I know it is religion, pride, economics and fanatasicm involved amongst other stuff. What I really don't get (and i'll probably never get) is the Jewish faith, and the Muslim faith both stem from the same person - Abraham. The Jewish faith tracks back to his "legitimate" (I use the term only in sense of marriage) son whereas the Muslim faith goes back to his "illegitimate" son (as in not the son of his wife as far as I understand). Whilst there must be reasons for the infighting I really don't get what it is all about in the end and I suppose i'm not meant to.

I guess it is no different to the Catholic faith versus the Church of England faith. They were the same thing, but Henry the VIII wanted a divorce and the church wouldn't grant it so he started his own religion. The ensuing wars fought and the people slain and the awful stuff that occurred around the same time (Inquisitions) especially during Elizabeth's reign are dreadful when you read it (both on behalf of the Spanish and the English).

I guess we also have to remember the Islam faith as we know it are a young-ish faith compared to the Catholic church, just look at what the Catholic church were doing to "heretics", "pagans" and "wayward christians" when their faith was roughly the same age (just a bit younger) as Islam is today. The 1100-1300 period of crusades was a bloodbath, probably not that dissimilar to what would happen if the sects of Islam all united today and started taking on the rest of the world.