Subject: Re: kidding ourselves
...never be welcomed as citizens / residents / voters in Israel.

Quibble. After the 1967 war, the Palestinians were offered Israeli citizenship. As part of these discussions, I looked up some details and read that. They refused. So they were welcomed as potential citizens, but declined. That's on them.

I think most of the rest of your post is broadly correct. Though I will note that Hitchens was correct: a lot of fighting over some of the only land in the middle east that doesn't have oil.