Palestinians get the highest per capita amount of aid of any nation / people in the world. Had they spent that money well from 2006 / 2007 onwards when Israel left Gaza and turned governing authority over to the winners of the election in Gaza (which turned out to be HAMAS), we wouldn't be in this situation. Instead, much of that money was stolen and used to purchase / create weapons and to fund Hamas' grip over Gaza.
Undoubtedly, the West has supported Israel, but over the last 15-20 years there has been no shortage of financial support for Palestianians, especially those in Gaza. But many of the societal problems that they face, that could have been solved by Western funding, persist because HAMAS wants the population disgruntled and impoverished.
We face the same problems on our "aboriginal reserves" in North America. Reserve leadership often steals or re-purposes the immense funding our governments give them, so that the people that live there remain impoverished, drug addicted, disgruntled and hopeless and the funding cycle is forced to exist in perpetuity.
Had Palestinians risen up, ousted HAMAS, and used international funding to work towards becoming a thriving community, I would have all the empathy in the world for them. Instead, they went along with HAMAS, turned much of that funding into weapons to fight Israel, while the rest sits in the pockets of HAMAS leadership that live lavishly in places like Qatar while the populous they govern suffers.
It is far more complicated dynamic than that.
The victor vs vanquished part of the equation really is something metaphysical in the end, there is not much to explore in objective domain.
It is part of reason I rarely visit this thread, there is nothing really left for me to learn or contribute in meaningful way. I have both Israeli and Palestinian friends (including the specific fora both sides created here in Canada to parley and discuss things like the oslo accords at depth in whichever measure of good faith long term, that is now really lies shattered entirely, so maybe I will see where things stand like 40 years later at least if I'm still around).
I know what the deep issue really is, but it really can't be put into words in the end without sounding biased to one side. You try to be fair to both, you end up being unfair to both. These are lives and families and histories in the end....it cannot be substituted if you are not part of it close up.
So a lot gets missed in translation, misses crucial context and detail....and really the war just goes on and on far longer than it ever needed to in the end.
I've talked to ex-LTTE people here (or those very close to them) here. There's upsetting things they only say in Tamil, an outsider would never understand it....even I have difficulty (certainly with any logical rationalisation). Its all lived experience related, espeially when you are vanquished and not the victor.
Seems strange and odd to everyone else, but the SL-LTTE civil war went on way too long on this one too because once you're in it, you're in it to win. Nothing substitutes for winning...nothing at all. Peace only exists in hindsight, because you never know when its time again. There's things that you sacrificed that become a complete utter waste, so its just not done, reconciliation dishonours the martyrs and your own folk, meaning, purpose all of it.
So how you actually make peace is something quite nasty and brutal in the end (it means injustices allowed to sit in stasis). It never comes spontaneously in enough degree for both when theres victor and vanquished situation. You have to make lines where one starts and the other ends (e.g Greek - Turk)....or one has to win completely (US - Japan)....and then you give centuries of time for generations to forget about justice missed.....so whole new generations with other things on their mind make things more passable slowly.
But this hasn't happened here. A quasi purgatory kind of situation has evolved in a tiny area with an immense amount of negative psyche relative to it.
