The books that represent the gold standard are Mark Tessler's "A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" and Ruben and Lacquer's "The Arab-Israeli Reader."

Tessler's book is a secondary source (in other words, a narrative history) and it is as evenhanded and thoroughly researched as a book can possibly get. There are specific issues where he lays the blame for specific events at the doorstep of different individual or movements, but he's not out to grind an axe against either Israel on the one hand or the Palestinians and Arabs on the other. Of course, if you are biased towards one of these sides, you might accuse him of "false balance" but he's able to back his evenhanded approach up with tons and tons of documentation.

Ruben & Lacquer's book is a compilation of primary sources (in other words, documents created by at the during the period being studied). It contains a very good, thorough series of documents that can help a reader understand the dynamics of the conflict, including a lot of political platforms, diary entries from important figures, and so forth.

If you take a college level class on the conflict, those two books are likely to be required reading. I've never heard anyone levy any serious complaints against them.

Are there any videos that outline the conflict that are recommended? I've seen a couple, but they all seem to be biased.