Well, Cartesian thought refers to Rene Descartes, who was a philsopher and mathematician. He lived in, I think the 1700s. He was a pretty amazing character, coined the phrase: 'ergo cognito sum' (I think that's right) - which means 'I think therefore I am'. The idea being that if you are sentient, you recognise your own existence and that proves reality (or something like that).
As a mathematatian, he was responsible for discovering the coordinate system, (which we use to plot graphs) so when I say, you have a Cartesian point of view, it means you see things in a rational, mathematical, black and white way. For example: My friend's enemy is my [edit] not friend, enemy [edit]. True in a Cartesian sense, but not always in real life.
Moving on to the second part of your post...if you think that there is no hope of peace and that we should all throw our hands up and give up...that's not satisfactory to me. I think there is a hope for peace. We've done it in other situations we can do it here. It may take courage, work, blood and effort but I think it can be done. The Israelis and Palestinians can do it by building bridges (I've suggested a couple of ways in which this can be done) we, on the rest of the planet can help by not demonising one side or the other.
Most people are just the same. Their needs are pretty simple. They need shelter, electricity, food and water. They want to bring up a family, have a shot at getting a good job if they work hard and then maybe after that, aspire to some sort of 'Dallas' lifestyle.
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