As someone who generally sees war as a racket that is best avoided there has never been an easier war to be against engaging in than the one in Israel/Palestine. If violence was going to resolve anything there it probably would have by now. And if for whatever reason more violence is needed I think America as a country is not the one with the Midas touch that can pummel people into peace. That said, I do have some thoughts.
#1 We should stop calling this area the "holy land". In no way does such language de-escalate tensions. Also, it's weird. I won't go so far as to say the world is controlled by warring factions of dark wizards who manipulate the minds of the masses through ancient psychological techniques that have been distilled over millennia. I will say if this was the case they would call a land that has experienced such large blood sacrifice, holy.
#2 There is too much history and none of it matters. After trying to brush up on the history of this conflict it is not uncommon for people to start the story in the b.c. times. Any ideas of what actually happened at such times are at best suspect. People wildly disagree with what is happening now. Conflicts over cultural narratives are not anything new. There is no reason to think only honest seekers of the truth win these battles.
That said, it doesn't matter. So what if there are contracts saying such and such? Know what renders these contracts null and void? People getting killed. If we have a contract and you kill my family we no longer have a contract. To pretend otherwise is a delusion. And to pretend this hasn’t happened on both sides is preposterous.
#3 The people of Israel have to contend they live in a slave state. There is no other term for a state that mandates military service. Pretending forced military service is different than any other forced labor is criminally euphemistic. In many ways, it would be better if this slavery was used to produce something useful, as state militaries are destructive by nature. This barbaric practice needs to end before there is peace. No state with a slave military will ever exercise its power with moderation.
#4 Palestine has to acknowledge it’s being held hostage not by Israel but by terrorist factions who cloak themselves in ideological camouflage. The fact that Israel can turn off water and electricity to Gaza while those terrorists who claim to fight for independence can't intervene is a mockery of common sense. Anyone truly fighting for freedom needs to figure out how to get sovereignty over water, food, and electricity. Anyone fighting for the cause who's more concerned with attacking Israel, which just provokes more tyranny, should be satirized out of power.
#5 Unfortunately this conflict will spread. The U.S. will do what it always does. It will fund both sides of the war and declare the winner an existential threat to freedom. Every president on some level wants to be a wartime president. They want to be the next Lincoln or Roosevelt, immortalized through the bloodshed of those foolish enough to ever think the state was worthy of their obedience.
Then there are people who will make billions supplying weapons to all sides. They will use that money to fund propaganda to fuel the conflict and suppress voices of peace.
#6 There is no one-state or two-state solution to any of this. The state is the cause, not the solution to these problems. People in this region, no matter what side of the wall they are on, need to rid themselves of their parasites. The Israeli military is what endangers Israelis, just as the militant factions in Palestine are what endanger the Palestinians. Not addressing this will ensure all those living there now will be just another meaningless story in some future generations' justification for the current war.