I thank my Israeli correspondent for his careful and temperate response to my “Gaza Massacres: A Compromise Solution.” I cannot pretend to agree with him on more than a few points, but it is a relief to hear from someone who can address the subject without the usual resort to denunciations of antisemitism or quotations from the Book of Joshua.

He begins by distancing himself from the ministers I quoted—Limor Son Har-Melech, Amichai Eliyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Avi Dichter. I do not doubt that he finds their words disturbing. I will also accept that not every Israeli politician, soldier, or citizen approves of such talk. But my point in quoting them was not to smear the whole of Israel’s population. It was to show that statements of this kind are not random mutterings from a street corner; they are voiced by serving ministers, and they are consonant with the actions of the Israeli State in Gaza. Whether these men speak for everyone is beside the point. They speak from the heart of government, and their words are being made flesh.

On the question of “ethnic cleansing,” my correspondent prefers to frame the matter as an unfortunate perception rather than a deliberate policy. I will not rehearse the debate over intentions. In practice, the cities are being levelled, the population starved or driven into exile, and there is open talk of resettling the empty land. Whether one calls this ethnic cleansing or “secure territorial control” is a matter of vocabulary. The reality is the same.

He speaks movingly of the Jewish historical memory—the Holocaust, the centuries of exile and persecution. This, I think, is one of the strongest parts of his reply, and I would not dispute that it is central to Israel’s national psychology. But I cannot accept that it explains away present behaviour. The knowledge of suffering should be an argument for mercy, not an excuse for repeating in another form the brutalities once endured.

Where he objects most strongly is to my proposal for recognising present borders in exchange for a complete population transfer. He calls it “a moral and strategic disaster,” a vindication of those who say Israel is illegitimate. I take the point, but my argument is one of practicality. I do not believe that a meaningful two-state settlement on 1967 lines will be agreed, still less implemented, in any foreseeable future. I suspect he does not believe it either. The purpose of my suggestion was to find an arrangement that stops the killing, gives Israel secure frontiers, and gives the displaced Palestinians a chance of life elsewhere—underwritten by reparations large enough to make that life decent.

On the matter of “international terrorism,” he objects to my applying the label to the exploding pagers in Lebanon and the killings of Iranian scientists. In Israel, he says, these are seen as pre-emptive defence. My answer is simple: the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants abroad is terrorism, whatever the claimed justification. Even when the targets are alleged enemies, if the method is a car bomb in a public street or a booby-trapped object that might be picked up by a child, it falls within any honest definition of the term. The issue is not whether Israel has enemies—every state does—but whether there are limits to the means it will employ.

On compensation, he fears that my proposal for a UN-administered tariff on Israeli exports would be “economic warfare” and would harden public opinion. This is possible. But any system relying on Israeli promises to pay is worthless. Once the dust has settled and recognition given, there will be no leverage short of war. The tariff scheme is clumsy, but it is at least enforceable without the use of armed force.

He ends by sketching an alternative path: ceasefire, exchanges, a freeze on settlements, two-state talks, economic integration. I wish I could believe it possible. My problem is that these measures have been proposed repeatedly for decades, and each time they have failed—sometimes because of Palestinian intransigence, sometimes because of Israeli expansionism, sometimes because neither side trusted the other enough to proceed. I see no reason why they would work now, in a climate far worse than that of any previous attempt.

Even so, I will grant that his vision is morally preferable to mine. He would keep the land divided between two peoples and hope for gradual reconciliation. I would give it all to one side but remove the other with enough compensation to make it worth their while. His plan has the advantage of not looking like conquest; mine has the advantage of being achievable in the short term. Perhaps events will prove one of us right. Perhaps both of us will be wrong, and the present course will continue to its logical end in a wider war.

I thank him again for his civility, and for the reminder that within Israel there are those who think beyond slogans and bombardments. Whether they can make themselves heard over the noise of war is another question.