Tore,

Amen.

This is a thread that started with a poignant conversation between KG and his daughter.

Now it's gone personal with people jabbing each other about deaths of others' small daughters that IMHO everybody knows is wrong.

Key points I see are that neighbors have wanted to destroy Israel since it was founded; that Israelis say that want to live in peace and are happy to have a neighboring Palestinian state; but Palestinians say they want Israel destroyed. Not a great start- but "somebody" has to act first to break the cycle of punch and counter-punch.

Perhaps we can look to the Irish troubles. Northern Ireland was irretrievably divided in living memory and they didn't just fire missiles at each other, they fired missiles in London and planted bombs there. Meanwhile IRA fundraisers traveled the USA singing rebel songs and collecting millions of dollars that was a lot of $ in those days.

Plenty of opportunity for blame and perpetual torment there. And yet in 2014, Ireland is relatively untroubled, they don't bomb each other and while every so often there is a kerfuffle because somebody insists on parading through the others' suburbs to celebrate defeat of the locals generations ago, people are starting to get on with each other, kids are going to school and they have a relatively affluent society.

How did it happen? People attribute it to Good Friday agreements and successful negotiations, but IMHO it's largely through affluence and opportunity. I've said it before: give a young man an opportunity to earn enough to buy a car- any car- to impress the ladies, and the idea of wasting your days on baiting and aggression loses its appeal. There are some very bad people in this world but most of us are ordinary human beings who drift into bad behaviors because there is nothing else.

I'd also say that in the Irish troubles there were generations of bombings and kneecappings and hijackings and rocketing and all the rest of it... and in the end, any "benefit" from these behaviors was temporary. In the long term it was a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing- except for the poor innocents that always get caught in the crossfire.