The middle east: should I care?

Scoop writes: "I have reached the stage where a mild urge to avoid discussing Middle Eastern politics, with those I find otherwise intelligent and interesting, has arisen."
What I find amazing is that the urge is only mild. I have few urges stronger than the desire not to discuss the middle east.
I find it hard enough to work out what's happening in British society, so how I can hope to understand middle eastern ones, especially as the media is vanishingly unlikely to enlighten me?
One reason for this is that that so much "discussion" seems to ignore the principles of methodological individualism in favour of talk about groups. And this just runs into the pronoun problem; when you talk about "Israelis" do you mean all, most, some, a few, what?   
And then there's the sampling problem.  The question to ask about any event - in sport, finance, politics, whatever - is: what sample is that drawn from? Where does it lie on the probability distribution? What's the shape of the distribution?  So, does a suicide bombing, say, represent average Palestinian opinion or minority opinion? If so, how small a minority?
I suspect most discussion about the middle east is as fatuous as discussion about God. It's an expression of tribal sympathies, without bringing any new evidence to the question. And, as Richard says, such dogmatism is simply illegitimate in the public sphere.
So, please enlighten me. Could someone point me to a discussion of middle eastern politics which makes sense, which accords with the basic principles of rational analysis I'm used to in economics? If such analysis exists, what proportion does it represent of all discussion?

Comments

[Peter]

"which accords with the basic principles of rational analysis I'm used to in economics?"

No, because that type of analysis would be useless. It would be ludicrous to reduce a conflict of nationalisms down to individual market preferences, and it would also be totally ahistorical. Study history instead, it need not be about "tribal sympathies".

[Jim]

"so much "discussion" seems to ignore the principles of methodological individualism in favour of talk about groups."

If methodological individualism can't deal with group identities, so much the worse for methodological individualism.

[dearieme]

What a superior readership you have. No-one has yet accused you of anti-semitism or NOT CARING about the Palestinians.

[PlanMaestro]

Check Bruce Bueno de Mesquita.

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/003540.html
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/02/bruce_bueno_de.html
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/08/the_political_e.html