There's another way to look at answering point (1). Israel could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn't change the lousy state of the Middle East significantly, in

There's another way to look at answering point (1). Israel could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn't change the lousy state of the Middle East significantly, in the sense that all those dysfunctional states run by corrupt dictators would carry on as before, they'd just have one less external issue with which to distract their subjects from their misery.