Yeah, like that was a huge contributing factor to the hostilities that exist between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But for American actions and involvement, Hamas and its associates would just plant sloppy wet kisses on the cheeks of all the Jews in sight, right?

If it wasn't 911, there would be another excuse.

I want to say CHEERS to the great Apartheid wall that Israel is illegally building--despite pleas by the UN to oh please stop, we so do not approve of your illegal annexing.. but anyways, I just want to give it five stars, so that nobody calls me anti-semite.. It's the best label because it's the scariest. So cheers to that too.

There will never be peace between them. Hamas must be stopped! The fence between the two would finally show the Palestinians that they will not be back. They have been living in refugee camps for 4 generations! Stop the bombing and terrorism you are not ever going back!

This is an important issue, but it is NOT a consequence of 9/11. The blame for the failure of the peace talks falls squarely on Israel's shoulders. They have been talking peace in the international media but have never stopped their campaign of terror, demolition, and assassination against the Palestinian people. Even when the militant Islamic groups agreed to and abided by a truce of several weeks, Israel continued demolishing homes, expanding their illegal settlements, and humiliating Palestinian civilians at every checkpoint. This went on before 9/11, and will continue until a catastrophe occurs. The powers on both sides do not want peace, so any 'peace' talks are doomed to failure without a complete overhaul of the Israeli and Palestinian governments.

I never knew that there were any effective peace talks taking place over there? Last time I checked, they were killing each other before 9/11.

Sorry to say this, everyone. But there never was any peace talks going on. Arafat's only point is too kill as many Israeli's as possible.

Hooboy. If ever there was an international case of geographic and political semantics, this is it. Both sides have committed numerous atrocities to further their cause and justify their grievances. Both sides have legitimate outcries but have warped their citizens' worldviews with their "eye-for-an-eye" mentality. My take on it is simplistic, but reflects my own weltanschauung: both of these groups are Semitic in origin, which makes it a folly for one side to call the other "Anti-Semitic." Both groups worship a monotheistic Yhwh and Allah. Because of cultural, historic and religious backgrounds too involved and lengthy to go into detail here, "saving face" is paramount and glorification of the past (the Muslim and Arab "Golden Age" and King David's Israel) is crucial, with little room for compromise. Both side's political and religious "leaders" (Sharon and Arafat come to mind, along with religious hard-liners) never let their defenses down, again believing that turning the other cheek would amount to losing face and honor. Maybe historians could find biblical and scholarly proof that the Holy Land was in Sweden, or Nebraska, or even Papua New Guinea. Then maybe both sides might say, "Wait a gosh-darn minute here---we've been going about this all wrong! Why are WE fighting each other? Palestine's not even holy---our books are wrong! We've been lied to! The Holy Land is PARAGUAY! Why, we're not the Chosen ones---the Guarani Native Americans are! And they're a peaceful sort. Let's be peaceful, too." "Brother!" "Brother!" Cue the hugs all over the place, set the doves loose with their olive branches, and voila! There you go. Facetious, but goes to show you how disgusted I am with both sides and their seemingly bottomless ability to hate. Shalom, Salaam, and Peace.

I gave up on Israel and Palestine a long time ago. Personally, I think that this is a problem for the U.S. to handle and we should not make Israel and Palestine a part of it. Take care, everyone!

Obviously a problem that has been vacillating for what seems like an eternity. Was it ever REALLY good? Will it ever be good until one nation is turned to the dust pile the other side has been longing to make it? I don't think so. Let’s face it, these kids just don’t have a very good history of playing well with others.

Although this conflict has been going on forever, the disagreement between secular and religious has caused these talks to deteriorate when progress really could have been made. There is so much religious tension right now and it really isn't troubling because they always find one way to break down.

I hate to be overly negative, but this is unfortunately, not a new phenomena and was something to be expected. The fact of the matter is that there will probably NEVER be peace in this part of the world. It is imposible. Sharon and Arafat both have failed to demonstrate leadership qualities. The hatred and bitterness is so deep, so strong, and so irreversible, there is no point to it anymore. They'll just keep throwing rocks and shooting at eachother until time's up. God will be the ultimate judge in all of this- not our hapless world leaders, who like the Israelis and Palestinians, are only human. We're wasting our time and energy trying to resolve the conflict. We should worry more about our own problems here in the U.S. and just resign ourselves to realize the Middle Eastern conflict is a huge mess that will not be cleaned up any time soon, not in my lifetime, which I estimate has at least another 60 years.

Israel is a very important part of the world geopolitically. It is at the convergence of many different types of ethnicities and world views. Therefore, it has and always will be a very volatile part of the world. The key to peace in Israel has to begin with the Palestinian Authority. It has to cut at the knees the fundamentalist movements like Hamas from the political mainstream of its people. Arafat is merely a puppet for these various terrorist organizations; he does not stand up to them because he fears the consequences of his actions. In this situation, it is better to do something than nothing because if Arafat does not do anything, then the Israelis or the Americans will do something, and it will set back the cause for a Palestinian state for years to come. Keep in mind that these are terrorist organizations who are perpetrating these bombings in Israel; President Bush vowed to get rid of terrorists everywhere, including Israel. He will use Sharon as his proxy in that operation and that is something Arafat would not want to deal with. I do support a autonomous Palestinian state, I do not think they will ever have full sovereignty because, like what I have said in previous comments about the Middle Eastern peace process, the Palestinians like to play a zero-sum game when it comes to the establishment of their own state. Co-existence is not very popular among the powers that be within the Palestinian Authority. Unfortuately, out of all the major leaders within the Authority that we can deal with, Arafat is the only one. He is a secular leader, if someone else takes over, then it will more than likely be one of the fundamentalists. In short, there has always been conflict in Israel and there will always be due to the 1) Lack of natural resources (e.g. water in the region) and 2) The lack of arable land. This is why negociating for land is so difficult between the Palestinians and Israelis; it all comes down to natural resources. The only way to quell the problem is to encourage capital development within Palestine, if the people have jobs, then they will not fight as much. It's kind of similar to that old James Carville statement "It's the economy, stupid." Conflict will always be a part of the equation when considering Middle East though, it's a no win situation.