You know, I absolutely agree with everything you've said, but (you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you?) resolving the Palestinian issue is not going to happen any time soon, in fact, it's not going to resolve anything even if it did happen.

I'm not taking sides here, there's plenty of blame to go around for everyone in the old Roman province of Palestinia: historical and religious issues that go way back, Western Imperial meddling, Arab nationalism, Israeli intransigence, American electoral politics, the Cold War legacy, oil, you name it. But for whatever the reasons, and again, without taking sides, what is happening now is that the radical Arab/Muslim movement needs Israel, just like American politics needed the Communists in the 50s, and Communist ideologues needed an imperialist devil. If Israel didn't exist, they would have to invent it; it is the one unifying issue the entire Muslim world can agree on, and it provides the single focus, the simple solution, that unifies all the other currents in that multipolar civilization. This is indeed a "clash of civilizations" issue,
not a squabble between Muslims and Jews over who God meant to live there.

Most people in that part of the world don't give a fig what happens to the Palestinians, they treat them like trash when they immigrate to other Middle Eastern countries or they wage war against them as they did in Jordan, and they regularly betray them to the Western powers while publicly supporting them. The Syrians exploit them, the Lebanese fear them, And the average inhabitant of the Mideast would gladly sell out the whole lot of them for a USA Green Card. But for the power competitors there, they are useful as a goad for domestic politics and as a lever against the West. Countries that have no quarrel with Israel, no borders with the frontline states, and no contact with the Palestinians find them, or the conflict, convenient for domestic reasons.

What's happened is that the Palestinian issue has become a business, it has a constituency, and it has entrenched management and stakeholders; it has become institutionalized. Too many careers and paychecks depend on that war going on indefinitely for it to stop.

It's sad, because the Palestinians are among the most educated and westernized of all the Arab nations, and among the best situated geographically and culturally for future development. And they do have
legitimate grievances. The Israelis, for all their faults (and they do have them, justified or not), are democratic, European, and civilized. It is easy to admire them, and impossible not to respect them. And although it is not fashionable in some circles to say this, I think the world still owes them something.

In the past, problems like this were usually solved with genocide. Perhaps the best we can hope for now is just war.