That is indeed the question. I don't mean to suggest Jews and Arabs, or Jews and Palestinians, have been at constant war for 4000 years. However, each time circumstances encourage a new conflict, all the old grievances and accusations resurface, unforgotten in the passage of decades or generations. As in the past, I refer again to Purim, which is nothing more or less than an annual Jewish holiday commemorating their deliverance from a plot by an Arab to exterminate them as a people--2500 years ago. Meanwhile, geography and scant resources insure circumstances encourage new conflicts regularly, and, once again, the Palestinian is no more interested in simply moving away than the Israeli. I continue to believe this is not simply a matter of "this is my fathers land" as it goes deeper than that aspect does with most refugees; for most, it's to a great extent a matter of "this is Father Abrahams land" just as both Muslim and Jew looks to the Temple Mount as the scene of Abrahams abortive sacrifice of his son (though WHICH son depends whom you ask. )

As to the issue of colonialism, there's definitely some merit to that view of it, but there seems little question whether the colonial issues are also deeper and more intractable in places that were also witness to the Crusades. It's a complicated and fascinating topic, because Europe does have a very real historical role dating from a time when Christianity provided a supra-national European identity much as pan-Islamic movements do in the modern Mid-East, yet the priority of religion appears something from which much of Europe would distance itself as readily as it would colonialism or anti-semitism. Yet we don't see many things like Algeria or Palestine in Europes relations with Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or South and Central America. There are examples, but mostly episodic and limited ones, not the inescapable quagmire the Mid-East has become.