Op-Ed: What can we do to help the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Stay out of it

...what if we on this side of the globe just ... stopped?

Pollyanna-ish as it sounds, what if Americans didn’t take sides, or at least not either of the sides in this conflict? What if the reflexively pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel camps in the U.S. focused all their rhetoric, political action and funds on reconciliation and justice, instead of on assigning blame, scoring points, expressing outrage? They would still criticize their opponents, but they would criticize their own sides too, for any actions or words that hurt the larger aims of reconciliation, no matter the source.

...

Meanwhile the Israelis and Palestinians go on fighting: three horrific conflagrations with hundreds of innocents dead, just in the last two decades.

...

The best way for those of us in America to help these civilians... is to ask ourselves, as Americans, this question: What can be done to advance the cause of reconciliation, and who is doing it? What actions destroy a just settlement, and who must put an end to those actions?

...

We here in America are wasting our time and money...

...

Israelis and Palestinians don’t need us to fight their battles, they need us to fight for their battles to end.