If you’re a college student, chances are you’ve witnessed some measure of outrage over the most recent outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip. Perhaps you walked by protesters chanting “stop the violence now!” on a street corner, or maybe you received a litany of e-mails from various organizations deploring the violence, or maybe someone’s “Qassam Count” Facebook application littered your news-feed with casualty and rocket fire counts. One event in particular (or maybe it was the culmination of my frustration with all of these efforts) procured a reaction from me.

A couple of weeks ago, a campus activist knocked on my door and asked me, “Would you like to sign a non-partisan petition that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza?” My proclivity to respond unfavorably to such unsolicited visits kicked in and after a brief moment of consideration, I recalled my reading of Edward Luttwak’s edgy Foreign Affairs article and coyly retorted, “Eh, why not give war a chance?”

Mirroring the way I’m sure some readers will react, he was stunned and walked down the hall muttering something under his breath about my complicity with genocide. Yet, as Luttwak’s thesis follows, the history of artificially imposed armistices and ceasefires, particularly in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, reveals that such interventions merely postpone the arrival of peace. Luttwak further elucidates his “burnout” thesis by proclaiming that “although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace…when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. “Either way,” he continues, “the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached.”

In fact, artificial interruptions can make conflicts even more brutal. During the ceasefire, belligerents have an opportunity to reorganize, rearm, and refresh so that they can spring back into action as soon as the fragile peace inevitably falters. For instance, the ceasefires ordained by the United Nations at the onset of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 directly contributed to the protraction of hostilities. If Egypt and other Arab armies weren’t given time to reconstitute their forces and eventually break the agreement with a surprise attack on Israel’s Negba position, the war could have been over in weeks instead of years.

With both sides certain that the international community will call a timeout before things get too bad, neither feels the need to compromise. War-induced exhaustion is no longer a path to settlement. The chance of long-lasting peace becomes so remote that belligerents allocate all their resources toward rearmament and never bother with reconstructing ravaged infrastructure. For example, confronted with the threat of being obliterated by the asymmetrically powerful Israeli military, leaders of extremist groups like Hamas claim victory at every pause in hostilities and vow to continue their armed struggled against Israel (as Nasrallah did after the Lebanon War of 2006).

Further, formal ceasefires between Israel and Palestine add a reason for the parties to go to war. Minor infractions of the agreement turn into major conflagrations when neither side can politically afford to back down. This process is partially responsible for the recent Israeli incursions into Gaza, which arose out of disagreements over the nature of the truce agreement (the terms were that Israel would lift its blockade in exchange for a pledge from Hamas to halt all rocket fire). While Israel claimed it would not completely lift the blockade because of the continued rocket volleying from Hamas, Hamas claimed that continued rocket fire was either out of their control or in retaliation against the continued existence of any form of blockade. This diplomatic stalemate eventually escalated and tensions exploded as Israel initiated Operation Cast Lead at the end of December. Brigadier General Shmuel Zakai of the IDF Gaza Division explained to Ha’aretz: “When you create a tahadiyeh [truce], and the economic pressure on the Strip continues…it’s obvious that Hamas will to try reach an improved tahadiyeh, and…their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire.” In a sense, the formal declaration of terms to a ceasefire provides a legal justification (in terms of international law) for the resumption of hostilities in the event of any infringement.

Possibly even more harmful to long-term peace prospects, believe it or not, are humanitarian relief initiatives. Luttwak goes as far as to blame the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for contributing to a half-century of Arab-Israeli violence. He admonishes the organization for continuing to impede the advent of peace by “preserving…resentments in as fresh a condition as they were in 1948 and keeping the first bloom of revanchist emotion intact.” International NGOs and other providers of humanitarian relief routinely supply active combatants because they either indiscriminately render their services or cannot exclude armed individuals from their facilities. In some places (though not as much in Israel/Palestine), aid organizations will even pay a local militia for protection, and that money ends up getting funneled toward the purchase of arms. Humanitarian relief efforts seem like the automatic moral response when confronted with large-scale human suffering, but, in the long-run, they can extend the conflict by preventing mutual exhaustion and the settlement process that typically follows.

Despite the seemingly dubious morality of letting war run its natural course, it is certain that these conclusions about the functions of war are at least somewhat valid. To be sure, there are plenty of compelling justifications for intervention and conflict management—as Gene Garthwaite, Professor of Asian Studies here at Dartmouth and expert on the Near East, points out, “War can also lead to Hobbesian mutual self-destruction.” But the repeated failure of the international community to achieve any sort of resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict seems to underscore the need for a new approach.

The next time someone asks you to sign a petition for a ceasefire or immediate emergency relief, bear in mind that such well-intentioned efforts can often do more harm than good. Resist the emotional impulse to call for action as a means of ethical assuagement or expression of empathy. Oddly enough, sitting on our hands may sometimes be the best we can do.