> Unfortunately, repressive governments in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere are supportive of Israel; and Lebanon and Syria are effectively quiescent long-term.
IMO that's the direct result of Israel being strong militarily, a reluctant status quo arrived at by the immense competence of the IDF. Earlier in history much of the Arab world would've much preferred Israel to not have existed at all. They Israelis had to carve out a niche for themselves through sheer force of will (and firepower).
> And - it directly started most of the wars it fought; and one other was an attack to reclaim land occupied by a previous Israeli campaign.
I don't think that's a very fair framing of the situation. I despise Israeli militancy, and I feel sorry for the Palestinians, and I wish we wouldn't support Israel's efforts to displace them... but that land has been contested since biblical times.
For many centuries the Jews lacked a proper homeland, and that did not at all end well for them. Most of the world's population lives on stolen or conquered land. Who "originally" owned the now-contested area isn't really relevant; both sides claim it as their ancestral homeland (and both sides are partially right, as far as I can tell as an outsider). More importantly, both sides live there now, regardless of who got there "first".
If Israel gave up arms, it would cease to exist within the week. If Israel did not so strongly defend itself, as in the Six-Day War, it would almost certainly have ceased to exist by now. Some of the Arab world tolerates Israel and may make tactical decisions to cooperate with them on limited bases. But that is a very far cry from outright accepting them as a friendly neighbor, E.U. style. Israel's survival needs are unlike those of most other developed nations in the world, who are largely surrounded by stable neighbors... it's comparable maybe only to Taiwan, Ukraine, South Korea, and other situations facing immediate volatility.
This isn't to excuse (what I consider) the excessive use of force on the Israeli part, but it's the excessive that I take issue with. If they didn't use force at all (or at least threaten to and actually have the capacity for), they really wouldn't exist for very long... history has shown that time and time again, and it's the very reason Israel was founded as such. They have been challenged, life-or-death style, in a way that very few other countries have been or foreseeably will be. If the USA lost a war, maybe we'd fail to accomplish some geopolitical objective... but it's unlikely the country would simply disappear altogether. If Israel lost a war, it's the next Holocaust.