Dear Yuyutsu,

I don't agree with the voucher plan. We differ on that although we agree on other things.

I suspect that one reason for private schools is not for education at all but to lessen the chance of intermarriage by limiting contact of children with other backgrounds.

Dear Prompete,

What is relevant to the conversation is the fact that after Arafat made that concession the language from the Israelis changed. They then started insisting that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a 'Jewish' state, a demand that was never made prior to this. Israel is perpetually taking one step back from a negotiated settlement and unless we get a willing US they will continue to do so. The game now is illegal settlements.

You wrote; “And still the rockets fly”.

I'm sure you would have been one of those defending Operation Cast Lead because 'Israel needed to defend itself against the thousands of rockets being fired from Gaza'.

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.”

A year before Cast Lead.

The expected lethal radius for a 155mm high explosive projectile, such as the artillery the IDF used on 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.

Gaza has a population density nearly three times that of suburban Melbourne.

Here is a report about recent rocket attacks this week from Gaza.

Part of it reads;

“Over the three-day period, armed groups pounded Israel with more than 100 rockets -- more than 70 of which were fired on Wednesday alone, leaving two Thai workers severely injured.”

It is only later in the piece that the following is reported;

“The agreement was aimed at ending an eruption of bloodshed which began on Monday morning when two militants were killed in twin air strikes on north Gaza which were launched as armed groups fired at Israeli troops who had crossed the border.”

Do the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have the right to defend themselves from armed Israeli incursions?

Perhaps the Palestinians are not quite the full human in the eyes of some, just like the Aboriginal peoples were only ancient humans destined to die out, thus justifying the killing of Aboriginal peoples with vastly superior weapons for revenge, convenience, and sport (after Inga Clendinnen) by our invading forbears.

Dear Chek,

Perhaps it is just two peoples claiming the same piece of land. When that happens it is sensible for the two peoples to share the land in peace, but people do not always do the sensible thing.

Scribbler,

Your response is merely a very, very long and winded exercise in semantics ... (predicated on “tiramisu”?). You haven't addressed one point made.

Yes, I too have had issue with Wikipedia. On querying, was in informed that as it is an open source anyone can contribute. One always has to do further research. If you have problems with the articles, I would suggest you do this, then respond. Or, at least read the citations in context ...then respond.

Incidentally, how do you account for the fact that 20% of Israelis are Arab?

The majority of Israeli Jews are descended from the 800,000 Jews violently expelled from Arab lands.

A leading question is that if Israel is such a dire place for Palestinians, why do any want to stay, ... or indeed go there …? Most people think with their feet; look at our migrants.

Indeed, during the Palestinian civil war – which no one bothers to mention – 100,000s fled or tried to flee the Palestinian territories.

Csteele,

I suggest you check how many rocket attacks Hamas have levelled at Israel just in the past year. The reason deaths don't result is that the Israelis have had to build bomb shelters. You don't mention the rockets that fall short and kill Gazans … Every issue is happily so simplistic to you.

Did you propose to your wife "Me man ... you woman"? :-)

It is also rather significant that Israelis are no longer in Gaza, so what is their problem?

Incidentally, regarding the number of virgins, it was explained to me that '72' used this way in Arabic is not a specific number ...it means 100s of 100s, or countless numbers.

I am not returning to this topic as the responses are samo samo ... it becomes so deadly dull and predictable.

david f

Of course it makes sense to work out a peaceful solution. so far as I can see, the Israelis have the most advanced guns and warplanes that money and political subterfuge can deliver, and the Palestinians make do with home-make rockets - their only means to show their defiance to the continuing Israeli oppression of their daily lives, their sense as a people, their loss of hope for their future generations.

To share a land would mean to trust one another. The Aboriginal peoples could not have trusted the British invaders. The brutality of the immense gulf between the punitive powers exercised by the two sides would have put paid to that. It cannot be easy for the Palestinians after 60 years of systematic oppression, by a vastly superior war machine that is never backwards in inflicting inordinate responses.

Our dark past was a century and more ago. I just hope that the world communities could one day somehow succeed in encouraging the Israelis to see that military oppression cannot last forever, and that prevailing at all cost is reminiscent of the mentality of the Third Reich.