NEW YORK TIMES
There Is No ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’: To understand why, you have to zoom out
by Matti Friedman
January 19, 2019

…If you see only an “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict, then nothing that Israelis do makes sense…In this tightly cropped frame, Israelis are stronger, more prosperous and more numerous. The fears affecting big decisions, like what to do about the military occupation in the West Bank, seem unwarranted if Israel is indeed the far more powerful party. That’s not the way Israelis see it. Many here believe that an agreement signed by a Western-backed Palestinian leader in the West Bank won’t end the conflict, because it will wind up creating not a state but a power vacuum destined to be filled by intra-Muslim chaos, or Iranian proxies, or some combination of both. READ MORE