@Foofie,
We're not really very far apart on this. I don't see much in recorded human history that suggests humanity is on any kind of march towards perfection. On the contrary, one of the central lessons of history is that it is precisely the self-appointed zealots who presumed to know what was good for everyone else and tried to force it on them who have created the most human misery.
I agree, we are all a bit tribal at some level, though the definitions and boundaries of those tribes and the characteristics that distinguish them are quite variable. ( such distinctions are visible everywhere, even among Israeli Jews).
All that said there are times and places in human history where peace, tolerance, and human achievement were markedly greater than others and, conversely episodes of widespread misery and suffering.
It's only natural for us all to look for some organizing principle with which to achieve our ideals for ourselves, our tribe, our nation, etc. In practice that turns out to be very difficult to achieve, at least for an extended period of time, as the continuing turmoil of history amply illustrates.
I believe the dynamics of human behavior involve the same sensitive dependence on initial conditions (i.e. the behaviors of individual people) that makes the future state of highly non linear dynamical systems unknowable. That's why, even with the amazing advances in computing over the past five decades, we still can't accurately predict the weather more than five or six days into the future. (We can reliably estimate the average seasonal variations, but even there we get surprised).
Human behavior is certainly sufficiently perverse and non-linear (variable response in proportion to stimulus) to create the chaos we also observe in the physical world.
In such a situation I think it's a mistake to rely exclusively on historical memories - the human situation is far too variable and dynamic for that.
The best we can do is to protect ourselves from immediate danger and, at the same time, practice what we all know as virtue with others.
Add up the Muslim nations and their sympathisers, then add up the Jewish nations and their sympathisers, and you have a fair idea of voting at the UN . Why dont they investigate war crimes by the Palestinians (aka PLO) ?
