There have actually been plenty of periods of peace and tolerance in the middle east over the millennia. When these feuds break out people go back and dig up ancient reasons to justify them, but the feuds themselves are new and are not contiguous with those ancient ones.

[+] hydrospanner@lemmy.world -7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ehhhhh...when everyone reporting on it and everyone involved all acknowledge these old reasons as the root of the issue, I'm inclined to believe them over some comment on Lemmy.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I said:

When these feuds break out people go back and dig up ancient reasons to justify them

So they say now that "we're doing this because a thousand years ago their ancestors did our ancestors dirty", but there were periods in between then and now where it was water under the bridge and people got on with their lives.

If you think that people in those regions have literally been killing each other every day for over a thousand years, how is anyone actually left at this point?

[–] hydrospanner@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just because there may be periods of peace doesn't mean these deep rooted issues just no longer matter.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

So conflicts like this can never actually end? Any peace is an illusion, just a pause before the next turn of the wheel? I don't have such a pessimistic view.

There have been conflicts like this throughout history that really have permanently faded off back into the past, with the modern descendants living perfectly fine together and no longer concerned about those original causes of the conflict. If they end up with some new reason to fight in the future they may fight again, of course, and they may even dredge up those old conflicts as part of their propaganda. But it would be a new conflict, not the old one reborn. They're not going to just up and start fighting again for no new reason.