"It's a religious conflict / they've been fighting for thousands of years."
Their strongest version
Religious sites and identities are central to the conflict's emotional charge, and religious extremists exist on both sides.
The response
Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived in Palestine for centuries — including under Ottoman rule — without this conflict. It begins in the late 19th/early 20th century with a modern political dispute: two national movements and one land, supercharged by British colonial promises to both. Dating it to 'thousands of years' isn't history; it's a sedative — if the hatred is ancient and mystical, nothing can be done and no one living is responsible. It's a land and rights conflict with dates, documents, and authors, which means it also has addressable causes: occupation, dispossession, and the denial of equal rights. Fatalism is the point of the framing; refuse it.