News Stories

[Arbitres]

Originally Posted by ClockWorkAngel

This is great news. This conflict has been going on too long and costing too many innocent lives for it to continue because of ideological differences. Hopefully now some closure can be achieved and this bloody thing will end.

Yes, let's hope no one messes this up.

Oh holy crap. It's actually ending?

f*** me a running. Here I thought we'd be doing it until we completely ran out of the manpower or resources.

I really, seriously hope no jackasses mess this up. This is almost too good to be true.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Not to be devil's advocate, but there's still a probability that Iran will try and fuck things up.

Iran or any little group than would blast a kamikaze or shoot some rockets into israelian territory.

[MikaMiaka]

Originally Posted by yoropa

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100502/...l_palestinians

I'm so happy I'm about to cry. I'm already tearing up.

I was watching this as it progressed:
* US-Israel relations degrade over Israel's construction projects
* Chaotic environment sweeps Middle East, no hope in sight
* Israel unexpectedly halts constructions in East Jerusalem and West Bank
* Palestine says it will negotiate
* Arab League says they will negotiate
* Israel says it will also negotiate

It's now time for the US to come into the picture again and help these two sides make a finalized peace. Please, nobody mess this up. This conflict has gone on long enough, and now an end actually seems possible. It may only be a small, remote beam of hope, but hope in this region is hope nonetheless. I hope that peace can finally be achieved, and that the Israelis and Palestinians can then continue to live their lives with a stable, peaceful relationship with one another.

I'll believe it when I see it. I don't know how a set of countries can get together and carve out a completely new country in the middle of a piece of land with so much meaning to so many different groups of people, a piece of land that's been fought over for centuries upon centuries, and except it to work out.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Not to be devil's advocate, but there's still a probability that Iran will try and fuck things up.

Iran's been angsty for a long time, especially after the 50's when Iran tried nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a struggle which ended with the CIA making a coup on Mohammed Mossadegh and putting someone else in power (remind you of somebody from.....Iraq?). It's no surprise that they'd be upset. As usual, it all comes down to oil.

Anyways, it is really great news that there's finally some hopw for an end to this struggle between Israel and Palestine. Although as much as I hate to say this, if peace is achieved between these two, there's still going to be bad blood between them for a long, long time.

[MikaMiaka]

Originally Posted by yoropa

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100502/...l_palestinians

I think you left out the part in the article where it says, "Netanyahu had announced earlier he is willing to restart negotiations "at any time and at any place" while insisting they begin "without preconditions."" I don't know what that means, and through one view, it does make him sound reasonable, but on the other hand, do preconditions mean the stoppage of their building efforts? Or are the talks supposed to address this issue? Are preconditions a promise for both sides to stop the violence? I don't know. I don't know how talks like these can take place without "preconditions." It's almost like -- you have to accept preconditions as a sign of your seriousness.

But yeah, like you guys, I do hope for it.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Ya'll ought to review the history of the region before getting *too* excited... many, many cycles of this. It might happen when all sides, on their own, put their asshats in a locked box.

If the Cold War can come to an end, why not a silly mindless conflict like this?

The older generation of dogs who bathed in pork lard are dying and most are already dead : the younger generation should be more open minded to the concepts of peace in religion rather than religious rights of domination.

Originally Posted by Yoko Takeo

Anyways, it is really great news that there's finally some hopw for an end to this struggle between Israel and Palestine. Although as much as I hate to say this, if peace is achieved between these two, there's still going to be bad blood between them for a long, long time.

I am sure the horrors of the Third Reich burned painful memories into everyone. The Israelis should have realised that killing people out of fear isn't the way to go.

If you look at the history of Israel, it is like the psychology of bullying. If you give a victim a reason to fight back with violence, the victim will use the same reason to counter future enroachment on their personal rights : by branding those actions as bullying and giving them a reason to counter violence with violence.

The simplest solution is still a second Holocaust : kill everyone in Israel and Palestine. Otherwise it would be an extremely difficult solution of negotiation after negotiation.

Which one will you choose?

[MikaMiaka]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

If the Cold War can come to an end, why not a silly mindless conflict like this?

The older generation of dogs who bathed in pork lard are dying and most are already dead : the younger generation should be more open minded to the concepts of peace in religion rather than religious rights of domination.

I think that the operative word in your statement is "should." It should be that way with younger generations, but that's idealism in the face of the human condition.

I saw a documentary once on PBS, a long time ago, I forget the name, but it was rather ambitious. The producers of the show got a group of young Palestinian kids and a group of young Israeli kids together, all about grade school age. they sent these kids to a spend a few months together, for the summer. They had a blast, and became great friends. They knew they were supposed to not like each other, but they didn't know why. So they got along great over the summer. When it was time to part, the kids cried and said that they would be friends forever, and that they could never hate each other. It was really sad to see them say goodbye.

Then, the show met up with the kids several years later separately, when they were teenagers, to follow up. The Israeli kids hated the Palestinian kids and vice versa. They had in a one word, become indoctrinated. They talked about killing each other, and about how unjust it was that their enemies have their land, etc.

It was heartbreaking to see the change, and the venom that spewed from the mouths of these teens. They were so convicted in their beliefs because they believed what they had been taught from all the adults in their lives, not to mention the media in their respective countries. It's propaganda like no other. And when you think about it, people are very much the product in which they are raised.

Though I think your analogy has the right idea in terms of the Cold War, I do not think that it is an apt comparison. The Cold War didn't involve religion. When you throw in religion, the feeling of entitlement of the holy land, the suppression both groups feel and have felt throughout history, all on top of a strip of land with so much crude oil, it's a completely different ballgame.

More than anything, religion just drives people nuts.

The simplest solution is still a second Holocaust : kill everyone in Israel and Palestine. Otherwise it would be an extremely difficult solution of negotiation after negotiation.

@__@

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by MikaMiaka

I think that the operative word in your statement is "should." It should be that way with younger generations, but that's idealism in the face of the human condition.

I saw a documentary once on PBS, a long time ago, I forget the name, but it was rather ambitious. The producers of the show got a group of young Palestinian kids and a group of young Israeli kids together, all about grade school. they sent these kids to a spend a few months together, for the summer. They had a blast, and became great friends. They knew they were supposed to not like each other, but they didn't know why. So they got along great over the summer. When it was time to part, the kids cried and said that they would be friends forever, and that they could never hate each other. It was really sad to see them say goodbye.

Then, the show met up with the kids several years later separately, when they were teenagers, to follow up. The Israeli kids hated the Palestinian kids and vice versa. They had in a one word, become indoctrinated. They talked about killing each other, and about how unjust it was that their enemies have their land, etc.

It was heartbreaking to see the change, and the venom that spewed from the mouths of these teens. They were so convicted in their beliefs because they believed what they had been taught from all the adults in their lives, not to mention the media in their respective countries. It's propaganda like no other. And when you think about it, people are very much the product in which they are raised.

Though I think your analogy has the right idea in terms of the Cold War, I do not think that it is an apt comparison. The Cold War didn't involve religion. When you through in religion, the feeling of entitlement of the holy land, the suppression both groups feel and have felt throughout history, all on top of a strip of land with so much crude oil, it's a completely different ballgame.

More than anything, religion just drives people nuts.

Here is a solution : demolish all the mosques and synagogues. Enslave anyone with a religion with taser dog collars and keep them in the same sty with pigs. Shoot human right activists, dismember them, and feed them to the enslaved. Problems solved. Now another problem arises : and that is to keep this plan totally perfect and to the instruction. 100%, no lapses. So who wants to carry this out?

The thing is that the issue isn't about religion, it is about parenting. I don't see my Muslim friends going all raged-up when a Jewish student from US came over for an exchange.

Given the fact that those aggressors lived in land-locked deserts with little or no source of fish for subsistence, their lack of intelligence could be attributed to the unavailability of Omega-3 in their daily meals. *sarcastic*

@__@

So which one will you choose? The former or the latter? Stalin quoted : "War solves all problems. No man, no problem." - and look what happened to the USSR in 1991 and the satellite states of Romania, and even the social and economical divides of East and West Germany. What he actually did not put into practice is to kill EVERYONE - including those who are apathetic to the oppression of the resistance. He killed off only the resistance.

Since both sides claimed they have won the war against each other, let me quote something from Einstein :

You may have won the war, but you have not won the peace.

or Invader Zim

You may have won the war, but you have not won the thing bigger than war!

[MikaMiaka]

Well, I can't say you're wrong because you're not about parenting. But both root causes -- parenting and religion, is not mutually exclusive. In fact, in this case, they overlap. One causes the other and vice versa.

And might I also say -- if it isn't religion, it would just be something else. If this world didn't have religion, then another reason would take its place for why people do what they do. This is of course, the human condition.

But the thing of it is, this world DOES have religion. And it IS religion because religion is what they cite as why they do what they do. Why did we carve out a country in the middle of an already existing country? Is it not for religious reasons? So, either you can take these people at their word when they say it is religion, or you can choose to second guess their motives. I believe them. This isn't a conflict that's recent. They've been fighting over that piece of land for forever.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by MikaMiaka

Well, I can't say you're wrong because you're not about parenting. But both root causes -- parenting and religion, is not mutually exclusive. In fact, in this case, they overlap. One causes the other and vice versa.

And might I also say -- if it isn't religion, it would just be something else. If this world didn't have religion, then another reason would take its place for why people do what they do. This is of course, the human condition.

But the thing of it is, this world DOES have religion. And it IS religion because religion is what they cite as why they do what they do. Why did we carve out a country in the middle of an already existing country? Is it not for religious reasons? So, either you can take these people at their word when they say it is religion, or you can choose to second guess their motives. I believe them. This isn't a conflict that's recent. They've been fighting over that piece of land for forever.

Actually parenting and religion are mutually exclusive. I have no religion, but my parents are Buddhist.

Parenting is what you teach your kids, and religion is what it teaches its believers. You can't teach your kids to believe in a religion, you can only influence them to. And if you influence them using the selfish interpretations of fakers instead of the wisdom fakirs, you get a terrorist-to-be.

[MikaMiaka]

They are not mutually exclusive, and I have no idea how you can separate them based on your own experiences, in this one instance. I'm Buddhist too, and by default because my parents are. But Buddhism contains no hardcore beliefs like Muslim extremists and on the whole, we are chill as f*ck because the whole premise is to just live your life how you want to, but in the course of doing do, do not hurt anyone in the process. That's simple to understand (but a lot harder in practice, though, hah).

Influence IS parenting. And parenting is influenced by one's own parenting AND religion. And you only have your open mind because you lived in an environment that encourages that. I think here, you're mixing up how you are growing up with how these kids grow up. And I know your heart is in the right place, but I think you're giving too much credit to a person's ability to go against the grain of their society.

Not everyone has had the experiences we've had in terms of living in an open society. And more to that, since their parents taught them a certain way, they might not become indoctrinated completely, but when they step out into the world and face others who treat them badly because of who they are and where they come from (and the people who treated them badly are of course also influenced by their own parents and their parents' religion) they believe that they have evidence of what they have been taught.

It's like Locke said, our minds start out completely Tabula Rasa, but we are molded by our environment. And when that environment contains religion, religion molds us too. I think it is a hard thing to deny. It's not like parenting is free of influence -- it draws its influence from a number of things, including religion. I don't see how you can deny this -- it makes no sense to me why or how you could or should. At best, it's just semantics and free of substance, that argument. I don't know how else to put it.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by MikaMiaka

They are not mutually exclusive, and I have no idea how you can separate them based on your own experiences, in this one instance. I'm Buddhist too, and by default because my parents are. But Buddhism contains no hardcore beliefs like Muslim extremists and on the whole, we are chill as f*ck because the whole premise is to just live your life how you want to, but in the course of doing do, do not hurt anyone in the process. That's simple to understand (but a lot harder in practice, though, hah).

Influence IS parenting. And parenting is influenced by one's own parenting AND religion. And you only have your open mind because you lived in an environment that encourages that. I think here, you're mixing up how you are growing up with how these kids grow up. And I know your heart is in the right place, but I think you're giving too much credit to a person's ability to go against the grain of their society.

Not everyone has had the experiences we've had in terms of living in an open society. And more to that, since their parents taught them a certain way, they might not become indoctrinated completely, but when they step out into the world and face others who treat them badly because of who they are and where they come from (and the people who treated them badly are of course also influenced by their own parents and their parents' religion) they believe that they have evidence of what they have been taught.

It's like Locke said, our minds start out completely Tabula Rasa, but we are molded by our environment. And when that environment contains religion, religion molds us too. I think it is a hard thing to deny. It's not like parenting is free of influence -- it draws its influence from a number of things, including religion. I don't see how you can deny this -- it makes no sense to me why or how you could or should. At best, it's just semantics and free of substance, that argument. I don't know how else to put it.

I didn't separate them using my own experiences. Please read my whole post : it is not like I wrote a wall of text that requires you to read the introduction ONLY.

And I pointed out that influencing them to believe rather than teaching them to believe. Teaching and influencing are two different things despite coming hand in hand : the former addresses the technical instruction of doing something, while the latter addresses the reason of doing it.

What the parents didn't teach is the acceptable way of being loyal to their religion : but rather they influenced the kids about their entitlement of that piece of desert using religion as an excuse.

Don't blame the religion unless it explicitly states that violence against innocent non-believers is the way to go. Blame the believers, including prophets like Prophet Muhammed and Moses - they are important people in the religion, but they are still believers because they carry out the actions as examples with accordance to their beliefs.

[JMvS]

Originally Posted by MikaMiaka

I think that the operative word in your statement is "should." It should be that way with younger generations, but that's idealism in the face of the human condition.

I saw a documentary once on PBS, a long time ago, I forget the name, but it was rather ambitious. The producers of the show got a group of young Palestinian kids and a group of young Israeli kids together, all about grade school age. they sent these kids to a spend a few months together, for the summer. They had a blast, and became great friends. They knew they were supposed to not like each other, but they didn't know why. So they got along great over the summer. When it was time to part, the kids cried and said that they would be friends forever, and that they could never hate each other. It was really sad to see them say goodbye.

Then, the show met up with the kids several years later separately, when they were teenagers, to follow up. The Israeli kids hated the Palestinian kids and vice versa. They had in a one word, become indoctrinated. They talked about killing each other, and about how unjust it was that their enemies have their land, etc.

It was heartbreaking to see the change, and the venom that spewed from the mouths of these teens. They were so convicted in their beliefs because they believed what they had been taught from all the adults in their lives, not to mention the media in their respective countries. It's propaganda like no other. And when you think about it, people are very much the product in which they are raised.

Though I think your analogy has the right idea in terms of the Cold War, I do not think that it is an apt comparison. The Cold War didn't involve religion. When you throw in religion, the feeling of entitlement of the holy land, the suppression both groups feel and have felt throughout history, all on top of a strip of land with so much crude oil, it's a completely different ballgame.

More than anything, religion just drives people nuts.



@__@

Actually, while religion is quite involved here, as it was in the Cold War (peoples religiousness vs materialistic atheism had been a constant driver of blind repression trough out the XXth century), it has a lesser importance than the two key factors which are the very roots of this conflict:

-attachment to the land: a common psychological characteristic in most agricultural and post agricultural societies, especially vivid here as lands are scarce and have been densely populated by your forebears since the dawn of History.

-Zionism: an ethnocentric, or nationalistic ideology, which proclaims exclusive rights for it's community. The big problem is that it concerns the aforementioned lands...

So on one hand you have a core cultural and psychological value, and on the other hand the very ideology which gave birth to the State of Israel.

Nationalism is here the key factor, as it was in defining the politicies in this part of the world for the first three fourth of the XXth century, before the Iranian Revolution cast a new veil on it. Religious issues sure don't help, but they are only one of the many sparkles that set on fire the pre-existing dynamite stack laid by those aforementioned factors.


For the moment, I think there won't be any major changes, as long as the Israelis have the Right of the Strongest with them chances are high the dialogue will remain as one sided as it had ever been.
But ultimately, they will lose at the demographic race, as they already have underwent the demographic transition, and they no longer can "rapatriate" more communities, since the Diaspora is either extinguished, or has found more peaceful Promised Lands.
Still, whether they will fade peacefully or bloodily is up to them.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Acropolis Now The Greek debt crisis is spreading. Europe needs a bolder, broader solution — and quickly THERE comes a moment in many debt crises when events spiral out of control. As panic sets in, bond yields lurch sickeningly upwards and fear spreads to shares and currencies. It will strike some as mystifying that a small, peripheral economy should suddenly threaten the world’s biggest economic area. Yet, though it is only 2.6 per cent of euro-zone GDP, Greece sounds three warnings that reach far beyond its borders. - THE ECONOMIST <— Covers like these make my day. Brilliant concept very well executed.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

<snip>

Merkel in green! LOL! And Greece's ready for the apocalypse!

So where is the slaughtering of a water buffalo?


China's Yuan Gains in Clout on World Markets

A new heavyweight is flexing its muscles in the $3 trillion-a-day market for currency trading: China.

It is an unusual sort of influence given that the Chinese currency, the yuan, doesn't readily trade in foreign-exchange markets and its value is fixed against the dollar.

Yet China's economy, and speculation that the yuan's value vis-a-vis the dollar will soon be allowed to rise, is moving currencies around the world.

This is especially true in Asia, where the U.S. dollar has long reigned as the most consequential currency. It's also making waves in countries that are major raw-materials suppliers to China such as Australia, Canada and Brazil.

"The U.S. dollar used to be the center of the earth," says David Bloom, currency strategist for HSBC in London. "Now China is becoming a very powerful influence on the way currencies are working."

Speculators, for instance, bet that other Asian currencies, especially those that are more freely traded, will rise relative to the dollar when the yuan is also allowed to.

Investors believe expectations of yuan appreciation give central banks in these countries the leeway to let currencies strengthen without fear of losing export competitiveness. So far this year, the Malaysian ringgit is up 7.5% against the dollar and the Korean won and Indian rupee are both up around 5%.

"We've reached a junction where the dollar and yuan are equally important in Asia," says Hai Xin, head of Asia for Overlay Asset Management, a unit of BNP Paribas Group that hedges currency risk for large investors. "Before, I'd never hesitate to say the U.S. dollar is the most important currency. Now I think it's both."

To be sure, the U.S. dollar is still the undisputed top dog. It's the most heavily traded currency in the world and—as the recent financial crisis proved— still the denomination that investors flee to in tough times.

Some say talk of the yuan's prominence is overblown. "This is a country that has never had a real floating exchange rate and has no experience responding to markets," says Fraser Howie, of CLSA Asia-Pacific markets and a longtime critic of China's financial system.

Even so, China's growing currency clout is showing up indirectly. For instance, derivatives that investors use to bet on the yuan's direction have become popular. And these yuan bets are starting to move other currencies, too.

Deutsche Bank currency strategist Mirza Baig says that on days when trading is especially volatile, the Singapore dollar moves in tandem with the yuan bets. The Malaysian ringgit, Taiwanese dollar and Korean won are also high on the list of currencies affected by the yuan.

The so-called dollar bloc—Australia, Canada and New Zealand, whose currencies have long been considered closely tied to the value of the U.S. dollar—are more sensitive to China these days as well. A large part of that is China's demand for commodities from those countries. Canada has seen its currency rise to parity with the dollar in recent months, thanks in part to China's demand for its raw materials, including oil and timber.

In theory, the strength of currencies broadly reflects the relative growth rates of underlying economies. China is leading the global recovery, part of the reason many economists, especially in the U.S., think the yuan is undervalued at its current level of 6.83 to the dollar, where it's been since August 2008.

China is by far the largest economy whose currency doesn't float. That's despite China being set to overtake Japan this year as the world's second-largest economy after the U.S.

China's economic output will be more than $5 trillion, or around 9% of the world's economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. is a quarter of the world's economy. The euro zone is 20% and Japan is 9%.

The yuan is also becoming a more important currency to the world's central bankers. The lack of movement in the yuan has put pressure on central banks in countries that compete with China for world trade.

As economies recover in Asia and Latin America, some policy makers are reluctant to raise interest rates to fight inflation, for fear the higher rates will also mean stronger local currencies. Strong currencies make their exports more expensive compared with China's

Central banks are key players in currency markets, as they allocate their massive reserves. The dollar is still dominant, making up 62% of the world's central-bank reserves, according to the IMF.

The yuan, which is almost impossible to trade, is many policy changes away from being the kind of currency that risk-averse central bankers want to hold.

But central banks or sovereign wealth funds from Malaysia, Norway and Singapore have received special quotas from the Chinese government to allow them to gain a bit of exposure to China's currency. The bet is that holding yuan-denominated assets is an important feature of a diversified national reserve.

When China's property market bursts, get ready to buy and stockpile yuan-related assets. After its recovery, they are going to worth much more.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Economic doom sayers, just love them. (sarcasm)

[MikaMiaka]

I don't know why it's not coming across so you folks can understand. I am not saying religion in and of itself is the root cause. I am saying religion is the catalyst and the go-to reason for why these people do what they do. That's all.

Edit: And I think that's a pretty general statement that contains enough truism to support itself. You can blame it on love of the land, you can blame just the believers, but at the end of the day, religion is the common thread that supports how they feel. So yes, it's a mixture of everything, but the foundation is religious belief. I hope that makes my point clearer.

[Vexx]

Its basically yet another reason why one really should never want any conflation of religious beliefs and state power. It oozes potential for misuse.

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by JMvS

For the moment, I think there won't be any major changes, as long as the Israelis have the Right of the Strongest with them chances are high the dialogue will remain as one sided as it had ever been.
But ultimately, they will lose at the demographic race, as they already have underwent the demographic transition, and they no longer can "rapatriate" more communities, since the Diaspora is either extinguished, or has found more peaceful Promised Lands.
Still, whether they will fade peacefully or bloodily is up to them.

where the heck did you bring that one from ?
the israelis are the ONLY side in the conflict that has made any steps towards peace (evacuating gaza, for example)
and have already signed peace agreements with other countries, and demonstrated that they are willing to trade large amounts of land for peace
and the only reason why there might BE peace is if israel remains the strong one in the region, to the point where trying to fight it seems like suicide
if the arabs countries believe that they CAN get rid of israel, they would continue to try to do so, since peace with it is considered even now to be nothing more then an unfortunate necessity even to those who have peace with them

peace in the middle east is not ever going to come in the way some people are dreaming about (with the jews and the arabs sitting around the fire singing songs)
don't try to think of the middle east through European eyes
peace would at best only remain a strategic and economic advantage, and nothing more
but at least is preferable to all out war

as for the demographic race, thats also bull
the arab population in israel remains under 20%, and decreasing (arab israeli birth rates are down to standard western levels of 3 kids per family at most)
the "diaspora" is still in full swing, with the tens of thousands of jews coming to israel every YEAR (over 16,000 this past year, and that was considered weak by most standards)
ironiclly, the increase in anti-semitic behavior in Europe, as a result of muslim immigration to eurpoe, is actually encouraging more and more jews to leave europe and move to israel
within the decade, you could well see the remaining European jewish population (1.5 million) leaving europe (considering where the wind is blowing)

i honestly don't know where this idea came from that israel, as it is today, is temporary
did no one bother learning history ?
was israel's existence seem more likely in the fifties ?
the claim of israel "fading away" has been around for over 60 years, and instead, its numbers, strength, and economy, have only increased with time, so don't count on Israel fading away any time soon

Originally Posted by MikaMiaka

I think you left out the part in the article where it says, "Netanyahu had announced earlier he is willing to restart negotiations "at any time and at any place" while insisting they begin "without preconditions."" I don't know what that means, and through one view, it does make him sound reasonable, but on the other hand, do preconditions mean the stoppage of their building efforts? Or are the talks supposed to address this issue? Are preconditions a promise for both sides to stop the violence? I don't know. I don't know how talks like these can take place without "preconditions." It's almost like -- you have to accept preconditions as a sign of your seriousness.

But yeah, like you guys, I do hope for it.

no preconditions means : "you don't demand anything in order to start the negotiations, and all issues will be discussed during negotiations"
and the reason that the talks MUST be without preconditions, is because preconditions are only used as an excuse to DELAY the talks
there have been negotiations for over a decade without any preconditions, so don't start setting them now

[Tsuyoshi]

I think the root of the problem isn't religion itself, but the general idealism that comes from said religion. Religious texts can be interpreted in a million ways, but the idialism remains the same. The problem between Israel and Palestine has its roots in religion, but by the end of the day, the problem comes down to land-ownership. The Jewish in Israel believe their country is the promised land. Palestine, however, believe that land belongs to them and the Israelis have no right to stay there. That's why they're always struggling with each other, and they use their religious texts to justify their actions.

But considering the harsh conditions people are exposed to there, especially the young teens mentioned from the documentary, why they fight no longer matters. They fight because they have to in order to survive. Those kids most likely saw many of their own die at the hands of the opposing side and started developing vengeful feelings toward one another regardless of their past. Call it indoctrination, but their personal experience with death also plays a good part in it.