To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.
About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.
It's okay not to know. English is spoken in a lot of different places in different ways. I doubt that in your 40 years you've explored this.
Google Trends shows that it's most popular in Malaysia and the Philippines, relative to its use in other countries.