Dear Montgomery,

Thank you for your considered reply.

“a) He was a conscript carrying out orders, who may have genuinely believed whatever story his superiors gave him about the identity of the two Palestinians; :

So do we afford the Palestinian team who were sent to capture an Israeli soldier in response to the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers the same justification? Please note that while Gilad was indeed a conscript he “Despite a low medical profile, he preferred to serve in a combat unit,”(Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website).Can I say leaving everything else aside just for one moment the raid through enemy lines to take on Gilad's tank armed with an RPG was a pretty gutsy effort. I am also impressed with how Gilad has borne his ordeal. Not sure I would have the 'right stuff' myself.

“b) One illegal act does not justify another;”

No but in tit for tat the instigator usually shoulders most of the blame.

“c) Even if fully culpable, he would be guilty of kidnap, whereas many of the prisoners are guilty of multiple counts of murder;”

I note you think they are all terrorists. We need to remember that Palestinians in the occupied territories are generally tried under Israeli Military law while settlers are tried under civil law. I would be a lot more supportive of your position if all the Palestinians had been tried in open court with access to proper legal representation. They weren't and we shouldn't forget those being held without trial.

“d) He is one man, but he was exchanged for 1027.”

Or to put it another way the Palestinian's returned 100% of the Israeli prisoners they held in exchange for less than 10% of their own held by the Israelis.

I do know of one terrorist who was convicted in an open court of planting a huge bomb packed with shrapnel outside a school. It was luckily foiled by the Israeli authorities yet he has been granted what are essentially conjugal visits to his home. Fair?

Lexi, this is a reasonable explanation and includes a list of the prominent prisoners and what they did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Shalit_prisoner_exchange

csteele, please don’t be so disingenuous. The military vs civilian court point is a red herring. It wouldn’t make any difference to their guilt. And the Palestinians can’t have it both ways. They say they’re fighting a legitimate war against Israel, but then want a civilian court when their fighters are captured after they’ve committed terrorist attacks (or war crimes if you prefer). They wouldn’t have recognised the court whether it was civilian or military. It’s Israel they don’t recognise.

Are you seriously suggesting that these people are innocent? What of Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi who was photographed holding up his blood-stained hands to a crowd after beating an Israeli soldier to death? Are you claiming he’s innocent? What of Ahlam Tamimi who has said she has no remorse? What of the 15 civilians sitting in a restaurant she helped kill? Look up each person on that list of 477 Palestinians and think about their crimes. Perhaps then your sympathy for them will dissipate and you will feel the “tragedy” of the murder victims. One man who had murdered no one was exchanged for 1027 who had murdered hundreds. Whatever the flaws of Israeli justice, I have no doubt that those prisoners were terrorists or criminals or both.

As for your other points, Hamas is a recognised terrorist organisation, not a legitimate army. And if we’re going to talk about instigators, then perhaps we should look at who was firing missiles at Israel. This is what the Palestinians chose to do after the IDF pulled out of Gaza, and this put Israel in a position of having to protect itself. The Muamar case may have been the foiling of a terrorist plot or merely a pre-emptive strike, but either way Israel was under attack.

Why are you defending people who openly advocate the destruction of Israel? Even if you condemn things like suicide bombings, the people you are defending don’t. When you support them, you support terrorism.

Dear Montgomery,

Sorry my last paragraph was a tad silly, please disregard.

I do need to correct one thing you said. “ It’s clear that the obstacle to a genuine peace process is the Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist “.

Arafat, as the leader of the Palestinian people formally recognised Israel as a state back in 1993. Note how the language changed after that. The Israeli government now insist the Palestinians formally recognise Israel as a 'Jewish' state, something that had never been raised before Arafat's concession.

Why would any self-respecting Palestinian leader disregard the fact that Palestinians make up 20% of Israel's population? He would be entrenching their weakened status within Israeli society even further. Why would the Israeli government insist on it? Because they do not want peace, or rather they want to appease settlers who want more land.

You say “perhaps we should look at who was firing missiles at Israel”

From Wikipedia “Between 2005 and 2007, Palestinian groups in Gaza fired about 2,700 locally made Qassam rockets into Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and injuring 75 others. During the same period, Israel fired more than 14,600 155 mm artillery shells into the Gaza Strip, killing 59 Palestinians and injuring 270.”

The expected lethal radius for a 155mm high explosive projectile, such as the artillery the IDF used in Gaza City, is reportedly between 50 and 150 meters and the expected casualty radius is between 100 and 300 meters. The majority of the rockets fired from Gaza were a less than a fifth of that. This was not a one way battle.

You have some quite entrenched views on the issue, similar I will admit to those held by myself until about ten years ago. Mine morphed slowly until operation Cast Lead, now I find it difficult to hold one side in any higher esteem than the other. I still question why it took me so long.

Dear Lexi,

Good question.

Montgomery to hold and express different views in a Liberal Democracy is not abusive. It is abusive to try to suppress discussion.

It is the authors fault to deliberately pretend there is no divergence in the religions of Christianity and Judaeism. It is the authors fault to deliberately pretend the Laws of Israel are equalivant to the Laws of Western Liberal Democracys. It is the authors fault to deliberately try to equal the values of Western Liberal Democracys' with those of a land stealing, militarist, repressive and apartheid regime.

It is obscene to deliberately say the Western Liberal Democracys are shameful because they won't abandon the very basic tenets of their society to stand in solidarity with those who debase and despire those very tenets.

It is stupid to expect Australians to swallow the naieve 19th Century American construct of Judaeo-Christianity.

We understand the traditions of Christanity started with the life of the Son of God. We understand Judaeism places Christ as merely another prophet while continuing to await the Messiah.

Resentment will arise because of the fakery involved in the arguments presented in support of the alternative which is deliberately designed to force the naieve construct into the Australian christian and liberal democratic narrative.

Slimy is the best Australian description of this effort.

Well, there wouldn’t be much point in Israel existing as an Arab state, would there?! Israel was created so that Jews would have a homeland. But once again you are being disingenuous, csteele, because if you cast your mind back to those times you will recall that Arafat was popular with just about everyone except his own people. He failed to convince them that it was right to recognise Israel, which is why the Palestinians have consistently called for its destruction and refuse to recognise its RIGHT TO EXIST. ‘Senior members of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah have announced that their group will never recognize Israel, and will continue to call for war against Israel. “Fatah does not recognize Israel's right to exist”…’ (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132544#.TqZ1rXKESCg) Likewise, Hamas says its “committed” to Israel’s destruction. There is nothing to correct in what I said. I stand by my point.

Why would the Israeli government insist on recognition as a Jewish state? Perhaps because there’s nowhere else in the Middle East that Jews can safely live?! I think it’s pretty obvious that for Israel to fulfil its purpose it must be Jewish, even if it does accommodate non-Jews.

And don’t pretend to hold them in equal esteem. If you did, you wouldn’t equate 1027 criminals with one soldier. One doesn’t need to be a supporter of Israel to see that the Shalit deal is obscenely lopsided.

As for the rockets, their use is what matters. The Palestinians fire them from civilian areas, deliberately exposing their own people to the justified Israeli retaliation, even killing a child when their own people protested at the use of these rockets in civilian areas. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/international/middleeast/23CND-MIDE.html?hp This is the sort of betrayal I’m talking about, the sort of selfish hatred and lack of concern for their own people that makes the Israelis’ concerted efforts to save just one man so admirable in comparison.

I’m not sure you deserve a response, imajulianutter, but you do seem to have a bee in your bonnet, and quite unnecessarily so.

Firstly, the author has not said the things you claim she has. She has never said there is no divergence in the religions of Judaism and Christianity, and she hasn’t asked anyone to abandon their tenets – she’s asked people to embrace their belief in the sanctity of human life. She replied to you at length on Monday and I’m not going to rehash.

At one point you asked “How can you have solidarity with those who absolutely reject the basis of your own religious beliefs?” and I think this demonstrates why you’re having so much difficulty grasping this. The simple answer is that one can have solidarity with all sorts of people. I have friends who are atheists, who totally reject the basis for my worldview, but I can have solidarity with them because they respect human life and abhor people who indiscriminately take life, such as terrorists. The solidarity mentioned by the author is the respect for human life, and she is right that it is shameful if we do not uphold our tradition and condemn terrorists for what they are.

Someone who blows up a restaurant full of diners is not a freedom fighter, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for having so little Christian compassion that you won’t speak up for the murder victims of the 1027 Palestinians freed in the deal just because they don’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God, not that the Palestinians do either. You imply you are a Christian, but you are a disgrace to Christianity. What sort of Christian takes the part of people who have openly admitted to killing civilians without speaking a single word in defence of those who were brutally murdered?! What sort of Christian repeatedly attacks a fellow Christian for writing that we should unite in our respect for human life and “demand that the Palestinians prove they are genuinely committed to peace” by ending their terrorist campaign?