@u9y42: This morning I spent time to read your post of May 1. Since the post is already very long, I don't think it's a good idea to respond to it in a single post, so I'll do it in more than one.
Let me start with this:
I don't think all criticism of Israel is based in ignorance or Jew-hatred*, but I think Jew-hatred plays a huge role.
If there were very little Jew-hatred in the world, the Arab-Israeli conflict would be considered about as important as the dispute over Kashmir or Cyprus.
* I tend to say "Jew-hatred" instead of antisemitism. Some years ago I found people were responding quickly to my use of the word "antisemitism" with the rote phrase "You know, the Palestinians are also semitic!" Then I read that "antisemitism" was a term devised by Germans to be a sterile scientific version of "Judenhass" (Jew-hatred).
Again, thanks for the post and I may respond to more of the specifics at a later time. One of the things I've tried to do in some of my posts is make some labelled clear unambigious statements that people could argue for or against. Thanks for doing this.
Personally, I'm less concerned about why people devote their attention to this conflict (nor do I see how that knowledge would help solve it) than I am with Israel's actions justifying that attention in spades - enough to turn away even those who once supported it.
We disagree about whether or not acknowledging the role of Jew-hatred in the conflict would help solve it.
You wrote a lot, but sentence quoted above provides the best summary of what I think you're saying. You think Israel's actions should be different. In particular, you think they should engage in less military action and be willing to make more concessions to reach some final status agreement. Is that fair to say? Would you like to be more specific about what actions you believe Israel should take and what the likely responses to those actions would be?
I could imagine the conflict ending if the Palestinians generally accepted that they have lost the war. Germany didn't accept its loss from WWI, but has accepted its loss in WWII. Frankly I'm skeptical that anything could convince the Palestinians they've lost. However, suppose if there were a military campaign against the Palestinians similar to the one against Nazi Germany, a campaign that included events similar to the fire bombing of Dresden. Suppose as a result the Palestinians essentially gave up. Suppose most moved to Jordan or Egypt and the ones who remained were given, say, 50% of the disputed territory to form one or two Palestinian states. In that case, would the WWII level military campaign have been worth it? Everyone has to decide for themselves, of course. I don't feel bad about the military campaign against Nazi Germany, and I see the modern Palestinians as occupying a lower moral plane than the Nazis.
It's natural that the Palestinians haven't accepted that they've lost. They haven't lost. In the end they will probably win, and six million Jews will be dead. I think this is the most likely way the conflict will end. The only silver lining for people like me will be watching Hamas and Fatah (or whoever the tribes are at that point) fight for control in the aftermath. Well, that and watching the nanorobots bring about human extinction.