Thoughts on the Israel/Palestine conflict?

Your question is a bit ambiguous, but I'll put in my two cents.

When Israel was created after WWII it was intended to give the Jews a homeland for the suffering that had just taken place. This in itself was probably not a bad concept considering the horrors of WWII, but I think it was executed poorly. The original borders for Israel were drawn so Israel was in areas that already had a high Jewish population. The problem is that this forced a lot of people to either relocate or be highly discriminated against for not being Jewish. (See India/Pakistan issues.) This was uprooting families that had lived in the same area for hundreds of years. I can see the argument that the Jewish people have a biblical claim to the land, but it doesn't seem fair to go back to land you have not owned for a few hundred years and kick the current residents out. The resulting wars that Israel won due to western support only made the borders worse. Of course, now that the Jews have been living in the area for ~60 years it doesn't seem right to kick them out either.

There is a lot more to say about this issue, but that is the basic setup. Right now part of the issue is that leaders from both sides will not sit down to talk unless they are guaranteed certain things first. X or Y must be off the table for example. Any time they seem to get close to actually having a real talk, one side calls it off due to lack of trust. There is a great deal of violence on both sides and this is only worsening the situation and creating more bigotry.

Ideally, what needs to be done is a real ceasefire needs to be call, and Israelis need to stop development on disputed land. Then, major leaders need to sit down and have a real conversation without demanding prerequisites. Of course, ideally, we would all eat rainbows and poop butterflies, but I'm not expecting that to happen any time soon either.

Anyone got an unbiased article outlining the history of the region?

I am Jewish and I have been to Israel twice. I feel a deep connection to the land itself and naturally I'm expected by everyone in the community to be very strongly supportive of Israel. I wish supporting Israel as a Jew didn't have to feel so violent and oppressive so much of the time. Granted, if Israel's guard is let down in any way at any time, most Palestinians will see it as an opportunity to strike, whether it's physically or in discussion. It's a self perpetuating cycle where it feels like everyone is the bad guy, only that Palestinians are the underdogs these days so they get a lot of support for being the oppressed group. Eventually so many generations will pass that leaders will forget what the fight was about, I really don't see any way around the animosity now, neither group of leaders seem any close to a change of attitude.