What is it with the Middle East?

[bigmalc]

Another day another report of senseless violence in the Middle East.

Is this conflict resolveable whilst Religion is around to mess everything up? Jews vs Muslims vs Muslims vs Christians vs blah, blah, blah.....

Honestly, who wants to live life hating other people just because they are different? Someone has to take the lead sooner or later and just stop and say 'Can't we at least try and work something out?'

It's the same old story, someone attacks someone retaliates, they retaliate etc.

I can't believe that the Palestinians haven't realised that if they take the moral high ground and protest peacefully, then the international community would give them full support!!? People who attack unarmed civilians always lose.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6 676291.stm

[Theland]

...... because they want ALL of the land, and a new Holocaust! they want the land, "... from the river to the sea."
That's why there is trouble in the middle East.

[Theland]

continued .......

check this out

http://www.trumpetsounds.com/wipeout.html

[NJOK]

I think they probably just want to go back to their homes.

[Theland]

From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank was under Jordanian sovereignty. Why didn't they set up a Palestinian state then, instead of using the area to launch attacks on Israel, who defeated Jordan and annexed the land as a defence measure. Wouldn't you do the same?
So they once had the land, but, they want it all.
So where are Jews supposed to live?
One sixth of one percent is all they ask to keep. Not much is it?

[ruby27]

I am sure that bigmalc who appears via posts to be broadminded will tolerate yours and then my digression.
To respond to your post. If we are to be understood as posters on this thread, that we stand representative of the views and opinions of in the main the British, (I know some posters live elsewhere such as Ibiza but suspect they are British origin). Yes I will go with that, although I imagine we are not truly representative because posters are unlikely to represent the under what 16 or many over 70, but we are sufficiently alike. Dissenters I am sure have always been unpopular with the powerful not surprisingly and what better way to get rid of them than death/deportation. Even such a lovely man as George Fox was hounded out of the country. Has the notion of truth been deliberately allowed to be devalued to render dissent ineffectual? I am not sure that I think that this is the case, probably less so with new technology. (Clearly the powerful have an incentive for maintaining the status quo and anyone who challenges that should therefore rationally be silenced by whatever means that are acceptable to the powerful) But say 20 years ago I would only have known if my concept of the truth about the Middle East conflict was shared by people who I was in verbal communication and via the media. Now with the www I have an opportunity to discover if my truth or others truth have currency outside my rather small world. I love a debate mostly because it is a platform to air my own truths and chance to rebut others.

[ruby27]

Cont- My view on the truth has been shaped by social constructionism where there is no such thing as objective reality and that the truth is something created by the social interaction of humans, is context dependant and changes over time and culture. Therefore from this theoretical framework, Joe the Lion�s truth is every bit as truthful as mine. However although I studied social constructionsim and in theory embrace this as a way of understanding clearly when it comes to JtL it�s a load of cods. However this thread is now more philosophical rather than topical. Mind you a philosophical section might be a good idea. The B and S could provide this but rather it�s more of an informal chatty section rather than the Cogito ergo sum sort of thing

[Theland]

Ruby - your insights would be a welcome addition to the R & S sub topic, on the S & C topic.