"Identities are extremely resilient things, as the Israelis have found over last 60+ years, and as Russia itself found, and is finding, in places like Poland or Chechnya."
Well--let's not mix a number of conflicts together. Russian domination over Poland was a gross injustice and morally harmful to both Poland and Russia. It was Christians oppressing other Christians and hence it's more intra-civilizational conflict althought some would argue that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox are separate civilizations. Maybe it's partly true, but it's also true that Orthodox and Catholic Christians are far close to each other than each of them to Muslims. They should remember this.
Russian-Chechen War and Israeli-"Palestinian" War are "clash of civilizations". Israel could have avoided much of the tragedies by simply offering in 1967 incentives to "Palestinians" (really Arabs and other Middle East Islamic tribes) to relocate from Judea, Samaria (aka West Bank) and Gaza to other Arab countries. "Peace Process" was in fact a surrender to Israel's vicious enemies the territories Israel won in a just 1967 war of self-defence.
Russian-Chechen conflict is a bit different because Russia was spreading militarily into Muslim-held territory for centuries. However, knowing the nature of Islam, from political stand-point it made sense. Having said that, much of the brutalities of the latest Russian-Chechen wars could have been avoided if Russia simply relocated the Chechen population into decent refugee centers away from the war zone. It could also offer all its Muslims who want to live under Islamic Laws a one way ticket to Haj in Saudi Arabia with condition not to come back.
Overall, the clash of civilizations is real and was going on since the dawn of civilization itself and it's impossible to walk away from that. Being fair and objective in civilizational struggle is simply impossible because ultimately nobody fights fairly. Each civilization wants an absolute domination and all of us have no choice but to choose which civilization we are backing.