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.