"The political lexicon of radical Islam does not recognise the concepts of compromise, comity or conciliation."

So, we must strike it from our lexicon, too?

Mr Lapkin has not adequately explain how we're supposed to win a war for enlightened, civilised society by abandoning everything which makes us enlightened and civilised.

And this "Gitmo is a deterrent" nonsense is for domestic audiences only. No extremist who knows his jihad from his elbow has any illusions about the brutal fate awaiting him if captured. Gitmo is great for distracting the media but, as we have learned, the US has for years been running a booming business in "extraordinary rendition". Or kidnapping and torture, as it used to be known.

Muslim extremism needs to be addressed, but this piece does absolutely nothing to move us toward a solution.

"It is a simple truth of human nature that those who reward anti-social behaviour will end up getting more of it. The feebler the penalty paid for past atrocities, the flimsier the deterrent against future acts of barbarity."

Guantanamo bay has nothing to do with the jihadists. What a tool. And this cuts both ways. I can hear the cry, "Don't allow Muslims into this country, the jihadists will rejoice!"

Don't reward the USA for not signing the Rights of The Child, ignoring the Non Proliferation Treaty by supporting India, asking other countries to torture people for them etc..the list is endless.

Tell me this Mr. Lapkin, how does detaining people for years, without trial, in atrocious conditions, help to promote a belief in justice, in the rule of law. How does it support our claims that "we" have superior values to "them". How does it encourage moderate Islam to continue a moderate path. How does it discourage extremists from becoming more extreme?

If people have committed crimes, bring them to justice, give them a trial, sentence them. Anything else is going back to the dark ages, when people were punished based on gossip and hearsay. That, Mr. L, is what you are condoning.

David Hicks is now reputed to be the most dangerous man in Guantanamo Bay and the only token westerner.

The second most dangerous was somebody's chauffer.

Another 10 people were picked up in Pakistan simply for wearing Casio digital watches (suspected to the type used as bomb timers.)

Despite all the rhetoric it is becoming more and more apparent that most of these people were not picked up "on the battlefield" but were sold to the West by bounty hunters - a very profitable industry.
I think the US is in this mess too deep now to back out with any dignity or credibility.
Holding and torturing people without charge makes the US no different to those they are fighting and only serves as a rallying point for the "jihadists" they hope to defeat.

I find myself in agreement with the article. Terrorists declared war on the USA by committing war like acts. So these terrorists are prisoners of war and could be held in detention until the terrorist war is over, including Hicks.
Listen to the bleeding hearts who have, as the norm, no real knowledge of the deceitful lying islam and release these gutless murderers and they will see it as a victory and immediately go back to terrorism. Thus many more innocent men, women and children - including babies will be cold bloodedly slaughtered in the name of a pagan god, allah. numbat

Well said, Ted Lapkin, and another black mark against the United Nations for its suggestion.

Ted is right, camp Delta is a good idea.

It is such a good idea that it is really a pity that the British didn't think of it in 1945 - 1946 and establish an extra-territorial prison on Cyprus, outside the scope of British law, to hold for as long as possible, as many members of the Stern gang, the Irgun and Hannagah, and their supporters, by whatever definition you want to call them 'supporters'.

These people should have been held, as the detainees at Camp Delta are held, without charge and eventually tried by a standard defined by the same British Army that had two sargents hanged by Zionists in an orchard with booby traps set to kill those who cut them down.

And just when we were having a reasoned and adult discussion.....

If anything the continued existence of Guantanamo bay provides excellent propaganda for the jihadists, as we saw with the Koran incidents last year. Would some groups use its closure as propaganda? probably, but are the people arguing this point prepared to maintain what is surely a black spot on the legal and moral principals of western democracy to minimise is 'propaganda value' to the jihadists?

wouldnt that mean that it is the jihadists who are establishing the 'rules of engaement'? i wonder what sun tzu would have said about fighting a war on your enemies terms?

As has already been pointed out the value of gitmo as deterrence is highly questionable, as is the actual value of the facility itself. There may be some terrorists in there but then why the lack of convictions? Where are the captures of high level terrorists as a result of information? Perhaps the value of gitmo is not in its effectiveness as a prison, deterrent or intelligence gathering exercise but as a propaganda tool at home. gotta love seeing all those a-rabs in those funny orange suits, it’s a real hoot.

So we allow the continued use of torture and rendition courts so we don’t provide the other side with further ammunition about the use of torture and rendition? An extraordinary exercise in bad logic.

And if there are people in the us administration who think like lapkin, as it would seem there are, no wonder the whole exercise in the Middle East is turning into a cockup of mind-blowing proportions.

It seems to be better for a hundred innocent people to suffer than to let one guilty person go free.

For an example of what some of these evildoers have been charged with go here - http://www.reprieve.org.uk/casework.htm#guantanamo

We don't have to go and fight Iraq any more - we are becoming Iraq ourselves.

You attracted the right wing wackos like flies to rotting meat Ted. I'm not a Jihadist but one person who finds the existence of the Guantanamo torture camp abhorrent and anathema to a civilised society. The inmates should be charged,dealt with by a civilised judicial tribunal of international jurists and the infamous place closed permanently.

There is no choice in the matter.

To protect us, we have little choice. I dont want david hicks back in Australia if he ends up a sleeper cell. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the greatest good for the greatest number should prevail.

You hang around dogs you get fleas, and unfortunately innocent or not if these people made the choice to associate with terrorists, they are indeed advocating them, and implicating themselves.

Get off the humanitarian band wagon, these people have been ill treated, some should be released, but at least they were not allowed in whilst they had their heads full of propoganda and Jihadist thought, and at least they will be too scared and paranoid to embark on what they could of if they flew under the radar.

Yet another transparent exercise by one of the Israel lobby's leading lights to muddy the waters by attempting to con us into believing that Palestinian resistance (including the immoral and futile tactic of suicide bombing directed at Israeli civilians) to Israeli occupation is one and the same as the global jihad of Al-Qaida. The aim: to distract us from Israel's dirty war in the Occupied Palestinian Territories so that "a movement that violates every tenet of international law", political Zionism, can get on with the business of liberating the Palestinians from the last remnants of land remaining to them.

Ted Lapkin is to be congratulated for his forthright and insightful points that make his argument for dispassioned and objective readers, unassailable. Both in respect of how to defeat the Jihadists, i.e., by the use of overwhelming military force and the employment of harsh measures in their detention, and in respect of the out-of-depth UN's position toward Gitmo, and its irremediable political, moral, and cognitive feebleness.

Regrettably, the critics of Lapkin in this stream do not understand that what most innfuences the Jihadists is not the benign actions of the US or of the West in general, but the actions of the latter that issue from weakness, as both the withdrawals from Beirut and Somalia so clearly had shown.

Go to my site for more: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

Stewth--good to see you see out of both eyes,
I suggest" Realist' take a trip to Isreal go to Jerusalem pretend you are a Palestinian then go shopping in the next town, you wont be allowed back into Jerusalem thats what I call ethnic cleansing' all those who keep telling us Muslims are terrorists are insane , the situation is caused by the terrorism inflicted by Israel soldiers on Palesinian men women and children, to say you are against terrorism then promote Israel as the victim demonstrates your inability to tell the difference between right or wrong, maybe you have lost your sight in one eye, why do we allow Irael to stockpile illegal WMDs, whats good for the goose should be good for the gander, I hate to say it , but what goes around comes around, if the shoe fits you where it, there is one sure way to end this conflict in the Middle East get all those involved in murder, to ask God to come down to earth to back up their claims God said we must build a Temple on the land he gave us , I can guarantee God will not come down, why should God divide his creations, maybe some of those Israel supporters could take steps to prove they are not lying , so go on , ask God to bear witness to your actions, you cant do it , because we would have the proof needed to stop religious hatred, go on make my day, put up or shut up,-- mangotree

Ted,

Hamas came to power as a result of Israeli practices and corrupt Fatah leadership. When will you people accept your responsibility as an equal partner in peace & war in the Middle East?

Why can't Israelis sit with Palestinians and everyone agree how to fix his own side of the fence? Right now seems every one is so 'disgusted' with his neigbour's backyard which at least counter productive. The approach of 'blaming the other' had no fruits for the last 50 years

Ozone - here is no ‘solution’ to this conflict foisted upon us by the jihadists, except to win it. As US Supreme Court Justice (and Nuremburg war crimes tribunal prosecutor) Robert Jackson said, the constitution is not a suicide pact. Democracies are entitled to protect themselves against those who seek their destruction. And sometimes, in an emergency, less than liberal means are needed to defend liberty.

Steel – the US didn’t ‘ignore’ the non-proliferation treaty with regard to India because India is not a party to that treaty. If you are a such a stickler for international law, you should recognize the difference between Parties and non-Parties to international conventions.

AMSDAL – you fall victim to the common error of applying civilian standards of law to wartime situations. A completely different set of rules and laws apply on the battlefield. We don’t expect soldiers in combat to read the enemy their rights before shooting them. The Gitmo detainees were captured in an active combat theatre and thus the laws of war apply, not the laws of the civilian criminal justice system.

Wobbles – Hicks was indeed picked up on a battlefield. He returned to Afghanistan after 9/11, knowing full well that country was number one on the American hit list. He claims he went back in order to pick up his passport, but given his self-admitted record of volunteering for combat on behalf of two al-Qaida affilate groups, I don’t believe him.

Strewth – Thanks for your description of me as one of the “Israel lobby’s leading lights.” It’s nice to be recognized, even by the enemy. As for your attempt to draw a distinction between Hamas and al-Qaeda, I would suggest that you read the Hamas covenant and listen carefully to the words of its leaders. It is in overt alliance with al-Qaeda and Iran and it fully subscribes to the al-Qaeda vision of a global Caliphate. In fact, Hamas explicitly states that the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state upon the ruins of Israel is the first step towards the achievement of the global jihadist objective.

Hamlet- You are historically confused. The British detention camps in Cyprus held unarmed Holocaust-survivors who were arrested while trying to immigrate to the Land of Israel. Lehi (Stern Gang) terrorists were held in a camp in Eritrea until their release when the Brits left Mandatory Palestine in 1948. And these guys didn’t complain about their detention. They regarded themselves as POWs, even though they weren’t granted that status by the Brits. They did the ‘crime,’ and they didn’t complain about having to do the time. Two British sergeants were indeed hanged in 1947, in reprisal for the hanging of two captured Irgun fighters. The Brits were told that their sergeants would be released if they commuted the sentences of the Irgunniks to life imprisonment. The British government refused, the Irgunniks were hanged, as were the sergeants. (and by the way, I disapprove of the Irgun’s actions)

Mangotree1 – You describe Israeli security measures that were created to stop a suicide terrorism as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ I find it fascinating that you consider Palestinian inconvenience and property loss to be a greater affront to morality than Israeli civilian loss of life. The fact of the matter is that the checkpoints and security barrier work. In 2002 there were 39 suicide bombings. In 2005 there were only 3.

Moreover, if the Israelis are bent on genocide, they are pretty incompetent at it. Since Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Palestinian population has quadrupled, and living standards rose ten fold – until the two intifadas brought widespread impoverishment.

Fellowhuman1 – ah yes, the ‘let’s all sit down around the campfire and sing kumbaya’ approach. Sorry, but it’s been tried. You can no more negotiate with Hamas than you can with Osama bin Laden. Both al-Qaeda and Hamas trace their ideological roots to the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds that the entire Middle East should be ruled by Shariya law. That means second class ‘dhimmi’ status for all you Christian and Jewish males, and 17th class status for Christian and Jewish females.

Not my idea of a good time.

Ted, your views offend me. I do not trust you. In fact, I believe you may be a terrorist who wishes to do me harm. I will therefore lock you in a prison and deny you a fair trial. This will demonstrate that I am not weak and discourage others who might have the same beliefs as you. To assist in discouraging these others, I will parade you around in humiliating clothing and maybe give you a beating or two. This will cause others who share your views, or are sympathetic to them, to reconsider and abandon their violent actions.

Wont it?

Just joking, of course, but the idea that Guantanamo Bay acts as a deterrent is ridiculous. Do you really think that all the would be suicide bombers etc are sitting around going "Oh no, I am too scared, I might end up in Guantanomo Bay, maybe I will become a Christian instead"? More likely, the human rights abuses perpetrated there inflame the situation by giving some foundation to Muslim complaints of Western hypocrisy when it comes to human rights. Do you have any evidence that GB acts as a deterrent? I am also doubtful that the jihadists are really motivated by a belief that the West is weak. The evidence is all around them that commercially, militarily and economically it is anything but. Perhaps, behind the rhetoric they are in fact motivated by resentment that the West is so strong?

When you stuff up undoing what you have done gives ammunition to the enemy - fair call but that does not negate the need for the rule of law to apply in those countries fighting extremist Islam. Most of the public comment I have seen suggests that Camp Delta neither complies with criminal or war related laws and conventions.

I have no sympathy for Hicks if he was fighting on behalf of the Talliban but I do object when our own side thinks that it is OK to break our own rules.

Yes there is a risk if we allow these extremists to go free but a much greater risk when we hold people without trial and when we abandon our own values.

R0bert

Rather than Ted Lapkin's beliefs about what is happening in Iraq, I prefer to give credence to the reports of correspondents such as the SMH's Paul McGeough who is on the ground there, http://smh.com.au/news/world/the-boy-who-saw-too-much/2006/03/17/1142582522183.html

As for the terrorists locked up at Gitmo, too dangerous to democracy to ever be released, The New York Times (call it a neo-Marxist Leftist rag bent on destroying civilisation as we know it, if you want), wrote in its lead editorial on March 8:

QUOTE
THEY CAME FOR THE CHICKEN FARMER

This has been our nightmare since the Bush administration began stashing prisoners it did not want to account for in Guantánamo Bay: An ordinary man with a name something like a Taliban bigwig's is swept up in the dragnet and imprisoned without any hope of proving his innocence.

A case of mistaken identity's turning an innocent person into a prisoner-for-life was supposed to be impossible...

But it has long been evident that this was nonsense, and a lawsuit by The Associated Press has now demonstrated the truth in shameful detail. The suit compelled the release of records from hearings for some of the 760 or so men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay... Far too many show no signs of being a threat to American national security. Some, it appears, did nothing at all. And they have no way to get a fair hearing because Gitmo was created outside the law.

Take the case of Abdur Sayed Rahman... Mr. Rahman... was arrested in his Pakistani village in January 2002, flown to Afghanistan, accused of being the Taliban's deputy foreign minister and then thrown into a cell in Guantánamo Bay. "I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan," he said, adding that the Taliban official was named Abdur Zahid Rahman...
END QUOTE

Gitmo is certainly sending a message to Arab Street. But it is not the one that Lapkin thinks.

The NYTimes seems, rather, to think that the United States is doing this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

There is little point arguing with Ted Lappin, as he is one of God’s chosen people who are entitled to the same land in the Middle East that they claim David and Solomon’s empire covered 3000 years ago.

However, for the rest of us: can someone explain the difference between a Palestinian suicide bomber and Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994, killed 29 and injured 125 Palestinian civilians at the Cave of the Patriarchs?

And the value of the life of civilians was taught to the Palestinians by the ‘raid’ on the village of Qibya on 14 October 1953, where 69 civilians were murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing and revenge by an Israeli army unit under the command of that great pacifist Ariel Sharon. For all those who say that the massacre didn’t occur please remember that even the USA issued a statement of sympathy for the victims and a call for the perpetrators to be held to account.

There is only one country – I will repeat that – only ONE country that has increased its size or moved its borders outwards since 1945 as a result of aggression. That country is Israel. Even Jewish historian, Eric Hobsbawm, in his ‘Age of Extremes’ compares Israel’s military successes to Prussia’s wars of expansion in the mid 1800s.

I have no time for Palestinian terrorists either, but they were taught how to be terrorists by the Israelis.

Military historian and genius, Israeli Martin van Creveld was one of the first to propose a security wall for Israel, however he was initially decried and insulted, because to build such a wall is to delineate a border, which is something that Israeli politicians do not wish to do.

It should also be remembered that ‘the occupied territories’ prior to be occupied, and settled upon by Israeli settlers, was land that formed part of sovereign states, so not only have the Palestinians been displaced, but neighbouring states have been treated as Prussia treated Alsace and Lorraine between 1870 and 1918.

Both sides are guilty, but Israel started it.

Fellow Human believes that Hamas came to power as a result of Israeli practices and corrupt Fatah leadership.

The change will not affect Israeli practices, so it must be that Palestinians prefer terrorism to corruption. It’s seems extreme to vote in a terrorist organization to get rid of a corrupt one

I'm sure that Ted has noticed that not one of the people detained in "Gitmo" has been tried and found guilty of any crime. I'm sure he has also noticed that the American's closest ally in "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the British, had such serious doubts about the methods of internment and justice delivered at Guantanamo Bay, that they demanded the release of their citizens.

I'm sure Ted knew that the prisoners returned to Britian received a hearing under British law, and that more than half of them were released without charge, after 3 years behind the razor wire. He must also be aware that those who were not released are now recieving a fair trial under British law, where, if convicted, they will face harsh penalties.

Perhaps Ted was also aware of the fact that the US has disregarded it's obligations under the law, relating to the treatment of prisoners, and that many remain in Gitmo, still without charge, or being charged with offenses relating to confessions produced under duress or even torture.

But I'm certain Ted also believes in the Western ideal of "innocent until proven guilty"

Mr Lapkin,

What amuses me about Right-Wing crusaders like yourself is that you constantly bang on about the measures we need to take in order to protect our freedom - little realising that those measures that you're endorsing actually destroy our freedom a lot quicker than any bunch of angry terrorists could.

When we are finally living in the Orwellian society that your ilk seem to long for, will you still be there fighting for our freedom? Or do you think it's alright for governments to strip us of our freedom?

Do you honestly think that governments are risking their reputations with such corrupt, unethical practices in order to protect us? No. They're taking advantage of a situation that furthers their agenda; a situation sparked by an event that was every neo-conservative's dream - September 11th 2001. Yes it was just what they needed to frighten the public again, especially since no one was afraid of Soviets, Communists, black people, The Devil or an angry God anymore. After all, how else would we surrender our freedom so easily - a passive-aggressive approach - enslavement without military intervention. It's so perfect that many like yourself don't even see it happening. Instead, you're playing right into it.

Anyone who endorses methods that will eventually lead to a totalitarian society is as equally threatening to freedom and democracy as any terrorist is.

Well why stop at having a prison for people we suspect of terrorism (with no evidence produced or charges laid) and beating and humiliating the prisoners?

If strength is the only thing a terrorist respects, let's torture these suspects more. Call flashing your tits at them torture? Those soft lefty soldiers don't know what real torture is. Put bamboo under their nails! We have ways of making them talk. Find out what village/town/city they're from and bomb it! Surely if there is one terrorist from there, there is a network there?

Why risk even one innocent western life at the expense of those filthy, expendable Middle Eastern lives? (Why make factual claims when I can ask rhetorical questions?)

Actually, the U.S.A. has enough firepower to eliminate the whole Middle East, so I say go for it. Maybe then, the suicide bombers will learn to fear death, and will not be so extreme.

Of course, then we have to worry about reprisals from those unAustralian Australians hiding amongst us, so we might need to agree with American policy there too.

We can tap all the phones (we don't have to worry about a president ignoring the constitution and all its pesky "protections" that only encourage attack, we have a prime minister for that; actually, if the constitution is inconvenient or downright detrimental to Australian policy, why bother following it? I'd say, "let's all agree to disband the constitution", but that defeats the point; we want our government to not feel constrained by it whether or not we agree), give police the power to arrest, hell, shoot to kill, anyone they suspect of terrorism, or dissent (which only weakens us and encourages terrorism, and so is as bad as terrorism), and even have daily police inspections of our homes to ensure no one is hiding anything.

Remember, my right to not be killed by a terrorist is more important than the inconvenience of you having to show police through your home every now and then. Especially if your skin is a different colour, you woman hating, child eating, anti-beer guzzling, suicidally-psychotically-aggressive-yet-somehow-shady-and-hidden BASTARD!

Ted have to agree with your observations. The ancient Middle Eastern mind cannot submit to anything other than Allah and to fail is a matter of religious pride. Note their self indoctrination when undertaking conflict, "Allah is great". Victory is the only concept they will accept in the name of Allah. Peace Agreements or conciliation is not known in their vocabulary - such concepts are failures. Because in their mind Allah must rule supreme, no compromise.

It's an indication of the Lapkin/AIJAC mindset that I am deemed "the enemy". Perhaps I'd better pack my bags for Camp Lapkin. Now, in trying to tie the Palestinian Hamas to al-Qaida, Ted suggests I read the "Hamas covenant" (shouldn't that be 'Charter', Ted?) which, he states, is "in overt alliance with al-Q", "subscribes to the al-Q vision of a global Caliphate" and "explicitly states that the creation of a Palestinian Islamic state upon the ruins of Israel is the first step towards the the achievement of the global jihad objective." Which of the Charter's articles support your assertions, Ted, and considering that the Hamas Charter was drawn up in 1988, can you tell us when exactly al-Q and Hamas got together to jointly draft it? And could you also comment on claims that Israel, in the 80's, happily promoted the Islamic movement in the occupied Palestinian territories to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO?

Ted Lappin the spin you twist has no connection with the truth, I asked you a question to clear up all the crap, Why dont you and your mates get together call on God to come down to Earth to prove, tell all of humanity that commiting murder in Gods name is acceptable. we are being hoodwinked big time, I say we prove once and for all , Gods name is being used to commit the greatest crimes against humanity, maybe the God being worshiped is a antichrist disguised as the creator of the Universe,
God loves all human beings/ earthlings,humans created God Clubs, thats the bottom line, God will not appear as a witness to support evil.
Finally your lessons on Middle East history come from Zionist propaganda, before Palestine was annexed there were only 60.000 Jews living there, since then people/migrants who have no genetic link with that land have been migrating to Israel so now there are millions of Jews living there, and you might want to know Australia was the first Nation to approve the annexation of Palestine. by casting the first vote at the United Nations, all this greed and hatred is a result of people saying God gave them permission to take over the land of Palestine, so lets call their bluff, give God a chance to tell the truth, maybe he /she could appear on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, if God does not appear, we can all get back to loving our neigbours instead of killing them, what do you think Ted , I am sure you dont want God to have a say, to say God gave them permission. is a untruth that can be easily put to the test, mangotree

Ted,

"let’s all sit down around the campfire and sing kumbaya’ approach. Sorry, but it’s been tried"
Thats not the intent of my posting.
Israel never believed in having or supporting a Palestinian state. What was the meaning of the Israeli back to back concepts of 'land for peace' followed by 'land for settlers'?

Fatah was a corrupt organisation and the world expected Palestinians to vote in a free elections. The vote for Hamas was a vote of distrust in Israeli policies and lost faith in Fatah. You should accept who they chose and deal with it.

Its naive to ask a nation to vote then refuse to deal with the elections result if you don't like it. Who else were you expecting Palestinians to vote for?
I find it interesting that you believe that all things happening in the Middle east have nothing to do with your actions and/ or foreign policies!

Didn't the pull out of Gazza give Israelis new friends in the Arab world?

Gitmo is an example of the Orwellianisation of our society.

If a person is found guilty of a terrorist crime, then they must be imprisoned, not as terrorists but as a criminal. Being detained under these proposed laws will be a badge of honour amongst these fanatics. These laws, so easily by-passed by organised and determined terrorists are useless. They serve only as a tool to remove our civil rights.

It is unbelievable that Western Democracies just sit by and let governments take away the legal right of "habeas corpus ad subjiciendum" - the right of a prisoner to have the lawfulness of their detention determined by a Court.

Habeas Corpus is fundamental to our democratic and legal freedom. Without it we live in a police state. It may be Terrorists today, but tomorrow it may be Jews, Gypsies, the Homeless, or the political opponents of Western Governments.

This brings us to similar laws being introduced by the State juristictions in Australia.

The Federal Government has a legal duty to defend all States and Territories (Australian Constitution Section 119) against terrorism.

So why doesn't the Federal Government enact these terroism laws themself? Because they would need to change the Constitution removing Section 80 which guarantees "habeas corpus" and the right to trial by jury. If confronted with a Referendum would you say "Yes, I don't want Trial by Jury, Yes, I don't want the Rule of Law"? I think not.

This is not an issue about Terrorism, but of the rule of law in a democratic country. If we change our fundamental freedoms, then the terrorists, the Nazis, the Communists, all the bad guys in history have won, and the sacrifices of the past to defend our democratic principles will all have been in vain.

[A Society]"that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin - 1759.

I agree with Ted. What are the bleeding hearts making of the fact that most of the prisoners are more fearful of returning home than anything the americans might do? They declared war on the USA, now they're in a POW camp. You play with feathers, you get your arse tickled. I don't hear any outrage from them about the guy in afganhistan who converted to christanity and now faces the death penalty. I don't hear their outrage at Hamas childrens website that glorifies suicide attacks. I could go on all day about the hypocrisy of those who see islams' anger management issues the product of western civilization. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=99839 is a most interesting link, and shows just what this so called religion of peace is. The trouble with islam is that it's teachings are highly malleable, it only takes that imperceptable shift from 'is' to 'ought' to change moderates into jihadists. If one diagrees with that, then they need to explain why muslims fight amongst themselves over what the Koran says and wether to take it literally or at face value. Say christians were to take the Bible literally (some do) - my nieghbours would be duty bound to stone me to death because i work in a field wearing two different types of thread. You'll find that in the book of Lev, among other pearls of wisdom. Are we really going to say a barbaric bronze age text has any relevance in the modern world? A government that teaches it's children to become martyrs is obviously from an inferior culture and it is time we reconized that their evil is not a product of socio economic factors they had brought on themselves but the plainly bad values they have. By the way, why not ask an imam yourself http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=12128
Being muslim looks to be a tedious affair judging from the questions posed in this site.

Gitmo Guy said: Are we really going to say a barbaric bronze age text has any relevance in the modern world?

Are you talking about the Koran or the Old Testament? It would make sense for both.

Better to put both sides in a giant arena with nothing but their Holy Books and let them go at it. The hatred born in the Old Testament times continues today. Fighting for literally thousands of years over a pile of rocks called Jerusalem.

War in the name of God.. Pfft.. Well, I guess neither of the Holy Books claim their God is peaceful now, do they. Killing in the name of your God has always, in any culture, simply been a way to avoid the guilty feelings associated with murder. O, my God told me to do it.. I am pure, the other mob isn't, and I'm God's appointed janitor..

Spot-on EV.

When it all comes down to it, no matter how you dress it up, all this is fuss is just about whose imaginary friend is best.

Agnostics and athiests at least have the freedom NOT to hate anybody they don't choose to.

Gitmo Guy,
where is your outrage at the man found dead near Bondi this morning? I can only assume then that you condone murder?

Well, I am outraged at anyone being killed for converting to Christianity (or any religion), and I'm outraged that any web site would glorify suicide bombings, so there; you've got your outrage.

I'm also outraged that there are people, who in the face of some strong but immoral threat, believe the answer is to be stronger but to also not worry about morality.

To those people, I ask-

Who decides that a person is a threat?
Based on what evidence?
How should the evidence be used?
What is an acceptable process for dealing with those threats?
If imprisonment, what is acceptable treatment of a prisoner?
Does it depend on the threat of the prisoner? Circumstances of capture? Nationality? Religious belief?
When is it ok to abuse someone?
How open to scrutiny should any of these processes be?

If your answer to any of these questions is that it is ok for a government to decide on the issue and do as it pleases, then you have no place objecting to many of the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime.

If you don't want yourself, your family, or any other person to end up a political prisoner at the whim of a government, you must see that the answer to these questions is that all these processes remain open to independent judicial/political/police systems, open to public scrutiny and democratic approval (including world scrutiny and approval).

To hold these freedoms to ransom because it may promote violence to allow these freedoms is counter to the purpose of having democratic freedoms.

The point of freedom is that I can do whatever I want in my society but there will be consequences for my actions if they violate laws that are approved by the people. When a government preemptively restricts my freedoms (by arresting me, for example) to prevent me from acting, that is dictatorship.

Yes I am outraged at the death sentence hanging over the man who has converted to Christianity in Afghanistan. I have raised the matter in another forum that I contribute to, that is mainly inhabited by Americans, including veterans of Gulf Wars 1 and 2, and the fighting in Afghanistan. To a person they wonder why the USA bothered to bring democracy to a place like Afghanistan when one of the central tenets of democracy, that is freedom of religion, is missing. The general feeling is that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and some other Middle Eastern states all need to be 'de-fundamentalised'. This is something agree with, but I don't agree with the proposals to turn the Middle East into a radioactive lake of boiling glass.

So where do we place our outrage? Do we with-hold humanitarian help from those countries that have suffered natural catastrophes such as Pakistan and Indonesia because they are Islamic and Christianity is persecuted? Or do we, by our actions, our donations and our prayers show them that 'the evil west' is not that evil after all?

Or do we tell them that we will not send aid to them, or any other Islamic country, until ALL Islamic countries remove from their statute books laws against conversion?

All I know is this, we hold democracy and its principles, including the rule of law and respect for the individual and their rights to be worth going to war for, and if necessary dying for. How can we let our governments remove from some people the rights that we are trying to bring to others?

Mike – there undoubtedly were some people incarcerated in error at Gitmo, and several hundred have been released. But several score of these former detainees were subsequently killed and captured while fighting for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. So you see – it cuts both ways.

Hamlet – the difference between a Palestinian suicide bomber and Baruch Goldstein is that the former is embraced as a national hero and role model, while the latter was reviled and despised by the overwhelming majority of the Israeli population. If Goldstein hadn’t been killed during his terrorist attack in Hebron, then he certainly would have been sent to prison by Israel for life. Extremism is a phenomenon found in every culture – so the test is not whether a society has lunatics, but how it treats them. The Palestinians celebrate their fanatics, while the Israelis punish theirs. That’s the difference.

Chris – see my comments above about the fallacy of applying conventional criminal courtroom procedure to a situation that has arisen in wartime. Different standards of behaviour equal different legal standards.

Space Cadet – And what amuses me about leftwing internationalists such as yourself is your chicken little predictions of gloom and doom that fly in the face of historical precedent. During WWII, Australia enacted emergency regulations that were much more draconian than the USA Patriot Act or the ASIO legislation. Yet when the war ended and the emergency subsided, these wartime regulations were consigned to the dustbin of history. I guess I have more faith than you in the resilience of Australian democracy.

Wibbie – you erect a rather silly straw man argument that you then proceed to demolish with gusto and glee. As I pointed out in a previous piece in the Age 18-Jan-06), US federal law prohibits torture as defined by the UN Convention on the subject

Strewth – The Yale University Law School data base (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm) calls the founding Hamas document a covenant, not a charter. But given that we are dealing with a translation from the Arabic, let’s not quibble about semantic details, eh? I never argued that AQ coauthored the Covenant, but merely that it shares the same worldview as Hamas. Article Two of the Covenant declares that “Hamas is one of the wings of the Moslem Brotherhood”. Article Five declares that the movement’s “extent in place is anywhere there are Moslems who embrace Islam as their way of life everywhere in the globe.” Article 33 states: “the Islamic Resistance Movement consider itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road.” AQ also draws its ideological origins from Hassan al Banna and the Ikqwan (Moslem Brotherhood), as well as from the writings of Sayed Qutub. The bottom line is that there is a definite ideological common denominator between the two movements.

Wibbie – in essence, you are arguing that jihadist terrorism should be treated as a criminal justice issue rather than a national security problem. But I believe that the threat far transcends the conventional law enforcement paradigm and that we are at war. And as Napoleon said, a la guerre, comme a la guerre (in war, as in war). Bill Clinton viewed AQ through a law enforcement prism and as a result he passed up a perfect opportunity to nab bin Laden in 1996 (not enough admissible evidence to convict). How many lives would have been saved if the Prez dispatched a team of Navy SEALS to Somalia instead of consulting Justice Department lawyers? There are a couple of skyscrapers in Manhattan that might still be standing today if he had opted for the military option. As previously stated, democracy has the right to defend itself, and it will employ warlike measures to do so in the face of a warlike threat. Blowing up commuter trains, a la Madrid and London, and 9/11 pass my threshold for a declaration of war against me.

Thanks, Ted. So, Hamas and al-Q are not, repeat not, in "overt alliance", as you have claimed, they just, according to you, "share the same world view"? Article 2 of the Hamas Charter, states that "Hamas is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine [you left out those last 2 words on purpose now, didn't you, Ted?]", but what's that got to do with your claim that "it subscribes to the al-Q vision of a global Caliphate"? Article 5 says its "extent in space is wherever Muslims...are found, in any region on the face of the earth." (JPS version), but what's that got to do with "global caliphate(s)"? Article 33 has nothing to say about "an Islamic Palestinian state upon the ruins of Israel" (your first version) or "the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism" (your second version). Ted, are you sure you're on top of this subject? And what about my last question? When are you going to answer that? Or will the answering put you in too much of an uncomfortable stress position?

Ted Lappin wrote:

“Hamlet – the difference between a Palestinian suicide bomber and Baruch Goldstein is that the former is embraced as a national hero and role model, while the latter was reviled and despised by the overwhelming majority of the Israeli population. If Goldstein hadn’t been killed during his terrorist attack in Hebron, then he certainly would have been sent to prison by Israel for life. Extremism is a phenomenon found in every culture – so the test is not whether a society has lunatics, but how it treats them. The Palestinians celebrate their fanatics, while the Israelis punish theirs. That’s the difference.”

I have raised the issue of Goldstein in another forum, and was told by several Israeli contributors that Goldstein was a ‘sacrificial attacker’. This attitude wasn’t surprising as the contributors were members of the Israeli military.

However there are members of Israel society who celebrate what Goldstein did. May I suggest that you visit this BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/685792.stm

It could also be considered that Sharon is/was a fanatic, after all he lead Israel into the disastrous adventure into Lebanon; a fanatic working within the Israeli military, who was responsible for more Palestinian deaths than any Palestinian leader can be blamed for Israeli deaths.

Israel doesn’t celebrate its fanatics, it elects them instead.

By the way, you haven’t replied to my assertions of Israeli aggression. Whilst the analogy may not be strictly correct, to the German occupiers and government of France 1940-1944 the resistance movement were just terrorists.

If any ethnic group decided that they, for whatever reason, decided to kick me out of my home and the neighbourhood in which I live, you could pretty much bet that I and my fellow inhabitants would start acting like terrorists against the occupiers.

If an Islamic power decided to occupy the Vatican there is a fair chance that Catholics the world over would start attacking Islamic targets in other places, with whatever means they had at their disposal.

The suicide attacks on Israel cannot be justified, but neither can the occupation of land captured by Israel in 1967.

HAMAS CHARTER
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html

The discussion between Ted and Strewth is better served by referring to 'The Document' itself. The name matters little compared to the content.

Article 11
[This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. This [norm] has prevailed since the commanders of the Muslim armies completed the conquest of Syria and Iraq, and they asked the Caliph of Muslims, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, for his view of the conquered land, whether it should be partitioned between the troops or left in the possession of its population, or otherwise.]

1/ Note that there is an admission that the land was 'conquered by force'
2/ Note also the idea of having now been conquered it attains a special RELIGIOUS status, for ALL GENERATIONS of..... MUSLIMS.

So, on this alone, without reference at all to refugees, to dispossession, but to the simple fact of it being once conquered by Muslims, it is clear that only ONE solution will be acceptable to HAMAS and that is the total and complete destruction of Israel.

Given this I gaze in amazement at Israels restraint, by not embarking on a re-enactment of the original command to 'posses the land and destroy them utterly'.

CONCLUSIONS.
1/ There will never ever, ever EVER be a peaceful solution to this problem. (refer the above quote)
2/ The reason for conclusion "1" is that it is based on the Islamic concept of 'once Islamic, always Islamic'

So Strewth, I truly think you are wasting your time appealing to international law, or human rights etc.. because the driving force behind Hamas does not recognize such things.

Rather, it recognizes 'Islamic Sharia' and 'Rights as Dhimmis UNDER Islam'

Ted. There are many lessons in the Book of Joshua, might be time to review them and urge appropriate action.

At the risk of boring everyone....

TED.. I notice your comparison between Baruch Goldstein and suicide bombers, and how you draw the distinction between one being revered and the other reviled.

You state this as some kind of signpost of humanitarian qualities in Israel.
Well, Goldstein did, what the Israeli government should have done, and should still do. Remove absolutely any trace of Islamic presence in Israel and this includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksah mosque.

Extreme ? 'Radical' ? 'fundamentalist' ?

Considering the quote in my last post from the Hamas charter, I think 'no reasonable alternative'.

Remember the Cuckoo Ted.. it's egg gets laid in the nest of a thrush, but when the chick, having been nurtured by the Thrush, becomes large, it consumes the chicks of the thrush and takes all for itself.

I'm sure the world can find a place for the Palestinians but only as good citizens who leave the politics behind them.

Ted, I can promise as sure as I write this, 'mene mene tekel upharsin'

In your heart of hearts I think you know it too, but perhaps it is not very 'politically acceptable' to recognize this.

[And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.]

They returned and 10 out of the 12 said "Yes, it is a wonderful land, but the inhabitants are very strong"

Only the voice, of Caleb, (and implied also is Joshua), said "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it."

Your next prime minister needs to be a Caleb or a Joshua.

Remember what happened to the reconnaisance team who brought the 'we cannot defeat them' news ? Only the Caleb and Joshua survived.

deterrents do not work. generally they have become the rallying call for further violence because they are seen to prove the case.

if deterrence worked, why are israel and palestine unable to deter each other from continued violence against one another?

you can not deter ideologies. you also do not 'win' by becoming (like) the enemy.

besides, why all the concern about what bin laden might think? why is a terrorist controling the agenda?

The western world should get itself off oil and then continue Israel's wall around the whole muslim world. After being cut off for a few decades they will come around to our way of thinking just as the soviets did. It is truly amusing that left whingers say we need to accept Hamas, but somehow this acceptance includes talking to them and giving aid. I don't have a problem with accepting that the palestinians are made up of a majority of terrorists as evidenced by them electing terrorists. I don't see how this translates into us having to deal with them AND haveing to support them with aid etc. Let them see the consequences of their democratic decision adn then see if they make the same choice when they realise that without the west they cannot eat, and would not have been able to eat for the past ten years.

As for gitmo, I am glad I am not making the decision, I would be torn between succumbing to reason and boosting the threat or sheilding the country. It basically is either a moral question (which says close) or a national security question (which says keep it open). Unfortunately politicians are not elected for their morals, and are not expected to follow them. If you want morals, you bleeding left whingers, you should not be arguing against them on all other issues. Looks like gtmo will remain in the realm of national security, so it will stay open.

Ted Lappin you failed to answer a simple question ,I asked you and your Mates to call on God to come down to earth,to prove you are not using his name to make exuses for the deaths of tens of millions of people over the last two thousand years, God to come down to earth, its not going to happen, God never promised the Jews the land of Palestine, we need to bring this chapter of religious history to an end, I say Call on God to speak on your behalf, make a time and a place for this ceromony of authenticity to happen, people who use God to promote hatred and greed are the worst kind of human being, if you dont feel like becoming a fool you will do nothing, not many people are laughing in the Middle East,Islam came about because slaves were deprived of taking part in religious celebrations,
Ted you also ignored my reference to WMDs all Arab/Muslim Nations live under the threat of a Nuclear Attack, 200 nuclear weapons are some threat, Israel is the villain, Palestine is the victim, so stop writing propaganda, get God to say he/she is on your side, I cant wait for your exuse to be posted, because that is what you do best make exuses , mangotree,

mangotreeone1:Call on your god to put the cruellers on the others and show us that your god is the one. You couldn't so how do you expect Ted to do so. Remember it's the blue pills on wednesdays. numbat

Ted Lapkin,
my first post was an attempt at satire- you are right, there is no philosophical rigor in this approach.

In my next post, I mention judicial and police systems, and argue I should be able to act freely otherwise I’m in a dictatorship.

These points may have lead you to believe I was “in essence, … arguing that jihadist terrorism should be treated as a criminal justice issue rather than a national security problem”, although I was not; I also think open democratic political (and judicial and police) systems should apply to our behaviour in war.

Apart from a quote from Napoleon (and Robert Jackson), you seem to be arguing that allowing governments to act without such systems saves lives (and property?).

I’m not sure whose lives you’re concerned with, but by claiming total lives saved increases by ignoring democratic processes in the treatment of others in “war”, how would it be wrong for militant Islamic groups to capture westerners as prisoners of war, without charge or evidence?
They can use the exact same claim (it seems unlikely captured teachers and nurses are their military enemies, but under these rules, they don’t have to prove that)

I understand we are not beheading prisoners, and comparisons between the activities of the U.S.A/Australia and those of Muslim extremist militant groups are exaggerated, but what is the philosophical base for this difference? Is it just that we couldn’t get away with it? Or that beheading doesn’t yet act as a deterrent?

If “US federal law prohibits torture as defined by the UN Convention”, why is Guantanamo Bay not open to scrutiny? Even if you blame individual soldiers for the prisoner abuse scandals, aren’t open processes the best way to prevent this sort of torture?

If “the prospect of being tried before a military commission disheartens even a single potential Al-Qaida recruit”, where are the trials?

Additionally, why does the logic of your argument extend only to war?

If it would save lives, why shouldn’t the government arrest without trial and charge here as well?

HAMLET – On the question of culpability for the Middle East conflict, let me quote from one of my previous opinion pieces (Herald Sun 27/2/06):

“spurning opportunities for peace is a long established Palestinian pastime. It is hard to imagine a better deal for peace than the one offered in 1937 by the British Peel Commission. Yet, the Arabs refused to accept this plan that would have given them 85 per cent of Palestine.

“Why? Because the proposal also encompassed the establishment of a small Jewish state in the remaining 15 per cent of the country. Ten years later, the Palestinian Arabs brought catastrophe upon their heads by opting for war instead of a 50/50 compromise, triggering Israel's war of independence. And in early 2001, an overture by US President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would have established a viable Palestinian state.

But, once again, Yasser Arafat rebuffed what was on offer: national sovereignty throughout 97 per cent 'of the West Bank and all of Gaza. Each time the Palestinians have decided to shoot rather than talk has brought about a reduction in the slice of the pie that is offered to them in later negotiations. It appears that repeatedly trying to annihilate someone isn't much of an incentive for reciprocal generosity.”

MANGO – I ignored your challenge to invoke divine intervention because it is asinine. I do, however, find it interesting that you are blaming the Jews for the “deaths of tens of millions of people over the last two thousand years.” I think you’ve been reading a bit too much of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because you seem to buy into the conspiracy theory that the Jews really run the world

WIBBLE – you ask where are the Guantanamo trials? They are currently on hold because the lawyers for bin Laden’s bodyguard have appealed his detention to the Supreme Court. I recently wrote a piece for the “Australian” that arguing that the Hicks legal team is engaged in a bit of cynical manoeuvring of its own:

“The earliest the final Hamdan ruling is likely to be handed down is April 2006. Yet when the Supreme Court announced its intention to review the case, lawyers for the Australian detainee filed a request for an adjournment until that judgment is issued. In other words, his legal team voluntarily sought to postpone Hicks's military commission trial by several months.

“But in legal terms such a gambit was unnecessary. If the Supreme Court declares military commissions to be illegal in the Hamdan case, then the same principle will apply to all Guantanamo detainees. And if the court upholds military commission process, then the fate of Hamdan won't make the slightest difference to Hicks. ??Thus the only plausible reason why the Hicks legal team is playing for time is so they can have their cake in the courtroom while eating it in the public relations arena. Because they realise the evidence against their client is overwhelming, they understand that political pressure to short-circuit the trial is his only chance to escape a serious prison sentence.”
Gitmo is open to scrutiny. The ICRC has been making regular visits to Camp Delta, et al, since detainees first arrived there."

And no, I don’t think that standards of conventional criminal jurisprudence are appropriately applied to wartime cases that arise out of illegal battlefield conduct by a terrorist enemy. My argument “extends” only to war because armed conflict poses a threat that is much greater in scope than conventional criminal activity. Mafiosi are out to make a profit, and mass casualty terrorism isn’t good for business. AQ, by contrast, is out to kill as many innocent infidels as possible.

Different caliber of threat – different caliber of measures required to defend against that threat.

The problem with the 97% offer of a Palestinian state was the three percent that would still be controlled by Israel: the settlements deep in the West Bank and the roads to and from them. The idea of a contiguous Palestinian state was nonsense. Israeli officials even said that bridges and tunnels could be built to link the various parts of the state of Palestine where Israeli roads isolated them.

But that was the entire idea of the settlement program: small strips of Israel cutting into Palestine, and where there was some fertile land, the Israeli settlers grabbed it as soon as they could.

I’ve personally heard Israelis say that Palestine, whilst independent, shouldn’t have some institutions normally part of an independent state, such as an defence force with aircraft and military vehicles. These Israelis even went so far as to say that Palestinian police should only be allowed to have pistols, and if they needed something heavier in dealing with a security situation then the Palestinians should call on the IDF for assistance. That doesn’t sound like independence to me.

The separation of the West Bank and Gaza would also have been problematic. Some of us remember that a similar arrangement was tried, and failed, with Pakistan.

Regarding the Peel Commission, how would Poland have felt if the British and French had approached them in 1939 and said that Germany only wanted 15% of Polish territory, and that they didn’t want to go to war for that? 15% would have simply been appeasement, and we all know what happened to Czechoslovakia.

Jews had been offered other places also, places with less population. Palestine wasn’t ‘a land without a people waiting for a people without land’.

By the way, Boaz David is a classic example of fanaticism. He has not realised that Christ changed the Jews from being God’s only people. All those who accept Christ are God’s people, the Jews have been bypassed. Jerusalem is really just an historic curiosity when it comes to salvation.

Ted writes, "US federal law prohibits torture as defined by the UN Convention on the subject".

It certainly does, but according to the White House (with acknowledgements to Brad DeLong):

Simulated drowning is not torture. Mock burial is not torture. Stripping a detainee naked, and chaining him to the floor of a fifty-degree-Fahrenheit cell, and pouring cold water on him for extended periods is not torture. Prisoners being "forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours" is not torture. Threatening detainees with military dogs is not torture. Prolonged sleep deprivation is not torture. Prolonged isolation is not torture. Repeating these techniques again and again, and combining them in creative ways, is not torture.

But the fact that US law prohibits torture is actually irrelevant.

From http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-opcoc204558361dec20,0,5383369,print.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

QUOTE
In asking the super-secret National Security Agency to monitor - without any court oversight whatsoever - the international phone calls and e-mails of hundreds of Americans, President George W Bush has gone far beyond what even the Patriot Act allows...

This is a president who believes no law applies to him.

He long ago violated a 1971 statute that bars the detention of U.S. citizens "except pursuant to an Act of Congress." In his "war on terror," Bush has nonetheless thrown American citizens into the clink and asserted he has the right to hold them there indefinitely, without charge and without showing any evidence against them...

The Geneva Conventions have been tossed aside like wastepaper. They are replaced by gross violations of basic human rights at U.S. detention facilities, secret and semi-secret, around the world...

This president simply disregards the Constitution, save for the one clause he invokes to justify his violation of so many others: He is, he says, commander-in-chief. This power trumps all.
END QUOTE

if boaz is anything, he's a clasic example of a jihadist.

"Well, Goldstein did, what the Israeli government should have done, and should still do. Remove absolutely any trace of Islamic presence in Israel and this includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksah mosque.

Extreme ? 'Radical' ? 'fundamentalist' ?

Considering the quote in my last post from the Hamas charter, I think 'no reasonable alternative'."

so if i have got this right, he's arguing that israel's policy should be moddled on the hamas charter. isnt that the goldstein method?

so one one side we have the total removal of jewish presense in israel by violent means and on the other we have total removal of muslim presence by violent means.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. stop it your killing me (or someone anyway)

lapkin has of course argued that goldstien is not reveared in israel,and thats possible true, dependant on the phrase 'not reveared by the majority', which is a very differnent kind of argument.

Ted , you ignored my challenge to invoke divine intervention, you say it is a stupid idea, I proved my point. you base your argument on the great untruth" believing your God Promised you the land of Israel, you use Gods name to promote greed and hatred, if your beliefs are so strong, why not take up my challenge , you said I blamed the Jews for millions of deaths , you should read my post again because Jewish deaths were included and members of other religions. all were victims of the "great untruth"

Numbat, unlike you I dont own a God I can use to to steal land from Palestinians, the God I believe in created the Universe, if all the people in the middle east were to loose their memory over night they would wake up in the morning not knowing which side of the fence they belonged, they would all have their memory reprogrammed by their political/religious leaders, so they could kill each other again, had God created humans to kill . we would have claws and fangs, loving your neighbour makes God Happy. your posts are full of hatred of Muslims thats to be expected because you support the destruction of the Holy Mosque, Muslims and Jews believe in the same God , if those none/Jewish slaves who started the New religion of Islam had been allowed to take part in religious celebrations you may now be all one people, mangotree

Still waiting for an answer to my questions, Ted.

HAMLET

Thanx for the critique. I don't see that Romans 9-11 is invalid. Paul clearly speaks of the "Jews" meaning biological (primarily) and Godfearers (converts) being 're-grafted in'. Admittedly, he is speaking more spiritually than nationalistically, granted. But definitely refers to their status as elected by God.

I guess what I'm alluding to, is the overwhelming sense of OT prophecy which strongly suggests a re-establishment of the Nation, and of the Temple. The defiling of the holy place, Anti Christ etc We can argue the toss on that, but its where I stand.

Please bear in mind, I speak on 2 levels. 1/ as a 'Christian' which is where I might refer to prophecy, and Israels place in current events. 2/ As an observer of human affairs. Where I look at the charter of Hamas, see it as an absolute threat to life and limb in Israel, a declaration of total war in words TO THAT effect, and realize that the only rational response to a self declared enemy of this type is a winnable war to decide the matter once and for all and remove the problem.

INEB you raise a very important point. You in fact underlined the problem by stating Hamas goals. If I may venture a request. Given this 'absolute,uncompromising, Doctrinal and final' approach by Hamas, can you think of any other solution ? (given that it is not about 'land' as many suggest, but about the 'Moslem lands' from a doctrinal perspective.)

You are welcome to describe me as a 'jihadist' its ok :) I'm really stirring the pot, hopefully to open minds to citizenship in Christ, where such things don't really arise. When I refer to Israels response.. its something they must work out, but in their shoes, I would be more of a Sharon than a Barak.(humanly speaking)

Truly, unless one sees the biggish piccy, and enters into the mind of the Jihadist and its connections to the beginnings of Islam, a lot of time will be wasted talking about 'negotiations' ... with the devil ?
Harrrrdly

Blessings

mangotreeone1: I never said, nor do I "own" a god or the Eternal Creator God. God "stole?" the land from the palestinians? God owns the entire universe why would He steal land from a bunch of pagans? Though eventually this God will move the Israelites - who are the apple of His eye, according to the Bible - to their land then this God will relocate the then God worshipping ex-pagan Palestinians to their land.
We were not created to kill we were created and we did kill. We would have had claws and fangs if we were created killers. It's the blue pills again today!
I approve of the destruction of the pagan mosque or temple err no I don't. God will remove that horrible monstrosity of barbarism I think.
One day we will be one people all worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Christ Jesus and all foul paganism will have been completely destroyed. numbat

STREWTH – I assume that when you mention your “last question,” you are referring to the myth that Israel created Hamas. But in fact, Israel had nothing to do with the establishment of Hamas. Read its Covenant, which declares that the organization grew out of the ideology and practice of the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood movement that arose in Egypt in the 1920s.

Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 as an Islamic Association by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Initially, the organization engaged primarily in social welfare activities and soon developed a reputation for improving the lives of Palestinians, particularly the refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Though Hamas was committed from the outset to destroying Israel, it took the position that this was a goal for the future, and that the more immediate focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the people through its charitable and educational activities. Its funding came primarily from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

So as long as Hamas stuck to the social welfare business, Israel allowed it to operate without hindrance. But when they turned to the violent implementation of their genocidal program, then Israel’s tolerance expired.

No stress at all with your question, because it is predicated on an untruth.

Ted, Re your "myth that Israel created Hamas". Don't twist my words. I never said Israel created Hamas: I asked you to comment on the suggestion that "Israel promoted the Islamic movement in the occupied Palestinian territories to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO." Is what I said, as opposed to what you said, "a myth"? Did Israel promote Palestinian Islamism in the 80's or not? And if your answer is yes, please tell us why. In addition, can we agree, as per my earlier post, based on your response ("it shares the same world view") that Hamas is not in "overt alliance with al-Q" or in indeed in any kind of alliance with al-Q? And what about those "global caliphate" and other references to the Hamas Charter which simply do not add up as I have shown in an earlier post? The bottom line is truth, not propaganda. Now get back into that stress position.

If good people all have faith, Judaism and Christianity can win over the evils of Islam. According to news reports today, the Muslim terrorists of ETA have given up their evil struggle. According to Reuters:

'ETA said on Wednesday it hoped the truce, due to start on Friday, would lead to a new path of negotiation and agreement, but some Spaniards said the peace process had a long way to go and that the group broke ceasefires twice in the 1990s.

'Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who last year offered talks if ETA gave up violence, cautiously welcomed the truce and the possibility of peace after bomb and gun attacks that have killed nearly 850 people.

'"After [almost four decades] of horror and terror it will be a long and difficult process," Zapatero, who has put devolving more power to Spain's regions high on his agenda, told parliament.'

This coincides with the openinig in Seville of the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, sponsored by Hommes de Parole, a Paris-based peace foundation.

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reports http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/695970.html

'At Sunday's opening ceremony, at one of Seville's ancient palaces, rabbis in black hats and coats sat alongside imams in gowns and conical hats, engaging in friendly conversation.

'"I want to break the convention that religion creates problems," said Hommes de Parole founder Allain Michel. "Our object is to liberate religion from its abductors." Several conference participants noted Sunday that the forthright connection between rabbis and senior Muslim leaders takes on special significance in view of Hamas' rise to power in the Palestinian Authority...

'Seville was chosen to host the meeting because of its rich symbolism as one of the Spanish cities where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in harmony under Moorish rule that began in the 8th century and lasted more than 700 years.'

STEWTH

Your reasoning is firstly flawed and secondly worrysome (because it is flawed)

You seem to be using the words 'in Palestine' to localize something that is clearly stated to be global by direct inference in the other articles of the Charter. That the Israelis even allowed it to be registered, given the content of the charter, either declares them 'stupid' or.. that they were fully aware of it, and used it strategically for a more cunning purpose. I tend towards the latter.

Do you seriously think that because the ALP or the GREENS have a 'local branch' they are not linked and tied to the wider political or environmental goals of the movement?

One could be attracted to the idea that you are an employed propogandist for HAMAS. But I think they would employ someone who's reasoning or strategy would be less likely to crumble when scrutinized.

If the Israelis took a 'divide and keep conquered' approach to the PLO, would that suprise you ? If they can, in the interests of their own surivival keep the Palestinians at each other, rather than united against Israel, as an alternative to open warfare.. they probably chose the course which kept more Israeli's alive.

You seem to be basing most of your argument on one fundamental (but flawed) idea of Palestinians being indigenous to the land, totally ignoring the various empires and people movements over the past 2000 yrs which completely negate such an idea.

You seem to point to specific injustices by Israel, while neglecting similar injustices by PLO/Hamas, which only serves to show that singling out incidents as examples of the basic rightness or wrongness of a geopolitical position is rather meaningless.

-Or ONE state in that area which did not come to 'be' due to war, or does NOT contain minorities who are in some way oppressed by others, and who, if given the chance, AND THE POWER would reverse the situation to become the oppressors rather than the oppressed ?
Humor me.. name one.

Wake up mate, get out of geo-political fairyland.

Booz, I can understand Ted. He has a political objective, however reprehensible and wrong-headed, but you Christian Zionists are off in LaLa Land. Listen, Zionism needs all the help it can get these days, and believe me, you're not helping.

STREWTH - Israel allowed HAMAS to operate in its early years because it initially restricted its activity to social welfare issue. When Yassin turned it into an armed terrorist group, Israel's attitude changed. Does allowing an organisation to operate equate to its "promotion?" Not necessarily. But even if I concede, for the sake of argument, that the Israelis did, so what? HAMAS was a social service agency at the time, and the Israelis probably thought that talk is cheap and the rhetoric of jihad didn't really matter if the HAMAS wasn't putting those words into action.

Given what we know now about the links between jihadist incitement and jihadist violence, that was probably a mistake. But it's easy, with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, to render such judgements. It's much harder to predict the future when you are responsible for the ins and outs of policy on the ground.

I'm signing off in an utterly unstressed and relaxed condition.

It would be easy to simply discard the article as typical right wing ranting. It touches on just about all of their usual talking points. If we give up, the terrorists win, they don't understand anything but violence. None stand up to any scrutiny. They merely demonstrate dubious moral values & thought processes of the writer.

I suppose the best way to frame the response would be: What is it that we are protecting? Are we protecting our bodies and our land, our resources and power? If so, then it may seem more plausible to sink to any depth imaginable to win to some..
However, if we are trying to protect our freedoms, liberties, rule of law and even an Aussie 'fair go', is it right to have to stoop to the levels of hypocrisy that Guantanamo Bay is?

Jihadists may very well celebrate the closure of a symbol of the hypocrisy of the 'War on Terror'(tm). I would too. That does not equate me with a terrorist, nor a terrorist sympathiser. What it does represent is that I do not believe that delving into arbitrary detention & barbarity will help us protect freedom, liberty & rule of law. It simply makes us barbarous.

Benjamin Franklin famously said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I think the same goes for civility.

=my2c

BAC: What you say has some truth but I fear you are somewhat naive, if I may quote from a Saudi fatwa.
"All religions other than islam are heresy and error. any place designated for worship other than [that of] islam is a place of heresy and error.......cont. The law of islam [sharia] is the final and definative religious law. It applies to all men and jinns and abrogates all that came before it"
"Therefore, religion necessitates the prohibition of unbelief, and this requires the prohibition of worshipping allah in any way other than that of the islamic sharia
......it is forbidden to build heretical houses of worship - such as Christian Churches - in a moslem country"
Can you image the bleating we would get if we enforced such on the local moslems.
As I said you appear somewhat naive and from there it's only a small step to be being a pagan moslem sympathiser, remember they will use you and slay you as an unbeliever if they ever come into power. Or perhaps you are one of them already. numbat

Ted: You say Israel only "allowed HAMAS to operate". Are you sure? No funding? No intention to weaken the secular, nationalist PLO? Straight answers please.

Do you still stand by your claim that Hamas is in "overt alliance" with al-Q?

Is it not the case that your Hamas Charter references do not stack up?

I'm still, as ever, waiting for your authoritative answers.

MikeM: Nice one on the "Muslim terrorists of ETA...giv[ing] up on their evil struggle." And did you see their picture in the papers? They've even taken to wearing berets. There's hope for the world yet.

Mr Lapin, you mentioned the rejection of the Peel Commission by Arabs in 1937. What you failed to mention was that Zionist groups also rejected the proposals with some Jewish groups insisting that Jews had an “inalienable right” to all of Palestine. At the same time that the Arabs in the area were seeking self government, Zionist groups were claiming that the Arabs had no right to be there at all.

The Zionist paramilitary groups of the 1940s financed themselves through armed bank robberies and by standover tactics against businesses.

On 4 April 1948 Irgun and Lehi terrorists attacked the Arab village of Dayr Yasin, killing between 200 and 250 men, women and children. The Haganah did not take direct part in this attack, but did provide covering fire. The intention of this attack was to convince Arabs to flee from the area claimed by Zionists for the state of Israel: a classic example of ethnic cleansing, and one which worked, leaving many empty villages and thousands of Arab refugees displaced from land that their families had lived on for generations.

Once again, Zionism taught Arabs that the value of an Arab life was nil: it is any wonder that the phenomenon of suicide bombers arose.

I have previously mentioned the 1953 attack on Qibya.

Mr Lapin, you know what happened to Count Bernadotte, the man who brokered a truce in the 1948 “War of Independence”. He was assassinated by Zionists for his attempts to be impartial.

The whole history of Israel is the taking over of land that other people already live on, and the destruction of its neighbour’s economies by the taking over of the most productive land. If the 1982 “Peace for Galilee” operation had succeeded in its ‘non-stated’ intention of annexation of Lebanese land up to and over the Litani River, it is likely that Israel would have continued in its aggression to take over more land today. It wouldn’t be settlements in the West Bank, but wholesale removal of Palestinians.

HAMLET - Sorry, but the Yishuv (Jewish government) accepted the Peel partition plan, as it did the 1947 UN partition plan. A couple of smaller Jewish factions may have rejected it, but mainstream Jewish establishment agreed to partition in both cases. By contrast, the Arab establishment rejected partition and opted for violence - a repetitive mistake that has brought the Palestinians much self-induced suffering.

Yes, the Lehi group (Stern Gang) conducted armed robberies to secure operational funding. Lehi was a miniscule terrorist group that numbered fewer than one hundred active members as most, and was despised and condemned by the Jewish establishment. At one point in 1944, Jewish mainstream groups cooperated with the British to suppress the Lehi, providing information on where Lehi members could be arrested.

Deir Yassin was not the massacre that the Arabs made it out to be. It was a hostile village that was harbouring Iraqi irregular fighters who were part of Kaukji's Arab Liberation Army. And it was a defended locality, as is evidenced by the 15% casualties suffered by the Lehi and Etzel attackers.

After the battle was over, the Lehi escorted a ICRC representative through the village and held a press conference. Hardly the behaviour of war criminals. Moreover, Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. ("Israel and the Arabs: The 50 Year Conflict," BBC TV - 1998)

There appears to be little doubt that innocent civilians were killed during the fighting in Deir Yassin. There may have been isolated instances of illegal killings by individual Jewish fighters. But that isn't a premeditated massacre, as you seem to imply. We've seen a more recent instance of Arab atrocity mongering in 2002, when the Palestinians accused the Israelis of committing a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. This was quickly disproved by everyone from Amnesty to the UN.

Par for the course. There is no moral equivalence between the two sides in this conflict.

Regarding Deir Yassin: Martin Gilbert, hardly an apologist for the PLO, wrote in his: “Israel a History”

“The day of the recapture of Kastel was also the day on which Irgun and Stern Gang forces attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin, on a hill even close to Jerusalem. It was the last village on the western side of Jerusalem in whose Arab inhabitants had not largely or totally fled. The attack, in which 245 Arabs were killed – many of them women and children – generated a controversy and bitterness that remains a contentious issue in Israeli life. The official account written in 1961 by Lieutenant Colonel Netanel Lorch, who had fought in the war, and was later head of the Military History Division of the Israel General Staff, describes how Irgun and Stern Gang forces ‘massacred hundreds of villages, took the rest prisoner and paraded them proudly through the streets of Jerusalem’.”

The next page of Gilbert’s book describes the retaliatory attack on a convoy of Jewish medical personal and patients on their way to Hadassah hospital.

Once again violence begat violence. Neither side is innocent, both sides deeply stained with blood.

Gilbert notes that the only part of the Peel Commission that was accepted by the 20th Zionist Congress was the idea of partition, as a way of at least getting a foothold in Palestine. The area proposed by Peel was not accepted however, and neither was the idea of partitioning with the British remaining in control of Jerusalem.

Zionist have always wanted Jerusalem.

The Arabs rejected partition. Today it is easy to see why.

Flying forward to 1982: A group of Israeli Army officers held a press conference about what was happening on the West Bank: One told journalists: “we are gradually losing our humanity. The local population are becoming objects in our eyes, - at best mere objects, at worst something to be degraded and humiliated”.

Once again, when the occupied are treated as less than humans by their occupiers, is it any wonder that suicide bombers are willing to throw their ‘worthless’ lives away?

Ted: More fairytales and you STILL haven't dealt with my posted questions. "The Yishuv accepted the Peel partition plan", says Ted. Not that simple, Ted: "Neither the Arabs nor the Zionist Congress...officially accepted the Peel partition proposal...key Zionist leaders rejected the Peel recommendation for tactical reasons...However, even Zionist leaders accepting partition did so only as the first step toward the total conquest of Palestine...Ben-Gurion 'saw partition as a stepping stone to further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine'." (N G Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah, p280) And considering that the plan recommended the forced departure of the Palestinian Arabs living in the proposed Jewish state why wouldn't the Palestinians reject it? As for the 47 UN partition plan, why should the Palestinians have accepted 54% of their homeland going to a minority colonial-settler community legally owning only 6% of the land, most of whom had arrived in the preceeding 30 years under the protection of British bayonets? Would you have accepted such an offer in their shoes, Ted?

The Deir Yassin massacre: Ted says DY was "a hostile village...harbouring Iraqi irregular fighters". Funny, Zionist historian, Benny Morris, writes in 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited': "DY had signed a non-belligerancy pact with its Jewish neighbours and repeatedly barred entry to foreign irregulars." (p237) Ted says it was "a defended locality". Defended? With "old Mausers and Turkish rifles that had only been used to hunt rabbits"? (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe, p49)
Ted spins, "After the battle [sic: massacre] was over, the Lehi escorted a ICRC representative through the village and held a press conference. Hardly the behaviour of war criminals." Check out the facts in Palumbo's book (p52-4); De Reynier, the ICRC man went to DY uninvited and was only saved from manhandling by one of the Irgun terrorists [Ted leaves out Irgun and Haganah involvement in this massacre. Why?] whose life had been saved by the ICRC in a German concentration camp. The press conference was not at DY. It came later and provided the platform for the Jewish terrorists of both organisations to brag about their 'victory' at DY. As for Ted's claim that DY wasn't a "premeditated massacre". Palumbo writes: "According to the Irgun officer, Yehuda Lapidot, the Stern Gang 'put forward a propsal to liquidate the residents of the village...in order to show the Arabs what happens when the Irgun and the Stern Gang set out together on an operation' (p48)...The testimony of the terrorists themselves indicates that the massacre was premeditated by at least some of the attackers. Yitzhak Levi in his recent book was allowed to see but not quote the official reports on DY. He contradicts Begin's version of the attack and asserts that published accounts of a premeditated massacre 'fit in with reports in the archives.'" (p56) Nice try, Ted. Space forbids me to touch on Lehi for the moment, but watch this space. And yes, I'm STILL waiting for your response to my earlier post.

STREWTH - Yes, the devil is indeed in the details. Jabotinsky and the Zionist Revisionists rejected Peel, but they were a small minority of the Yishuv. The Jewish establishment was far more accomodating. The two most influential Zionist leaders, Ben Gurion and Chaim Weitzman, both accepted the Peel partition plan and recommended its adoption. The Twentieth Zionist Congress accepted the principle of partition, although it wanted to renegotiate the Peel provisions that allocated 85% of the Mandate to the Arabs.

Contrast this with the wall-to-wall Arab opposition, both to the particulars of the Peel plan and to the concept of a partition in any form. Compare Ben Gurion's acceptance of compromise with the Grand Mufti's absolute rejection of it. That, in microcosm, is a reflection of the moral difference between the two communities and the main source of conflict over the past century.

As for your sources, the scholarship of Benny Morris has been ripped to shreds by Ephraim Karsh "Benny Morris' Reign of Error Revisitited [Middle East Quarterly - Spring 2005) (http://www.meforum.org/article/711). In his book "Fabricating Israeli History," Karsh goes into greater deconstructive detail, eviscerating the theses, not only of Morris, but of Avi Shlaim. And in another Middle East Quarterly piece, Karsh demonstrates that hard left anti-Zionist Ilan Pappe is similarly a fabricator and distortionist. (www.meforum.org/article/897). Your Michael Palumbo is very much cut from the same cloth. He is a professional pro-Palestinian polemicist whose work is similarly flawed by sins of omission and commission alike.

Not serious.

As for these elusive "questions" that you keep kvetching about, I must confess that I'm at a loss. You asked about the early years of Hamas when it was still a social service agency. I answered - twice. Of course, my answer was not to your ideological satisfaction, so you continue to claim that I'm avoiding the issue. And that is nothing more than an artificially manufactured opportunity to take a few more polemical cheap shots.

Not serious.

Mr Lappin

You have failed to respond to my post quoting Martin Gilbert.

I find this interesting. You quote your mainstream sources and opinions, but ignore mine.

I also find it interesting why you consider that Zionists has any right to any part of Palestine at all. I know that Jewish communities had existed alongside Arab communities for centuries, but for the Jews to lay claim to the land for a state ranks alongside Islamic groups laying claim to Spain because for 700 years or so the Liberian Peninuslar was under Islamic control.

Both claims are equally preposterous.

Whilst I believe that what Christians call the Old Testament to be a true account of God's dealing with humankind, and the Jews (even though in places it is metaphorical) to base the idea of the right of a modrrn state to exist on it reminds me a great deal of that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when a peasant confronts Arthur thus:

DENNIS

Look, strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out

swords ... that's no basis for a system of government. Supreme

executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from

some farcical aquatic ceremony.

ARTHUR

Be quiet!

DENNIS

You can't expect to wield supreme executive power

just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

ARTHUR

Shut up!

DENNIS

I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some

moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would

put me away!

ARTHUR

(Grabbing him by the collar)

Shut up, will you. Shut up!

DENNIS

Ah! NOW ... we see the violence inherent in the system.

ARTHUR

Shut up!

PEOPLE (i.e. other PEASANTS) are appearing and watching.

DENNIS

(calling)

Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!

The idea that a modern state can be justified by a 3000 year old historical document seems a bit farcical, don't you think? I think any further discussion is pointless: to you Israel can do no wrong.

Very strange... Are STREWTH and HAMLET one and the same?

No, Strewth and I are not the same person, maybe we have read the same books or attended the same university, I don't know.

My last word is an apology: I have unintentionally misspelt Mr Lapkin's name thoughtout my posts. I apologise to him for this error.

Morning, Ted: Lehi/Stern Gang "despised and condemned by the Jewish establishment"? This didn't prevent Ben-G from collaborating with it and the Irgun in a joint military campaign against the British in 1945, and again from March to September 1948, when the Sternists assassinated UN Mediator, Bernadotte. Nor did it prevent the Gang's leader, Shamir (or the Irgun's leader, Begin) from becoming Israeli Prime Ministers.

"Arab opposition" to partition. For the perfectly valid reasons I've already touched on. The "moral" position of the Jewish leadership: beggars can't be choosers, we can grab the rest later. B-G: "[A] Jewish state in part of [Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning...Establishing a [small] state...will serve as a very potent lever in our historical efforts to redeem the whole country."

My "questions": I'll make it easy for you - Hamas is in "overt alliance" with al-Qaida. True or false?

Goodness, Ted, you've got this "Ephraim" (sic) Karsh bloke "ripping" into and "eviscerating" all and sundry: Benny, Avi, Ilan. Maybe we should check out Efraim the ripper/eviscerator: He's written an article called 'What Occupation?'[?]; writes for Daniel Pipes [?] MEQuarterly, journal of the MEForum, "a think tank working to define and promote American interests in the ME [?],...convincing the Palestinians that Israel is permanent [? aka, ensuring that Palestine is impermanent],...slowing down the democratization process [?]...developing strategies to contain Iran [?]." "American interests"? Really? Sounds like Efraim has an agenda to me. And speaking of agendas, why is it we can't trust a "professional pro-Palestinian polemicist" like Palumbo, but trust a professional pro-Israeli polemicist such as yourself?

STREWTH - True.

The two (Hamas and AQ) are philosophically allied because they share the same ideological parent, the Moslem Brotherhood. In the past they might have had slightly different orientations, with Hamas initially focused on Israel, and AQ initally focused on expelling US troops from Saudi Arabia. But in the longer term strategic sense, both organisations have always shared the same worldview and objective - the creation of a new Caliphate that will impose a strict Sharia regime throughout the Islamic Waqf - which to their mind includes such places as Spain and E. Timor. They have also had longstanding cooperative links when it comes to fundraising and money laundering.

And in recent years that philosophical alliance has become more operational as well. The Sharm a Sheik and Aman hotel bombings were carried out by AQ cells in Egypt and Jordan. And In a recent Associated Press story entitled "Israel may be next al-Qaida battleground," Steven Gutkin writes "signs are mounting that al-Qaeda terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next battleground. Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged that al-Qaida is ''organising cells and gathering supporters.'"

The story continues: "Egyptican forces arrested two sets of suspected al-Qaida operatives - one month ago and another three months ago - who were trying to enter Israel through Sinai "most probably carrying explosives."

I don't know, STREWTHIE, but that seems like an overt alliance to me.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_miea/palestinians_al_qaida)

quote:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/americas-bornagain-apartheid/2006/03/26/1143330925739.html?page=2

Hamlet,
i wouldn't place too much credibility on the Fairfax press with its left wing agenda anti-American and anti-Iraqi war stance.

Ted,

"The two (Hamas and AQ) are philosophically allied because they share the same ideological parent, the Moslem Brotherhood".

You are either confused or seiousley mislead. None of the three are related ann any Muslim or non-Muslim who examined political Islam cannot confuse the three. Muslim brotherhood is an anti-secular movement that strived during the time of Nasser in Egypt to combat secularism in Egypt, Syria and Iraq (Bathism is secular).

AlQaeda appeared as an immediate geographic movement to resist an obvious occupation (ie Soviet Union in Afghanistan) then emerged as an ideology and later targeted US, US interests and Dictatorships in the Middle East and Muslim countries.

HAMAS 's sole aim is the establishment of a Palestinian state although their and your defintion of borders is still a long way out.

Even though they come from the same, the three ideologies will end as follows: HAMAS ideology will end with a Palestinian state, AlQaeda ideology will end with democracy in the Middle East & Muslim world. Muslim Brotherhood will transform will remain in a secular democratic Middle East as the 'right wing' equivalent in Israel or Western countries.

Food for thoughts,

Morning, Ted: From "Hamas and AQ are in overt alliance" to "The two (Hamas & AQ) are philosophically allied." From the horse's mouth. Thank you. "The creation of a new Caliphate...includ[ing]...Spain and E Timor." The last time you mentioned Hamas/global caliphate/Hamas Charter it didn't compute. Can you supply a reference in the Hamas Charter to Hamas' alleged designs on Spain and E Timor? Also, can you explain how you managed to derive an "operational alliance" between Hamas and AQ from Gutkin's article which suggests no such thing? For example, "Mideast watchers warned against overstating the al-Qaida presence because the issue is easily manipulated for political ends. Israel has a lot to gain by portraying its local conflict with the Palestinians as part of the war on terror...said Israeli security analyst Dan Schueftan." Now, here you go again with that "overt alliance" nonsense, just when I thought we'd sorted it out. To save you time, choose between your authoritative (A) "Hamas and AQ are in overt alliance" or your speculative (B) " [It] seems like an overt alliance to me." (A) or (B) Ted?

Ted? Are you there? My unanswered questions await. Cheers

Ted
A few facts in your article would be welcome.
Locking people up for years without trial is supposed to have gone out with the Magna Carta. I guess that george has not read about that.
The definition of democracy certainly needs a rewrite.
It is a form of government found in a country whose declaration of indepdence and bill of rights were drafted and signed by slave owners.
The people who were governed under the laws then set about killing off most of the indiginous population.
When they finished them off then they moved on to the rest of the world in a series of wars such as the Spanish American war,Viet Nam and Iraq. These wars do have something in common in that they were all started on "faulty intelligence" (ie. lies).
Your article is part of the war on truth.