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Notes -
I also ultimately have a lot of apathy and also sympathy for both sides. I've known some Israeli Jews, I think it's good for them to build a first-world state, although their friendship has never filled my heart to the brim. I've known some Palestinian Muslims, I've always found them warm people, I feel bad to see them pushed out and squeezed, but I also don't see any real compatibility between our nation and theirs. I've even known some Palestinian Christians, I've seen how they've been abused by the Israelis and abused by the Palestinians, although they're too small and impractical for me to try to have some contrarian third way take.
My sneaking suspicion is that a big part of the problem is the idea of the two-state solution. At this point, Israel is at least three states: Israel, The Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The West Bank and Gaza are not meaningfully the same entity at all, even if they share the same struggle. It seems like every prospective peace is thwarted by the disunity of the Palestinian two sides, even if it's not always the determining factor. I suspect it would be a lot easier to actually work out a peace deal if Gaza was treated as a separate state, or worse, actually wiped off the map. That's another thing, this whole thing would have wrapped up by now if either Israel or Palestine were allowed to wipe each other off the map. But both sides are backed by larger powers plus "The International Community" trying specifically to avoid a final solution. So there aren't any. I wonder if we've saved suffering this way or if after 80 years of intractable conflict the interest was greater than the principle.
Also, a large part of the conflict is exacerbated by the emotions of people who aren't actually involved but identify strongly with one side or the other, like spectators at a particularly grisly sports game. There is a lot of proxy struggle from people who use Israel-Palestine to subsume their more complicated feelings about Western Civilization as such.
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