Two years after Hamas’s attack on Israel, delegates from Hamas, Israel and the United States are in Egypt this week to see if President Trump’s cease-fire proposal can lead to an end to the war. In this episode of “The Opinions,” the columnist Thomas L. Friedman explains why this round of peace talks could be different and what obstacles still stand in the way of making lasting peace a reality.

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The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Thomas L. Friedman: I’m Thomas Friedman. I’ve been following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since I was 15. I cover foreign affairs for The New York Times, with a particular emphasis on this conflict.

On this second anniversary of the war, how am I feeling? This has been the longest Israeli-Palestinian war. It’s also been the first war that, despite its length — two years now — it actually has no name. The 1948 War, the War of Independence, the Nakba War from the Palestinian point of view, the ’67 War, the Six-Day War, the Sinai War, the October War.

This war, two years later, still has no name. I have a name for it. It’s the Worst War. This is absolutely the worst war ever between Israelis and Palestinians. It comes after a failed attempted peace. It’s a war that was launched by Hamas with complete viciousness aimed to kill as many Israeli soldiers and civilians as Hamas soldiers could encounter. And it triggered an Israeli response against Hamas that has devastated Gaza, inflicted tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties — both soldiers and civilians — and has done so without Israel offering any political horizon for the morning after. It’s left both communities more devastated physically, more traumatized than ever, and farther than ever from what is the only solution: two states for two people.