Whatever You Know About Middle-East Conflict Is Probably Wrong

     But you're not alone in that.  Whatever I know is probably wrong, too.  As near as I can tell, whatever anyone knows about the big picture or the deep (or even recent) history is likely to be wrong, incomplete or biased.

     Fewer dead noncombatants would be an improvement.  Fewer people traumatized, hungry, thirsty and homeless would be an improvement.

     More dead people would not be an improvement.  Anyone calling for wiping out this side or that side isn't really wanting to make the situation better.

     The dead have no national identity.  Corpses have no religion.  History stopped for them when their life ended.

     I can't fix it.  I don't have any clever suggestions.  But the news pains me.  And it pains me even more that while one side looks better to me than another, the governments, would-be governments and militant groups, from the best to the worst, are all standing in and shedding far more blood than is sane.  When the best hope isn't much of a hope at all, it's difficult to believe anything will ever get better -- and easy to understand how the people in the middle of it fall into nihilism and destruction.