Jay of Melbourne, I’m not sure what you want me to explain given that I’ve never said anything publicly about the Hazara people or Hezbollah. However, for the record, I am very sympathetic to refugees in general. BUT, if they engage in terrorism, my sympathy evaporates rather quickly, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or political views. I think that’s something you’re struggling to grasp – I don’t have a problem with someone being a Palestinian, but I do have a problem with anyone who commits or supports terrorism.

Rhys, you’re not very consistent. You say Palestinians commit acts of violence because of the ‘occupation’. “No occupation, no violence” and that they have a “moral right”. But then you say “I strongly oppose all acts of violence against civilians”. How do you reconcile the two?

Montgomery,
Support for "Refugees" implies support for all refugees, I'm digging here, bear with me until Ms Gora replies.
Hazara "refugees" have around a 70% rejection rate of their asylum claims, that in itself is interesting.
If refugee advocates can only talk about their interests in general terms then that implies a "moderate" stance, the job of a moderate is to compromise, to sell out in other words.
Ian Rintoul isn't backwards in coming forwards to advocate on behalf of specific groups and he's been vocal on the plight of the Hazara, Rintoul is no moderate, most people view him as an extremist and love or hate him he gets his job done, I can't see him ever compromising and that's a respectable quality in my view.
As for one being a political group and the other an ethnicity the line is a lot blurrier than you think, Hazara are politically organised and Nationalistic.
Before the 1980's Shia Lebanese occupied much the same social position as Afghan Hazara so let's agree to disagree and call both groups a "caste" rather than ethnic or political groups.
You say you don't judge people by ethnicity...or whatever, the PC/Anti Racist "get out of jail" card at the end of a controversial post.
I'd say that you most definitely do, looking at your statement logically anti Racists have to judge people by their race, anti Racism is all about defining people by their race.

Mishka states "Rhys, you’re not very consistent. You say Palestinians commit acts of violence because of the ‘occupation’. “No occupation, no violence” and that they have a “moral right”. But then you say “I strongly oppose all acts of violence against civilians”. How do you reconcile the two?"

There is nothing inconsistent. I oppose all attacks on civilians, both those carried out by Palestianians and those carried out by Israel.
However, attacks on military targets such as the capturing of Gilad Shalit are totally justifiable.

Mishka,
Thank you for replying to my post.
I think the problem here is that objective analysis doesn't suit this medium since articles that appear neutral are taken apart by "specialists".
In the real world nobody can get way with "I'm supportive of everyone except the bad people", one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
I think neutrality is a first world luxury for one thing but I also acknowledge the likely sizeable chunk of the community who'd eat up your style of writing.
There's obviously a market for it, Cara Munro is another commentator who loves everyone except "bad people" and she's been awarded for her writing.

Jay, one man’s freedom fighter is not another man’s terrorist, at least not for me. There are causes which I would like to see succeed, but I don’t believe the end justifies the means. I always condemn terrorism, even if it’s by people whose cause I’d like to succeed, because I can differentiate between a cause’s goals and the means to achieving those goals. I am quite capable of seeing that while a goal may be noble, the means employed to achieve that goal may not. I think terrorism undermines causes. It stops people like me from sympathising with or supporting groups like the IRA and ETA, even when they don’t kill civilians. Just because someone’s a soldier doesn’t make them fair game, and there are rules of war, jus ad bellum and jus in bello. A woman in civilian clothing who blows up herself and a group of soldiers is not a freedom fighter, she’s a terrorist. Criminality is about actions, not identity. I condemn the 1027 Palestinians because they are convicted terrorists, not because they’re Palestinian. To give another example, the British Army was sent into Northern Ireland largely to protect Catholics from Protestant attacks, but the IRA’s decision to target these “military targets” simply because they symbolised British rule was not only ungrateful but highly immoral. (It was a great media success for them, though, as it made them look like they were fighting against the military ‘occupiers’ when they were in reality destroying any potential peace.) So, no, terrorists are never freedom fighters, not in my book! That said, that doesn’t make me neutral, and I think my article made it pretty clear that I believe in taking sides. There are valid paths to achieving political goals, and the Palestinian violence against Israel is not only unjustifiable but also wholly irrational. Montgomery has made some good points on this topic – even Arab leaders admit that they have used the Palestinian people as pawns. The only reasonable basis for negotiations is mutual recognition of both states (which Israel has agreed to) and an end to terrorism.

Rhys, this Arab Israeli can see that Gilad Shalit wasn't a "legitimate" target. Why can't you?!

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4136902,00.html