I am very concerned that the Israelis will use this opportunity to put the Palestinians down in an extreme way

These thoughts were prompted by this thread on MetaFilter. I posted the following over there:

the way i see it, many Palestinians feel that Israel is constantly expanding it's territory into their areas, squeezing them into smaller and smaller parcels of land. when they complain they get no response from Israel, the US, or the UN. their human rights are repeatedly infringed upon. so they respond, first with intifadeh. this has been going on for years. no improvement.

there are violent and terrorist elements that hurt the cause i've descibed above, but lumping them all together is like making all Americans racists or something similarly unsavory.

Israel's relative power and Palestine's relative powerlessness are a big deal in this situation, as far as i'm concerned. and the US is culpable (in this regard) for supporting, indeed, empowering, the oppression of Palestinian Arabs at the hands of Israel.