All this stems to a lack of leadership because both sides think they can’t sell this to their population which is itself a false argument because they don’t want to try because they are scared of the radicals and as you said the hotheads shouldn’t win but they are.”

Imran – this makes real sense to me and I agree with your sentiments here. This is exactly what I have been saying — and I am afraid if Bibi Netanayahu gets in once again — we would see the violence spiraling out of control.

So, overall you and I agree. Where I disagree with you is only one point — I dont see it as a religion issue because the moment we put religion into the mix — we actually tend to forget the major tenents of any religion ie peace and love for fellow human beings and let radicals take over.

I would have loved for the Minister talk about the gross human rights abuse and crisis and focus on the fact innocent civilians especially children are being slaughtered or attacked. A vast majority of the British population have a major problem with the increasingly desparate situation in Gaza and not only the Muslims.

I don’t know if Times 2 is on line.

That is my total contribution to today’s debate, as I personally do now wish to disappear up my own fundament.

Oh.

On the question of Palestine, I think there are lions, such as your good self, led by fucking donkeys..evil donkeys.

And, just so you know, I find Harrys Place an equally stupid destination.

This whole thing is idiotic. And needs to be resolved by grown ups.

Still in first gear.

Could you give some detail, rather than your usual innuendo? There is nothing I can find on the internet that supports your statement. So far, it is unsubstantiated rubbish. And your latest post only makes me bolder in suggesting that you have nothing to support your position. It is yet another content free submission.

You are the one that is saying the IDF has lots of UK Jews in it, not me.

Your position ought to be provable.

Show or fold.

You are more interested in self absorbed dialectics than seeing justice for palestine.

I wonder how many people born in the uk are killing palestinians right now. I know there are a few heros in israel manning organisations to halt the israeli war machine. but how many are on the other side? How come people’s allegedly comprehensive knowledges of ‘any extremism but that with Jewish frosting’ fails at this point? hmmmm

How dare they be permitted to participate and be granted kudos as a consequence. I think the government and UK society needs to dezionise the British Jews as a whole and work to stem their export to the colonial outpost in arabia.

Amen.

They all do it and you are picking on just one. Bush wore his religion on his sleeve but people like you didn’t make comments about him.

Shahid Malik has spoken up of an issue he thinks is wrong. On Newsnight yesterday Hazel Blears addressed the issue.

Its just you have a problem with Muslims and have come on here to vent of and you can’t do anything constructive to help get out of this mess.

The reason I reply to your nonsense is because it is so one sided that even Likud are not that far right wing.

As I have said time and again all sides there are to blame and all sides lack good leadership to get out of this mess. It isn’t even worth discussing Hamas because they have to make fundemental changes before they can contribute and I can’t keep saying that over and over. I think they are idiots who as Newsnight said yesterday find it easier to get elected by showing they’ll fight than showing they’ll make peace.

The question is moving forward from this mess and again I’ll say that peace for land is the only way forward. The Arabs have arrived at that point and have presented a plan which most people accpt is a good starting point.

What you fail to comprehend is that Israel needs this sooner than later because the rockets and other weaponary that is now being produced by the Palestinians is getting more sophisticated and is liable to cause more and more harm. Then you reach a point where Israel is no longer able to protect itself against a non-conventional army which anyone can see it struggles to do now.

Again on Newsnight they said that Israel can’t win this and have probably ended up doing the opposite of their intention and strengthened Hamas. Who said this – Military analysts in Israel. Thus your claim is silly that Israel can’t back down – they reported that Israel already is looking to because it can’t win without finding and killing almost every Hamas member and it can’t do that.

Israel is going to win and lose part of this war and the problem is how much thye end up strengthening what they said they would destroy. One analysts said that in the not too distant future Israel will end up going back in.

Thus anyone with a bit of sense can see the cycle here and the only way out is the way that no one is taking that of negotiations and land for peace. Neither side can have all the land and they need to learn to share and they have to share.

All this stems to a lack of leadership because both sides think they can’t sell this to their population which is itself a false argument because they don’t want to try because they are scared of the radicals and as you said the hotheads shouldn’t win but they are.

You can carry on having a go at me but everyone here knows I am right and the only way forward is land for peace.

Me? A fake?

No Sir.

You said:

no douglas, you are a fake.

its an unifying tendancy that i see around me. A support based value that has small effects on the lives over there.

Ummah exists, its just rather crap. Your analysis of the world, as whoever you think you are and coloured by your self righteous blinkers will be different from mine.

Radicalisation is non linear. recognising evil has that effect on people that incremental peace reaching (refresh?!?) cannot cope with it, normalising, justice blind bureaucratic fudge that it is.

Where to start?

“Your analysis of the world, as whoever you think you are and coloured by your self righteous blinkers will be different from mine.”

Well, that much is obvious. I don’t think I am anyone, much. I do not have the arrogance to claim to speak, as you claim to do, for an entire religion. Nor pretend that the Ummah is imminent.

Actually, I speak only for myself. The self righteous blinkers, sir, are yours, and yours alone.

It is you, that are assumptive, not I.

‘Radicalisation is non linear. recognising evil has that effect on people that incremental peace reaching (refresh?!?) cannot cope with it, normalising, justice blind bureaucratic fudge that it is.’

Perhaps that means something inside your head, but when it is written out in English it just looks like utter crap.

fug. I’d suggest you back off, right now! Otherwise I will engage second gear.

The ridiculous idea that it’s just Muslims that are effected:

“Gaza crisis is having ‘profoundly unhealthy’ effect on UK Muslims, minister warns”

Look, it is having a profoundly unhealthy effect on me. And I’m an atheist.

Of course, the same was true of the US/UK invasion of Afghanistan – civilian casualties quickly surpassed 9/11. But only superpowers can get away with that kind of thing, and the UK on its own isn’t a superpower.

Look.

I am an idiot so I am.

However:

long concluded that there is no way forward but for Israel to be a part of its neighbourhood, and not a transplant that is in constant need of anti-rejection drug therapy.

Where’s the arguement?

Or this:

Huntington declared that the West had “won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”.

Alternatively, he could be up his arse?

What with it’s ridiculous ideas about equality, and stuff like that?

So, non Westernerns are wrong? Well, yes they are, when they preclude their women, when they think men exclusively matter. This is the arguement. This is what it’s all about.

I long concluded that there is no way forward but for Israel to be a part of its neighbourhood, and not a transplant that is in constant need of anti-rejection drug therapy.

The argument constantly used by Israel is that it is not really middle eastern, as it is exclusively democratic and has the same values as the west – and really it is european. And that it is defending the values of the west (and some go as far as to say that it defends those values that the west seems unable to defend at home – I think that would be Melanie Philips’ argument).

Here is what Samuel Huntingdon is quoted as saying:

‘ Huntington declared that the West had “won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do”. ‘

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-samuel-huntington-political-scientist-who-wrote-the-clash-of-civilisations-1221038.html

Those that follow the Huntingdon argument and continue to use its logic for expansion have to be utterly defeated.

Israeli propaganda is targetted at the wrong people, it is invariably aimed at us here in the West; and it constantly looks to show us how different they are to everybody else around them. This is of no use, the world is not blind nor stupid. The propaganda or PR, if you will, has to be aimed at the middle east to say and show that Israel does have a positive role to play alongside everyone else around them.

Only then can Israel itself start to feel it has a stake in the region; and the Palestinians can start to think about the future.

Another key point, I don’t believe Israel is under threat of being expunged. I think its the Palestinians who are the ones at risk.

The task of course is for the reader to successfully unzip your comments. And I am afraid on this rare occasion I have failed (I think). Can you tell me what you meant by

‘Radicalisation is non linear. recognising evil has that effect on people that incremental peace reaching (refresh?!?) cannot cope with it, normalising, justice blind bureaucratic fudge that it is.’

Look mate, I used to think you were just a bit off the wall.

Sometimes, you spoke enormous sense, but, lately, I just worry about you.

Seriously, are you OK?

Douglas, I do get it. And I want it stopped.

So do I.

What I have tried to argue is what, I like to think, is what you and I both stand for.

Hear me out.

Firstly, there is much wrong on both sides. And neither side will admit it.

It is, frankly ridiculous that, out of guilt, the victors in WW2, colonialists, the lot of them, should agree that Israel should be an exclusively Jewish state. Did you get that? Exclusively, it is what was offered, or taken, and it is what is wrong with that part of the world, right now. Nor, from our 21st C perspective, was it legitimate. It was lines drawn on maps, and games played in Paris and London. How much of the worlds’ problems are based on those cartographers?

Secondly,

But, and there is an enormous but, what about the need to establish a Jewish State? I am going to have the whole of Harry’s Place fall down on me, but that is a racist concept. It is no better than a white South Africa. With the joyful exclusion principles that Idi Amin followed. Asian? Fuck Off! Muslim? Fuck Off! The idea of exclusivity is wrong, and always will be.

Whether it is Idi Amin or the Israeli State.

Lastly,

All of this has to be forgotten. If there is to be a compromise, one that isn’t imposed by the stronger on the weaker, then all that shit has to be put to bed, and abandoned.