Cont'

While I understand the preparedness to suspend recognition of what is so innately right and wrong by the players in the conflict I am becoming increasingly resentful the Australia has been pressured to do the same. We have been asking that the Palestinians find a diplomatic rather than an armed solution yet when they attempt to do so by the simple act of asking to join UNESCO we vote with a few other nations to deny them.

I am proud of Australia's history of taking a decidedly principled stand on issues before the UN. Indeed the DFAT website argues “that Australia may be the first nation state to have personnel on the ground in any modern peacekeeping operation”.

Australia is one of the few countries to have made a continuous contribution to United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) established in 1948 to monitor truces between Israel and its neighbours.

Australia has taken many other quite principled stances on UN issues and it has been part of our view of ourselves as a fair nation. How quickly is our current Prime minister pissing this up against the wall in the name of expediency.

She devalues our history, our standing, our morality and our sense of what it means to be Australian. It serves also to dramatically impact our ability to ever play the 'even handed broker' assisting the Palestinians, Israelis and the Americans to find a resolution. If our ties to the US were to have meant anything constructive then this was one area we could have played a tempering role.

A poisoned chalice regrettably too tempting for Julia.

David Singer,

"I do not intend to respond to anything that does not bear on my article."

You must have heard the story about the lamb and and the wolf:

The wolf told the lamb: "I will eat you because you muddy my water".
The lamb answered: "How can it be? you live upstream and I live downstream, so the waters of the river pass first by you, only then by me".
The wolf said: "never mind all this talking - I will eat you anyway!".

Such is the overwhelming [dis]regard for your pet, the international law, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Israel (and it goes both ways).

When Jews want to expel the Arabs they use the bible as pretext, but when the Arabs and Iranians want to destroy Israel (not just mildly "object to its formation", Imajulianutter - destroy it, killing every man woman and child), they would invent any pretext, such as "Israel is an imperialist branch of the west andthreatens to the U.S.A", or "Israel's liberal democracy can tempt our daughters to go on the loose".

- The truth of course, is that those people would never allow anyone different to live peacefully amongst them, not even Muslims of a different sect (and on Israel's side, reform Jews), how much more so "western liberal democrats".

But you, David, continue to babble about legalities and explain in full detail why it is illegal for more than 3 angels to simultaneously sit on the same needle's tip because that would breach the needle's license, as if anyone cares - meanwhile 3000 new angels already sit on the needle without asking for your legal advice.

If you care about Israel, come down from your ivory tower and defend it with real, practical and moral arguments - we are sick and tired of this legalistic onanism. Legalities never helped Israel anyway. In fact, the only thing that ever saved Israel from extinction is its superior army and weapons.

To Yuyutsu

Ignore the law at your peril.

The PLO application to join the UN did not comply with article 4(1) of the UN Charter as you yourself acknowledged.

That is the issue I addressed in my article in explaining why it failed.

The time and place for "real, practical and moral arguments" is at the negotiating table to which the Palestinian Arabs refuse to return. That is their prerogative but it is not serving their interests