But the premise here is a large part of what perpetuates the conflict.

1. Hamas was the aggressor. Israel is in control of the severity and nature of the response, of course, but Hamas was the aggressor (and they promised to keep attacking).

2. Israel already does display the slightest degree of reasonableness. The problem is that it's not enough given the difficult conditions: being somewhat unreasonable is still a huge problem.

Or are you talking on the century timescale?

1. Arabs were the aggressor. The Jewish terror organizations--of which there were several--were responses to attacks against mostly legal and in any case peaceful Jewish immigrants.

2. Israel for as long as it has existed has always displayed considerable reasonableness. The problem is that it's not enough given the difficult conditions: being somewhat unreasonable is still a huge problem.

Or are you talking on some cherry-picked timescale to give the right answer?

The reason that it seems that I've given no thought to what Israel could do is that we can't even get to that because the premises are too wrong. All the best solutions are too big for Israel to do alone, and so it needs considerable international support, which you don't get by painting it as being essentially a cruel and fundamentalist invading force.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have a huge problem with cruel and fundamentalist outlooks from too many individuals on their side. The Israeli government has, absolutely, sabotaged the peace process multiple times. But so have the Palestinians' leaders!

I can understand how people feel on two sides and see how they are each not entirely unjustified, and yet recognize that these feelings will doom everyone to endless misery and conflict and you have to step back and break out of it.

This is not "cowardice". This is avoiding "perpetual misery out of pigheadedness".

People lose land all the time--land that was precious to them--in inheritance disputes, many of which are deeply unfair, and there's some bad blood for a while but we don't really tolerate endless murderous feuds any longer. You don't destroy your own life while hoping for restitution or vengeance.

The Palestinians have had some good starting points from which to aspire to better outcomes--the Oslo Accords weren't perfect but one could very much work with that. The Camp David summit should have been followed by more negotiations, not the Second Intifada.

Right now, however, there is an acute problem: Israel is conducting an active war in a heavily populated area. Whatever the historical injustices were, the acute needs need to take priority, at least if human well-being is a concern. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, and there are extreme shortages of the basic necessities for life (let alone a pleasant life). The bulk of the focus should be on that.

But the next step is to get back to consistent non-violence, and honestly, what you said in this last message seems pretty deeply counterproductive to that. Israel needs to get Netanyahu out of office. Practically the only way someone like Netanyahu would stay in, given the abject failure of his approach to keep Israelis safe, is in response to the threat of a world who characterized Israel as a "cruel and fundamentalist invading force".