On dignitaries – Pfeffer in Haaretz:

‘Israelis who blinked on Thursday missed the fleeting visit of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Jerusalem, and as Shabbat ended his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni flitted through as well. Meanwhile, we’re being told to expect French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.
It’s not entirely clear what benefit, if any, wartime Israel is deriving from this diplomatic deluge. Still, at least it has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu something to do when he’s not fighting his own personal battle for political survival. In the two weeks since the Hamas attack on Israel, he has met more foreign dignitaries than bereaved relatives and families of the hostages being held in Gaza.
The airlift of prime ministers and presidents landing at Ben-Gurion Airport is part of the “Ukraine syndrome” gripping the Western world and now Israel as well.
Over the past 18 months, all these leaders have made the pilgrimage to Kyiv to bask in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s khaki-clad macho glory. Netanyahu doesn’t quite supply the same stardust, but at least it’s still quicker and safer to visit Israel. Hamas’ rockets are not as dangerous as the Russian ones – at least, when they’re not falling on their own people within Gaza – and Israel, unlike Ukraine, has the Iron Dome missile defense system. And you can still fly here relatively easily, while getting to Kyiv means taking an arduous train journey from the Polish border.’

(…)

‘And yet, there is also an important expression of commitment here that should not be sneered at. Despite their political differences and dislike of Netanyahu, the leaders of the Western nations – from U.S. President Joe Biden on down – identify Israel as being part of “their” geopolitical bloc. Just like Ukraine and Taiwan (which is threatened by neighboring China). If Israel fails to win its war against Hamas, it will cause harm to the Western interest.’

(…)

‘It’s not just Western leaders who are treating Israel’s war with Hamas like the war in Ukraine. The major international news organizations have been doing the same.
Just as they did back in February 2022 when the Russian invasion began, they have saturated the scene with reporters, camera crews, producers and star presenters – many of whom spent long months in Ukraine and are relieved to be covering a different war in a warmer climate, all accompanied by a bevy of security teams, translators, fixers and drivers.’

(…)

‘The Ukraine framework creates another problem: one of narrative. In Ukraine, it has been clear throughout who the bad guys are: the Russians, invading and sowing destruction in a neighboring country, carrying out war crimes and then failing on the battlefield, though they still hold entire swaths of occupied land. The good guys, needless to say, are the valiant sons and daughters of the black soil of Ukraine, defying the odds by selflessly fighting back against their oppressors.
Here, however, the international media can’t make up its mind.
In the first few days, the coverage focused on Hamas’ atrocities against Israeli civilians. The bad guys were obvious. But the moment there was footage of buildings being destroyed and dead civilians in Gaza, the narrative shifted. The one-dimensional coverage was a key reason why so many international news organizations rushed to ascribe Tuesday’s explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital to an Israeli airstrike and accept the obviously inflated casualty numbers put out by Hamas. This despite early indications, hours before the official IDF statement, that this was very likely to have been one of the hundreds of cases in which Palestinian rockets had malfunctioned and fallen inside the Strip, killing Gazans.’

Read the article here

It’s not so much the media, I would say that the Western urban elites very much sympathize with the Palestinians, this sympathy needless to say is superficial, as was the sympathy with Ukraine but it does exist.

The endless stream of dignitaries flying to Tel Aviv has many reasons, they want to influence the Israeli politicians (Netanyahu) as much as they can do in order to avoid an all-out war in the Middle East. The US has no interest in a war with Iran, at the moment at least, and Europe has no interest in many more refugees.
The prisoners or hostages might play a role, but a minor one.

I enjoyed the quip about the warmer climate, but the fact remains that even though the world appeared to get bored with Israelis and Palestinians after the second Intifada the Palestinians remain the favorite victims of the rest of the world. This didn’t help the Palestinians a lot, but many Armenians might be jealous, Pfeffer ignores this.

The military and political establishments see Israel as a strategic asset, yes very much so, but this might change. It’s possible that in fifty years or so Israel and Palestine will be another Bosnia-Herzegovina. Or another Nagorno-Karabach.

Places where you sell the weapons that are a little bit outdated. And besides that, just another annoyance.

Unless you think that the Holy Land will remain in the spotlight because the devote Christians will be devote Zionists, even if there are no Jews left.

You pick what you think is the most plausible scenario.