Peace in our time?

In the endless cycles of Middle-East revenge and retribution, it becomes difficult to recall how/why/by whom the blood-letting began.

Claims to a homeland based on conjecture about who lived there first, thousands of years ago, are nonsensical; if we really accepted the legitimacy of that criterion, we would all pack our bags and cede the Americas back to the aborigines who preceded us. Turf in the Middle East, as elsewhere throughout history, will ultimately belong to whoever has the strength, guile, and will to take it and hold it.

The gap may be unbridgeable, peace unsustainable, between one society that rears its children to become teachers, scientists, engineers and other societies whose loftiest goal for their offspring is martyrdom.