If the recent Israeli attack on an alleged terrorist camp at Ein Saheb deep within Syrian territory underlines yet again Arab weakness and impotence, it also demonstrates the limits of power.

At present Israel enjoys the kind of military superiority over its neighbours that the United States has over the rest of the world. Both can strike with impunity and with little fear of reprisal. But Israelis are well aware that this recent air raid close to Damascus has little to do with the suicide bombing in Haifa that left nearly a score of civilians dead on the eve of their holiest day, Yom Kippur.

There are times when even the strongest are left flailing their arms blindly in the air, because their tormentor is too small or too nimble for them to crush. When the US attacked Iraq, thinking Americans were aware that this would not further their campaign against terrorism, but supported the war anyway in the belief that some action was better than none.

This fallacy of power is at work in the mindset of the Israeli leadership. Sharon and his cabinet know full well that the succession of suicide bombers who keep coming despite the construction of a wall are not trained in or by Syria. After all, how much training does it require to pull a cord that detonates the explosives the bombers carry? It needs an enormous amount of courage and motivation, but not a high degree of skill.

The Israeli government has tried everything to halt these horrifying attacks in their cities. Describing the effect of these bombings on the Israeli psyche, Jonathan Freedland wrote recently in the Guardian: "So Israelis go quietly mad. For a country of six million, 19 dead is a huge calamity. Proportionately, that would mean a loss of 190 British lives [or about 400 Pakistanis]... Is it a surprise that Israelis demand action when that combined number dies every couple of weeks?

They know that the rest of the world sees Israel's battle with the Palestinians as a straightforward contest of powerful against powerless. Many of them, in their cooler moments, see the logic in that view: they know Israel's occupation is a basic injustice and that Palestinian civilians die, in their twos and threes, every day. But that logic becomes harder to hold when every cafe is a cemetery, when every school bus is a potential death trap."

Ironically, both Israel and America seem to be marching in lock-step: both are powerful; both have experienced body blows from far weaker enemies; but neither can come to accept that they have to address the core issues before the threat to their security will recede. In Israel's case, ordinary people have come to believe that no amount of territorial concessions will satisfy Palestinian demands, and that what the Arabs really want is to drive them out of the region entirely.

To get an idea of the power of their attachment to their land, one has to travel back in time and space for two millennia across much of Europe and the Middle East. Jews have been dispersed, persecuted and hounded from one country to another.

In much of this period they have been prevented from owning land and farming, hence their focus on banking and finance. This long history of pain and suffering culminated in the Holocaust when millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis. No other people have been so reviled and abused: Christians, Muslims and Hindus have had their own territories, and have no experience of living in a diaspora for centuries.

None of this is meant to excuse or condone the way Israelis are behaving towards the Palestinians. However, it is important to understand why they do not view the creation of Israel as a colonial presence: most of them genuinely see their return to the 'Promised Land' as the redemption of a Biblical promise made to their forefathers by God.

This narrative is diametrically opposed to the Palestinian narrative of dispossession and oppression, and in all clashes of conflicting nationalisms, there are winners and losers. Israelis want to know why the displaced Palestinians can't be absorbed by Arab states with vast territories, while Palestinians want to know why they are being asked to pay for the suffering of the Jews.

Muslims across the world see the creation of Israel as well as the subsequent financial, military and diplomatic support it has received from the West as an extension of the Crusades, and further evidence of western hostility towards Islam. Washington's open-ended approval of Israeli actions is especially viewed as encouraging Tel Aviv's refusal to withdraw from occupied territory, and is therefore the object of Muslim rage and extremist violence.

In this unending cycle of real and perceived wrongs, the history of the region continues to be written in blood. It is clear that the Israeli experiment will not be ended with Jews migrating to different parts of the globe yet again. No matter how much many Muslims wish for such an outcome, this is not about to happen. Similarly, Palestinians are going to continue to lash out against their occupation and oppression, often with lethal results.

The only way out of this quagmire is for Palestinians to accept the presence of Israel, and for Israelis to withdraw to their pre-1967 frontiers. Jerusalem could be the capital of both nations. Israelis argue that the presence of an independent Palestinian state would be a threat to their security. But given the fact that they are the dominant power in the region, this perception cannot be taken seriously.

Avraham Burg, until recently speaker of the Israeli Knesset, wrote in Al-Quds of Jerusalem: "Through thousands of years of exile we were weak. The Christian world loved our weakness; it symbolized their strength. But at a certain historic moment the Zionist movement arose, the movement of Jewish national rebirth. A brave and honest leadership led this downtrodden people to nearly unimaginable accomplishments. In one historic moment, we decided to stop being weak, and the nature of our dialogue with other nations was utterly changed..."

Until Muslims arrive at this 'historic moment' and get 'a brave and honest leadership', they are likely to suffer humiliation and defeat.