Little Hawk, The reason that the Romans and the Jews were unable to come to an accomodation was that there was a demand for major change--in this case in style of worship. The polytheistic Romans were demanding that the Jews violate a central tenet of what made them Jews: monotheism.

"I would try and resolve whatever had caused the overall situation in the first place which led to people having such hard feelings as to resort to terrorism!" While it does not explicitly apply to Bin Laden and company, the biggest cause of the situation is the sense of a big organization, the rich industrialized part of the world, not listening to the people who consider themselves downtrodden.

The current Iraq situation is really caused by the fact that both Bush and Hussein are peace loving men. What could be more peaceful than a world in which everyone agrees with you or dies? There was a parody in MAD magazine about 40 years ago called "The Rifle, Man." In it, the hero goes around protesting that he is a peace loving man as he blows everyone he meets into the great beyond. His son asks him how, if he claims to be a peace loving man, he can justify all the killing he does. His response: "There ain't nothing so peaceful as a dead man, son." Sound familiar?