans vs. loyalists (Christian Catholics vs. Christian Protestants), Muslim Shiites vs. Muslim Sunnis, Hutus vs. Tutsis, Turks vs. Kurds, Arabs vs. Kurds, Muslims vs. Hindus, Muslims vs. Christians, and Muslims vs. Jews, which brings us back to the Palestinians and Israelis. Why did Israelis bomb Gaza City? Because Hamas militants had fired rockets at Israel. One act of violence leads to another and that to another and so on. It’s difficult to break the cycle of vengeance in blood feuds, because the victims of violence are members of one’s family, clan, tribe, or religion. Taking revenge is an obligation. Still, you might think that after decades of killing, both sides might finally be ready to bury the hatchet someplace other than in the back of an enemy. All too often, you’d be wrong.

When animals of the same species fight–usually over territory, food, females, or broods–once one party demonstrates superiority, the other usually backs off. But the human species retains beneath its civilized facade the capacity to become an enraged chimpanzee, to kill, and to avenge killings of those close. Blood feuding is in our blood. Consider the difference between (a) WWII, after which the U.S. became an ally of its former enemies, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and (b) the Crusades, after which bad blood and bloodshed between Christians and Muslims continued to the present day, a thousand years later. The former was just a war. Once the defeated leaders were punished, all was forgiven. The latter has all the markings of a blood feud. Battles may be lost, but there is no final defeat, only more deaths to be avenged.

It is not helpful for bystanders to a blood feud to express disappointment or outrage over the violence, to condemn one party or both, to call for reason to prevail, or to plea for an end to hostilities. Yet that is what bystanders typically do, as a substitute for actually getting involved. If outsiders are willing to apply enough force, it is possible to interrupt the cycle of violence and compel the feuding parties to make peace. But the feud may simmer beneath the surface, only to resume when the outside force is withdrawn. That is almost surely what would happen if the U.S. or U.N. were to impose peace in Palestine by force, since it would not resolve the underlying blood feud or the wider clash between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian cultures.

Sadly, if the parties are not willing to be reasonable and negotiate a settlement to their dispute, the only way to end the cycle of violence may be for one party to absorb the other. Indeed, this is exactly what some academics say happened between biblical times and the twentieth century, when the modern State of Israel was founded in Palestine. If they are right, then most of today’s Palestinians are direct descendents of biblical Jews who were gradually enculturated by the Arabs and converted to Islam. But neither modern day Israelis nor Palestinians are going to allow themselves to be absorbed. This does not bode well for Western Civilization, which may be drawn into a full-scale war in the Middle East, resulting in many times the death and destruction of the Iraq war, an abrupt end to cheap oil and perhaps the industrial civilization that depends on it, and not the slightest chance of bringing the blood feud between Israelis and Palestinians to an end.

UPDATE, December 30: An op-ed by an Israeli academic in today’s New York Times points out that “leaders” of Israel’s 1.3 million Arab community favor “dissolution of the Jewish state,” and goes on to say, “Demography, if not Arab victory in battle, offers the recipe for such a dissolution. The birth rates for Israeli Arabs are among the highest in the world . . . . If present trends persist, Arabs could constitute the majority of Israel’s citizens by 2040 or 2050. Already, within five to 10 years, Palestinians (Israeli Arabs coupled with those who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) will form the majority population of Palestine (the land lying between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean).” Some academics say that yesterday’s Jews are today’s Palestinians. Is this one saying that today’s Jews are tomorrow’s Palestinians?