"My comment referred to colonists, not invaders. Look back in history - the colonisation of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Africa. Even further back the Roman empire. It has always happened, may always happen. The success, and thus the acceptance of any colonisation attempt seems to depend on the size of the stick being wielded." ---jacqui.c

In order to replicate the European colonisation of the Americas, or the English colonization of Australia, Israel would first need to eliminate almost the entire Arab/Muslim population the region. Then it would need to convert the survivors to Judaism, and then bring in millions of Jewish settlers (which would be, like, all of them) to re-settle the land. Unless they can do all that, which they fucking can't, they're always just going to be the Afrikaners of the Levant: An inorganic, offensively foreign presence, with blood ties to neither its indigenous population, nor its neighbours. You don't actually envision a future Jewish, Hebrew-speaking Middle East, do you?

Anyways, your examples are of rich, militarily advanced nations taking on bands of stone-wielding primitives with an unfortunate lack of immunity to smallpox. This isn't the case in the Middle East. Israel's military is more powerful and advanced than those of its neighbours, yes. But the technological gap isn't so large that Israel could just roll over the entire region unopposed. Note their current invasion of puny Lebanon, their only neighbour without a proper military. Even there, they can do nothing but rain bombs down on civilians, leaving Hezbollah more or less untouched and free to launch Katyusha after Katyusha. However big Israel's "stick," it's shown the world that all it can do with it is crush Arab babies.

beardedbruce: Yeah, this was a really stupid move by Hezbollah. Because they're being completely wiped out by Israel. And all those civilians being bombed by Israel are totally turning against them. And not against Israel. Yeeeeeeah.

---Lepus Rex