A good deal of the problem is the refusal to see the Jews of Israel as Palestinians, too.

To get into the Indian/Colonist analogy, it's as if the Indians after over a thousand years reclaimed a portion of their original lands, displacing the descendants of Colonists.

The blind refusal to see the Israelis as Jewish Palestinians of an earlier vintage leads to the perception of them as occupiers when in fact they displaced the descendants of squatters.