Thank you for this. When I try to discuss the situation and issues rationally, i inevitably run into people who seek to appear sophisticated by declaring a moral equivalency, or who skip the equivalency and go straight for "Blame the Jews." This conflict is not religious, it's about tyrants needing to distract their people from the tyrant's own oppression of the lower classers. Something strange happened about 1500-1600 when the most advanced civilization outside Mezoamerica, the Arab world, turned from love of learning toward denying lower-class Arabs literacy and teaching only rote memorization of Koranic verses. The fatalism of Arab Islam, represented by Insh'allah is mostly responsible for the success of Zionism. Jews arrived in what is now Israel and offered to buy land from local landowners, The landowners looked at barren ground and said "Insh'Allah" (if God so wills) the land will be fertile. It was not, and so it can only be that God willed the land to be infertile. They laughed at the Jews who paid good money for worthless land. The Jews were different. They agreed that if God so willed the land would be fertile, but added "and if I irrigate the land and weed the garden and use fertilizer then it will be fertile."

When the common folk looked at the miracle it was easier to believe what their rulers told them, that the land was always fertile and the Jews had stolen it from them than to believe they had been foolish. Thus was born the Arab-Israeli split.

I'm going to recast this post rather than take the time to locate references and risk falling asleep while I tried to type.