I can totally relate to the reader you quoted. Actually, I said something similar - if more emphatic - around three years ago and you quoted me then. Frankly, I don't even remember what the specific flare-up was that prompted my email at the time.  And that only serves to reinforce my opinion as expressed three years ago: This will not end until both sides burn themselves out, so go for it - but leave the rest of us the hell alone, goddammit.

Another differs:

This kind of response from Americans really makes me angry. Casually wondering about nuking the whole region because the news is despoiling the pages of his newspaper? What a a gross, narcissistic, ugly-American way to respond to the world. That kind of rhetoric is really harmful, and I wish he would just keep it to himself.

Yes, it is a bleak, bleak situation in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank (as it is in any number of other ethnic conflicts around the world). There are lots of times I want to just throw up my hands, too. But I don't.