The conflict is over land, not religion. The parties are divided along religious lines, and I suspect that it's only the fundamentalists in both camps who give a shit about the differences in religious doctrine. It's basically a family dispute: cousin vs cousin.

There’s a God who knows?

@yvilletom LOL, it's a figure of speech. God is a meaningless ritual word, my sentence could be changed to "Fod only knows" without losing an iota of meaning. Hell, maybe I'll say that from now on.

The global war on terror was doomed from its beginning to fail. First, you can't kill an ideology. Second, military response only hardens the ideology. Third, pouring energy, money, and human capital into military intervention draws resources away from actual solutions. Fourth, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Nowhere is this more true than in Israel/Palestine. Sharp-elbowed Zionists started pushing Palestinians off their land in 1948, and the process has basically continued, through the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements, ever since. The weaker, dispossessed party has two choices: either capitulate or resort to asymmetric warfare.

The willingness of Palestinians to sit under Israeli bombs in order to make a point reminds me of an anecdote related by Marlon Brando in his role as Kurtz, in the film Apocalypse Now. Kurtz tells of a Cambodian or Vietnamese village where his Special Forces unit had come in and vaccinated all the children, then left. An old man came running after the soldiers; returning to the village, they found a pile of vaccinated, then hacked-off, little arms. Kurtz himself was mightily impressed by the display of will. As we should be by that of the Palestinians.

@yvilletom No. But there are lots of figures of speech invoking her.

@Trajan61 Oh, so you don't think toppling the democratically-elected Iran government and installing the puppet Shah had something to do with destabilizing the region? Or failing at nation building in Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein 50 years later? Both of these brain-dead actions (by Republican presidents) were done on behalf of...not the people, but the oil companies. The reason we have no credibility there is because our actions have always been inspired by A. greed, and B. stupidity. We can't claim any moral high ground.

@Garban That would trigger a NATO reaction and Putin would never do that.

@Garban Trump wanted NATO members to spend their part on defense and not force the US to provide all of it.

Kind of hard to make amends with someone who says they want to totally destroy you which is what Hamas wants. Hamas and Hezbollah will have to be totally destroyed before there can be piece in the Middle East.

we walked in already. mostly for the votes it gains a congressman, and the money in such relationships.

Also the radical Islamic regime in Iran will have to be removed before there can be peace in the Middle East. Hell they killed a women just because she didn’t have her head covered to their standards.

@Trajan61 We just got done pouring blood and treasure into the Middle East. 20 years of it, and we got our asses handed to us. That wasn't enough for you? Tell me this: are YOU going over there? Or are you suggesting our young men and women jump into that quicksand in your stead?

Much as we may not like the way Iranians run their society, it is their society to run, not ours.

Your eagerness to stick your nose in where it does not belong is a typically stupid, knee-jerk, ignorant, Republican impulse.

We tried regime change in Iraq, and where did that get us? We only created an opening for ISIS. Now you want to try and crack an even harder nut? You're either insane, or a moron.

@hHippieChick58 They (the Israelis) can't suck us in if we don't want to go in. The Christian nationalists might though.

I like how Trajan regurgitates right wing propaganda as if he were dropping pearls of wisdom. it's like watching a rabbit shit.

@Flyingsaucesir I’m not suggesting we send troops. Just help Israel and help the Iranian opposition to overthrow the radical theocratic regime. Also we have to respond to Iranian attacks by their proxies against Americans.

@Trajan61 Which radical theocratic regime are you referring to? Israeli, or Palestinian?

@Flyingsaucesir Iran of course. Hell Israel is the only viable democracy in the Middle East. In Iran on the other hand you can’t even run for office unless you are approved by the radical Islamic clerics running the country. They have killed many people who disagree with their radical Islamic agenda. If you can’t understand that you are truly an idiot!

@Trajan61 If Netanyahu is successful in gutting their judiciary, Israel will be a democracy in name only. Funny how similar this is to the situation with Trump: both criminal leaders indicted and working to de-legitimize the only authority that can hold them accountable.

@Trajan61 Israel IS a theocracy.

[en.m.wikipedia.org].

@Flyingsaucesir I haven’t saw the Israelites killing Americans and chanting death to America. That crook Joe Biden and the democrats are more a threat to US democracy than Trump ever was.

@Flyingsaucesir Wikipedia is highly left biased.

@Trajan61 We have yet to see any evidence of malfeasance on the part of Joe Biden.

And the evidence against his son seems rather picayune. He lied on a background check when purchasing a pistol. It looks like he also traded on his daddy's name to get people to invest in his business. But there is no evidence that Joe ever provided a quid pro quo.

Some Republican congressmen have investigated, yammered, and cast aspersions, but have presented NO evidence that Joe has done anything wrong. They certainly know how to sling shit, but they're the only ones getting any feces on them.

Believe me, if any real evidence of malfeasance were to come to light, I would sign on with you to prosecute Joe. Until that time however, I am not going to condemn the man. That would be UN-American.

Trump, however, has 91 felony counts against him; 4 criminal indictments on serious crimes, handed down by 4 separate grand juries in 4 different jurisdictions. Are you're going to tell me all those prosecutors and grand jurors are biased?

We all know that Trump tried to pull off a self coup, tried to overturn a free and fair election, tried to defraud the American people. We all know he's a fucking crook, an compulsive liar, a con man, a fraud, and a would-be dictator who is doing his best to end democracy in America. You know this. Why not just man up and say it out loud?