I agree that I would like to know more about what's going on in the middle east. I checked out Nyperold's posts briefly, but I'm sure the depth of the conflict is way more than can be adaquately summerized in a one-page article. Now I'll put in my two cents...

Whatever's going on over there I think is basically pretty stupid, because it's been happening for so long that probably very few people even have any idea why they're fighting. I'm pretty familiar with Judaism and extremely slightly familiar with Islam, and I can't see how groups of people from either religion can honestly believe that strapping fifty pounds of explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves up is honoring God in any way. And they probably don't believe that. I think it's just an excuse, although it seems to be a pretty thin one to me. Maybe it's a more legitimate excuse for the members of the Muslim religion (though I personally would never condone murder under any circumstances) because I seem to remember hearing something about their scriptures containing the phrase "destroy all infidels." But at any rate, I really know very little about Islam, so I'd better not say any more.

Basically, I'm a Christian and I believe that the people in the middle east will continue to fight until shortly before the end of the world. Everybody keeps saying how great peace would be over there, and yeah, that would be nice and stuff, but if it happened that would pretty much be the end of everything, and then the rapture of the Church and so on and soforth... Until its due time, I don't think it's worth bothering with, because you can't argue with prophesy. If God says something's going to happen, it's GOING TO HAPPEN, and who is anybody to try to change that? Sorry, that's my religion, and I'm probably rubbing people the wrong way. Oh well.

As an interesting side note (and my whole reason for posting to this thread to begin with), my friend's dad just left for Israel today on some sort of twisted vacation thing. I don't have all the details, but he's going to Jerusalem and essentially right where the fighting is. It's not a pleasure trip and he's not going to fight, so I'm not sure what the purpose of his trip is. A pilgrimage of some sort, I suppose. But it's very scary because he doesn't think he's going to survive. He made a video will before he left, and he's honestly expecting to die over there. He's a Christian and very interested in end-times prophesy. He always reads the Jerusalem Post newspaper and he seems to know an awful lot about the middle east situation. (Well, actually, he's kind of radical and nutty/extremist, but don't tell *him* I said that...) I wonder if he knows something that I don't know, and I'm worried about this mysterious trip he's going on. What's he doing over there? Does he think he's going to see something BIG? I think he felt God was calling him to Israel for some reason. The whole thing is rather creepy, and I'm more than a little worried about the guy, and, well, what in the world could possibly be major enough to make him put aside his family and job to just go to Israel for no apparent reason? It's really strange.

Maybe if you could please pray for/hope for/wish for/remember him, because he may be in danger or even already dead. Your consideration would be great. This is a very stressful time for my friend, and well, for me too. Thanks.

-useless"Well, let's just wait and see what happens"ness