Wertheimer says that: "“Industrial areas are the future of the Middle East. As soon as everyone here has a job, Nasrallah will have no role.” Well, unfortunately, this may not be true. It is well known that Islamist terrorists are well paid by foreign instigators such as Saudi Arabia and Iran and by various "charities." Terrorist is actually a well paid job - they never seem to be lacking any food. Also, remember that the hijackers from September 11 mostly came from well-to-do families, and were not dirt poor. Finally, if poverty were the cause of terrorism, sub-saharan africa would be the world's #1 exporter.

He's a true Christian who knows his Bible.

and buffet too of course, a great man with superiour visions

Maybe racial hatred superceeds common sense and a stable livelihood. Maybe a percentage of humans are prone to self destruction no matter how well off they are. Any takers at the universities, to study if humans will self destruct ,no matter how well off they are? Does religious intolerance, push average societies into abhorant animalistic rampages, against successful societies, and individuals? Even when the societies that were successful, freak out ,attack, and destroy others in the name of their own religious fanatiscm. Are we always going to see Lebanons, Germanys, Japans, and so forth and so on. Do humans really need a valid reason to wipe out other human groups? Or is murder and rampage hard wired into the human mind? If so, Buffett might be wrong. Why is he buying Israeli firms anyways? He's planning on giving everything away to charities. How will this affect this company when he expires? Will this company be broken up and sold to the highest bidders? I'd get some gaurantees from Buffet before I sold off any more Israeli companies.

You did the best thing in the best time. I admire you for your opinions.

It is not just a question of poverty and Terror - but a whole country that makes less than $6000 per person Gross Domestic Product will not have the quality of life to quash terror in its midst. Yeah, Saudis flew jets on 911 but the country of Saudi Arabia is tryign to fight terror. Read The Tefen Model and you will see how production can save us all from this morass of people thinking they have no way out but terror http://www.h-quandt-stiftung.de/root/index.php?lang=en&page_id=333

“Industrial areas are the future of the Middle East. As soon as everyone here has a job, Nasrallah will have no role.” If enough of those jobs are in the guided missile industrial there may be some hope. There's a good test sight around here - 31°0′N 35°8′E Happy hunting!

I did not mean to minimize the importance of Tefen or Buffet's contribution. Obviously, raising the standard of living in the region will be massively beneficial, but at the same time we need to be careful to weed out the real root causes - an education towards intolerance, which is acquired in the home, media, school, and society. If all the schools in the mideast actually conformed to western curricula, including human rights courses and interfaith dialogue, we would solve 50% of the problem. As a long term perspective, all USA and EU foreign aid and direct investments to the mideast should be contigent on educational reform.

Logic - you are absolutely correct - if the world were to install freedom based schools in say South Lebanon, and funding came from Gates - who now has US$37B of Buffet's bucks committed - then the whole globe could see how a society is lifted from Terror's grasp. Locals would have to agree to turn in Terrorists who hide weapons in their houses or towns. Then the school money for production jobs would work. But can we get locals to do this?

we love you.

Do you really think the Arabs can be paid of with a few zillion dollars in exchange for their RELIGIOUS beliefs that they believe that Jews have no place in the Middle East? In thier eyes we belong in Auschwitz, and they are doing their best (together with Olmert, Peres and Beilin) to accomplish that job in stages. No matter how many jobs and gringo's you give them, they couldn't care less!