I do not know how to measure pain or how to quantify suffering, but one of the ironies of history is that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the oppressor seems to hate its victim much more than the victim hates its oppressor. I never liked to indulge in comparative martyrology, but Israelis will be well advised to bear in mind that a society that shows insensitivity to the suffering it inflicts should expect an erosion of the expression of sympathy for the suffering it has endured.

How can one describe the prevailing situation seen through Palestinian eyes?

The Nakba — "catastrophe" — is not a frozen moment in history that happened sometime in 1948. It is undeniably an ongoing process today.

What we have witnessed during the years of theoretical peacemaking between 1991 and 2014 was not an Israeli withdrawal, but an expansion of its occupation through the accelerated growth of illegal settlements. The consistent policies of successive Israeli governments — left, right and center — have been how to acquire as much of Palestinian geography as possible with as little Palestinian demography as possible.