h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dose the fighting between Israel and Hamas have the potential to expand into a major religious conflict now Hesbollah offered assistance to Hamas.

This has potential to involve the USA as well as its allies and inflame terrorist factions in the USA and the UK.

I wonder what views others have?

I would rather go back to the days when the word "terrorist "didn't exist, and there were no major wars over religion.

Life was so much simpler then, and security meant putting a lock on your house door, sad really when you think about it, that all that has changed within my life time?


Smudger.

You could be going back some time
http://www.terrorism-research.com/history/early.php

It looks like it has made an unwelcome return home. It is unfortunate that religions have cause so much war, over so many centuries.

I am not sure about expanding ... Syria is in the long midst of a deadly civil war ... Iraq is in the midst of a deadly civil war ... Egypt have the banned Muslim brotherhood mounting operations ... Libya has various tensions ... Both the US and Britain are currently serenading Iran to help them stop Iraq from splitting into three ... Saudi Arabia (US greatest Arab ally) is busy funding (allegedly) the various fundamental Islam groups ... Bahrain is holding formula one grand prixs, Yemen ... Sudan ... Somalia ...

'I would rather go back to the days when the word "terrorist "didn't exist, and there were no major wars over religion.'
Like when? A few thousand years ago?

In my opinion the only solution for this is someone from the outside making a decision about the way the border should run and then enforcing it.

I think you're right, Tavaronn, but it would require require a takedown on both sides to enforce it and that would force escalation.

Who is powerful enough and trusted by both sides to take on hat task.

There are several issues. The immediate issues are humanitarian related
1) Agreed ceasefire and proper medical aid into Gaze
2) Attempted dialogue to stop rockets into Israel and what seems like gross over-reaction from Israel.

A long term political settlement requires redrawing borders throughout the whole Middle East or / and certain policies throughout the whole Middle East plus acceptance of Europe for creating much of the conflict from the beginning ... it's historical innit?

the Arab nations will never recognise Israel and their existence on what was/is Arab land, so there will always be some form of conflict in that area of the world

Plus, as the Israeli's say - god gave them that land. So! they will never concede either

it's the immovable object against the irresistible force syndrome

It is not just the Israeli's there are a lot of people in the religious communites around the world that beleive strongly that the Bible gives the Israeli's a clain to Israel, the word of God, is strong on both sides.

true

I'm glad I'm a true atheist (since the age of 11yrs)

Think there are people who support Israel as a nation state and it is matter of politics and not religion, not saying that doesn't come into the mix

The way the country was created at the end of WWII was hardly peaceful and the troubles stem from the treatment of the dispossessed population.
It could have been handled much better.

Well yes quite, but it wasn't.

Sorry, thought I was in Ask, not a journal, was a bit short there

Leaves an

Not sure where the word of god was when European Jews were being eradicated from Europe - eastern Europe and Germany and wherever the Germans were. About half the jews in Israel were just desperate to get out of Europe. Europe has to take some of the blame for the current situation. Europe doesn't have a strong history of providing security for European jews. Maybe some territory could have been given to the European Jews inside Europe post WWII - there used to be something called the Jewish Pale of Settlement.

But all this is neither here nor there currently - currently there seems to be a humanitarian crisis ... not unlike the rest of the Middles East ... just look at all those overcrowded boats heading towards Italy ...

well at risk of being short again, humanitarian principles don't seem to count for much, and when it comes to international law, well also counts for nothing, who abides by it?

We have no effective frameworks, and do not even speak in the terms of that sort vocabulary to deal with situations from these perspectives

People and life are "messy" - what theoreticians write down on paper seems all very well and good - but ultimately things have to be worked at continuously not on paper but in real life on the ground. Resorting to the military has to be a "last resort" and if employed used minimally ... but arms is a big global business and is advertised as the way to solve problems from small scale to large scale.

So although humanitarian principles doesn't seem to count for much we need people to keep pushing them forward.