the only way

 Turn on the television to hear that Hamas has attacked Israel. Hundreds killed and hundreds more injured. A state of war is declared. Those groups have been fighting each other since Biblical times. The hope for peace evaporating once again. I won't pretend to know anything about the central issue, the reasoning behind any of that. All I know is what I hear and read and that isn't nearly enough to make any judgements. The only thing I am certain of is that Hamas is a terrorist group. How this group manages to get the funding, the weaponry and the personal isn't known to me. Who sponsors terrorism? Those that don't believe the actions are terrorism, or those that stand to profit from that terrorism. That is the long and short of that. 

  It is my understanding, no matter how uninformed or misguided that understanding may be, that this terrorism is based in religious belief. That is at the heart of it all. Islamist terrorists control this Gaza strip area, an area under contention since 1948 according to what I have read. Israel claims the land is there's and Palestine claims it is there's. I'm certain there is a great deal more involved than land ownership, somehow this boils down to money. That much I think is fair to say. If you can couple that desire for wealth and control with religious zeal the battle will rage on. The crusades come to mind and were fueled by that as well. The Christians saying, they were simply defending Pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land and the Muslims saying it is their land. I know it isn't as simple as that. The Templars certainly made a lot of money with the whole deal. But that's all history and can be examined and viewed in several ways; depending. 

  How do you defeat a terror group? Kill the leader? That only serves to increase their zeal. Yes, it may interrupt things for a short time, but you haven't defeated terrorism, you have killed a person. The person may very well need killing, some folks do you know, but there is always someone waiting to take his place. The only way to defeat terrorism is to change the heart of the people committed to that terror. It is the same action as defeating gun violence in America. The only way to stop that is to change the hearts of those using the guns. Until that happens the shootings will continue just as these attacks will continue. 

 The middle east can be viewed as the heart of religious belief. Certainly, the three major religions of the world are centered there. The three groups have been in constant conflict since the beginning. The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. At their very core they all share a common belief. It is only in the way they practice that belief that cause all the division. We see that division every day in our lives as well. Morality and religious belief are bedfellows. There has been and will continue to be those that dispute that relationship, insisting that morality has nothing to do with religious belief, that they can be separated. I disagree with that notion. You don't have to believe that water is wet for you to get wet when it is dumped on you! You don't have to proclaim any religious belief to act in a Christian manner. It is only when we pervert our religious belief to justify immoral actions that we get into trouble. Defining that is the heart of the matter. Change the heart and you will change the action. It's really the only way.