There isn’t one war going on in the Middle East, and there isn’t a single opposition of right and wrong, just and unjust. Four Israeli-Palestinian wars are now in progress.

The first is a Palestinian war to destroy the state of Israel. The second is a Palestinian war to create an independent state alongside Israel, ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The third is an Israeli war for the security of Israel within the 1967 borders. The fourth is an Israeli war for Greater Israel, for the settlements and the occupied territories.

What is crucial is to acknowledge the four. Most commentators, especially on the European left, but also on the Jewish and Christian right here in the United States, have failed to do that, producing instead ideological caricatures of the conflict. The caricatures would be easy to ridicule, if they did not have such deadly effects. For they encourage Palestinians and Israelis to fight the first and fourth wars. Those of us who watch and worry about the Middle East have at least an obligation not to do that.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/editors/from/10_2/fourwars.htm