Palestinian men pray inside the partially destroyed Al-Sousi mosque in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, August 15, 2014.

As another round of warfare between Israel and Hamas may be ending, Israelis can feel as stuck, in different ways, as the Palestinians themselves. Because of course this is really just another round in the unresolved Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49.A permanent peace treaty seems far away, with the main actors - Israel, the Palestinians and the United States - all seemingly blocked by their internal politics from necessary compromises on borders and on deeply held religious beliefs.Israel wants to disarm Hamas to end the attacks and indiscriminate rockets that now reach most of Israel. But how, without a permanent peace?Israel could reoccupy Gaza, but at greater cost of life to Gazans and Israelis, and no senior Israeli commander wants to do it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his core allies, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, don't want to, either.Because once Israel is back in Gaza, even if it drives Hamas and Islamic Jihad underground, how does it get out again?In 1978, Menachem Begin, then the Israeli prime minister, offered Gaza to Anwar Sadat, then the Egyptian president, at Camp David; Sadat wanted no part of Gaza and its refugees. Neither, finally, did another Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. In 2005, judging that protecting Israelis there was too costly, he pulled them out.So now many Israelis wonder why Hamas keeps attacking them, which misunderstands Israel's real problem - instability from the failure to negotiate a sovereign Palestinian state and finally fix its borders.The Palestinians themselves are deeply divided, a "unity government" aside. Secular Fatah recognizes the state of Israel and is committed to a two-state solution. Fatah controls the West Bank in coordination with Israel, which keeps Hamas suppressed. With no Israeli forces in the West Bank, Hamas might dominate there, too.But Hamas thrives off Fatah's failure to deliver a Palestinian state, winning the last real election in 2006. And Hamas capitalizeson its reputation as fighters against Israel on behalf of all Palestinians.Unlike Fatah, Hamas claims the whole of the British mandate of Palestine as land granted by Allah, which cannot be ceded. In other words, Israel is illegitimate and its occupants should "go home." The most any senior Hamas official ever offered was a "hudna," a cease-fire, which the Prophet Muhammad offered enemies to restore his strength.Sometimes Hamas officials say a hudna can last four years, or seven. Those who talk to the world's news media, like Ahmed Yousef, a former Hamas official, say a "future generation" can decide. But a hudna is not a peace treaty. At the same time, Hamas lets the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, negotiate, expecting failure.But for all its bravery, Hamas is in trouble. It needs to show that the death and destruction, and the huge investment made in rockets and tunnels, will bring an improvement to ordinary Gazan life. But beyond continuing the war, which could force a reoccupation of Gaza and its own destruction, there is little more pressure Hamas can apply to Israel.Hamas' real dilemma now is Egypt. The coup that put Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in power has tightened the Gazan "prison" and "the siege."El-Sissi is an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an ally of Hamas. Egypt has sealed the border, stopping the profitable tunnel traffic into Gaza of building materials, cars, household goods and weaponry.Shlomo Avineri, an Israeli political scientist, is struck, like el-Sissi, by the effectiveness of small, religiously inspired groups like the Islamic State, Hezbollah and Hamas, which believe in martyrdom through battle. "Arab state and military structures are not so good, but these small, highly motivated religious groups have resilience and are ready to sacrifice themselves and their own people," Avineri said.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

There is a lesson in that for Israel, Avineri said. And there is another lesson, from the Bible, about the power of religiously motivated self-sacrifice.After all, it was in Gaza that Samson, calling on God, pulled down a temple on his Philistine enemies, making him an early kind of suicide bomber.