With Israeli and Palestinian forces likely to resume hostilities after the four-day pause starting Thursday, the prospects for a more lasting peace in the Middle East remain dim. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to utterly defeat Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the coastal enclave and stunned the world with its killing spree on Oct. 7. For their part, Hamas officials have said they will conduct similar attacks again, as many times as is necessary to achieve the complete destruction of Israel.

It is tempting to conclude that, after this, Israelis and Palestinians simply will never be able to agree on a political settlement capable of bringing an end to more than a century of conflict. Yet history is replete with examples of apparently implacable enemies tiring, eventually, of war and coming to the table—including in the Arab-Israeli context.