I understand that as long as both sides are so vehemently determined to be the dominating power there is no peaceful outcome. That's actually more or less my point; we can't all have it all.

But the way I see it - and please do feel free to point out any misunderstandings that you think I might have - both sides are dead-set on the destruction of the other side as a result of their religious dogma.

I can't profess to be an Quranic scholar but I have read a few passages that at least suggest that the destruction of the 'infidels', in this case, the Jews, is totally sanctioned and will actually garner favor with Allah.

The same can be said of the Old Testament.

What I'm really trying to say is that I don't think that either side is allowed to make any concessions as a result of what their holy books say. If you think about it, there can never really be any meaningful reconciliation between the two because if they were to call a truce, by virtue of the fact that they buried the hatchet, they would, by definition, not be following the word of their holy books which they seem to actually live for. And if they weren't following their book's beliefs, then they wouldn't have any reason to be enemies in the first place, except for some old bad blood, which I'm sure could be overlooked in the interest of the greater good.

I think you and I can probably look at these two groups of people and realize that taking literally what a book that was written thirteen-hundred years(or much more, in the case of the Old Testament) ago says is a joke in the first place, but that's neither here nor there and is, in fact, an argument for another time.

Anyways, i've enjoyed the discussion, and it's almost obligatory for me to jump in and say something when someone says something like what you did in the first(err, second) comment I replied to;

What breeds the fear and outrage that creates these insurgents? How do we break that cycle?

And the reason that I believe that is what I stated above; they can't be who they are without that frame of mind.

Again, I've enjoyed the discussion, thanks for the replies; I'd be happy to continue on with the discussion if that's your preference, but don't feel obligated to respond again if you've got more important things to do!

Have a great day, nice sir.