Just be open about your thoughts on this war in the middle east.

I personally think Israel needs to layoff, and quit starting conflicts in the arab countries. They are the ones causing all the trouble, and it disgusts me that our government has chosen to defend them and supply Israel with the best weapons in the world.

Yeah, the nerve of that Israel letting its soldiers get captured and asking to have rockets fired at its cities. Nevermind the fact that the impotent Lebanese government shirked its duties to patrol their Southern boarder and allowed Hezbollah to fester and take over the area. It pulled out of this area in hopes to give the land back to Lebanon and allow them to control their country. They didn't do this. Syria allows arms to travel through it from Iran to Lebanon, so they're not faultless either. In addition, the Palestinians can hardly be said to have kept up their parts of the agreements struck with Israel as they continue to have suicide bombers flood in to attack their population.

The "Arab Countries" as you say need to take control of their countries and realize that there are more productive things to do than allow themselves to get dragged into fights with Israel. Had Hezbollah not provoked Israel, I'm fairly convinced the current military action would not have started. Has Israel overreacted and pushed too far? Well that is a question that is not easy to answer because during the short cease fire, the Hezbollah still continued to provoke Israel with attacks and the fighting now continues. If the inept and worthless UN would do its job and decided to send troops in the moment this war broke out, 99% of the bloodshed would have been averted. However, because the "Arab Countries" support the war and not the peace the UN is still waiting on sending troops there. The majority of the world does not give a crap about the dead Lebanese nor the dead Israelis and that is a tragedy. There is plenty of blame to go around, fault on the "Arab Countries", Israel, and the UN is totally worthless, not only allowing this to go on, but the genocide in the Sudan as well. I'm almost totally convinced the UN was created so idiots could have jobs, in its history it has been woefully inept in dealing with nearly all of the situations that it was created to do.

All parties have fault in this, but it was the "arab coutries" that started the most current conflict there, either directly or indirectly.

Make that 100%. If the (well put, by the way) inept and worthless UN wouldn't have arbitrarily repossesed land for Israel and instead struck a compromise with surrounding countries, none of the violence would have happened (including a great amount of the terrorism directed towards the U.S.).

Or maybe if the UN hadn't allowed Hezbollah to hide rockets in their "neutral" bunker and actually fire on Israel from there...

Most of the damage to Lebanon happened due to secondary explosions of the Katyusha anti-personell rockets. If you blow up a truck that's holding 12 high explosive warheads plastered with ball bearings, and full of rocket fuel, there's gonna be some splash damage and not one bit of it is Israel's fault.

I'm not a fan of Israel and their constant conflicts, but I think they're justified in this conflict as they WERE the ones fired on first.

True, but the conflicts stem from somewhere, and to me that's where the problem lies.

I think both of them need to come to some sort of peaceful resolution. Probably impossible, but I believe negotiations for a cease fire are worth a shot.

But for how long? Eventually the situation will erupt again, so long as Israel exists. What could be done to reach a compromise? I'm not trying to be a dickhead and I respect your view, it just seems impossible.

As long as The Religion Of Peace continues to foster tolerance of violence (at least, when it's directed at Israelis or Americans) there will be no real peace in the Middle East.

Let's execute a 16 year old rape victim for mouthing off to a judge at her trial for the crime of being a rape victim. Let's use a 13 year old girl as a hostage to get inside a building and shoot some Jews. Let's blow up a bunch of trains taking people to work, and let's do it again a year later. And, of course, who could forget the greatest day ever in the name of Allah? But don't you dare renounce The Religion Of Peace, and don't you dare draw cartoons of our child molesting, illiterate thug of a prophet (pbuh).

I'm not sure who the above statement was aimed at, but I'm not defending the dumbass radicalists. They can all FOAD for all I care. I'm just saying that as long as Israel exists and America backs it, the violence will continue.

No, there is actually a slim chance things may eventually change over there. For example, a good deal of Iran's population actually loves the US and our culture. However, they are the young, powerless population at the moment and cannot sway the powerful religious, holocaustal leaders away from the "Israel doesn't exist, but we're going to pray for its destruction anyway" idea. Had the Bush administration been intelligent (I know that's asking a lot) and taken the road less taken and tried to make real changes in the form of policy and not axis of evil idiocy, we may have been able to foster growth of some of the more reasonable sections. However, we instead galvanized the powerful sheiks and mullahs and now their stranglehold on the countries in the area are as strong or stronger than ever. Condi goes over there for what like two days then it goes to hell and she leaves. GENIUS! When things get bad, just stop dealing with it and it'll get better, hmm, that also sounds a bit like our Iraq policy.... Bush is also to fault, if he really wanted something done, his happy ass would be over there pushing to get it done like Regan did with Gorbechev. 50 years of our experiences in the middle east to look back on for guidance and they've ignored it all.

Congrats Georgie/Rummy/Condi you have finally worn away the last shred of hope I had for this administration.

Here's to starting over in 2008. GO McCain!

Peace will exist in the region only when one side is so superior to the other that they can not be challenged. The idea that some kind of peace can be negotiated completely ignores everything that has happened in the region since World War 2. There have been all kinds of land for peace deals, cease fires and otherwise. The end result is always a return to the same bottom line. There will only be peace in the Middle East when either Israel has ceased to exist or Israel completely steps on the countries in the region.