Horus, I "all but said", did I? Well, if you'd be so kind as to point out the essential difference between wanting a Jewish or Christian or Islamic or white or black state and wanting an Aryan state... As for "the land question", your reference to Zionist propaganda site, camera.org, simply doesn't get you out of the woods. Para 2: "After 1948 state-owned lands...together with property abandoned by Arab refugees, passed into the control of the new Israeli govt" glosses over the details: the wholesale destruction of some 400 Palestinian villages in 48-49 (which followed the ethnic cleansing of their inhabitants). The refugees were then declared 'absentees' and their land and property - somewhwere between 70 and 88% of pre-67 Israel - declared 'absentee property' under the Absentees' Property Law of 1950, ripe for the picking. Israel is quite simply stolen Palestine. Sherbert of course operates on the false Zionist premise that Jews=Israel and that any criticism of the latter is therefore a criticism of the former. I must thank him, however, for his comic gem: "Under adverse conditions Jews compose music or discover science [How does one discover science?] and Palestinians blow themselves up." [And Sherberts puff themselves up.] Moreover, the argument (when all else fails) that Israel cops criticism merely because it's "basically white and western" is nonsense. Quite apart from Israel copping flak because it's an apartheid state founded on ethnic cleansing and wholesale theft, with an infamous record of non-compliance with UN resolutions, and a brutal occupying power, Sherbert's 'argument' also falls down when one considers that 60% of Israel's Jewish population are Jewish Arabs and 20% of its overall population is Muslim/Christian Palestinian Arab.

Strewth -why shouldn't I/we consider/listen-to the Zionist side of the debate?
After all -most of your information seems to be gleaned from HAMAS press releases.

Surely the important issue is the validity of the argument and not the source?

Listen to "the Zionist side of the debate"? We're not dealing here with a debate or some abstract, academic exercise. We're dealing with the unjustifiable takeover of Palestine by a colonial-settler movement totally dedicated to the expulsion, exclusion and occupation of its people - people in no way responsible for Tsarist pograms, Dreyfus affairs, Nazi Holocausts or any other manifestation of good old-fashioned European anti-Semitism. I'm sorry, but Zionism simply doesn't have a moral leg to stand on. But thankyou, Horus, for at least refusing to believe your own lies. If you had you'd probably be over there now, living in a subsidised apartment in a settlement bloc built on occupied land. Wasting your time on onlineopinion is definitely the lesser of two evils. And I'm sorry that your life's focus is being exposed as an anachronism and a sham, but really, the penny's got to drop sometime. And anyway, it's the poor bloody Palestinians, not you, who are eating glass.

Lebanon explosion kills Jihad official
Terror group responsible for most terror in Israel

The detonation of a powerful car bomb Friday afternoon killed an official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group and critically injured his brother, the group's leader in southern Lebanon, security officials told The Jerusalem Post. Nidal Majzoub was killed instantly and his brother Mahmoud is in critical condition, the security officials said, speaking anonymously.

Islamic Jihad, a virulently anti-Israel group backed by Iran and Syria, claimed responsibility for April's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed 11 and injured over 60. The group has been behind the majority of deadly Palestinian terror attacks against Israel during the past 18 months and claims that violence is a legitimate response to the Israeli crackdown on Jihad terrorists operating in the territories.

Islamic Jihad's policy rules out any compromise with Israel, and the group utilizes terror tactics with the intent of turning all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into an Islamic state.

PM and Peretz to arm Fatah gunmen

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz decided Thursday to transfer Israeli weapons and ammunition to supporters of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas out of concern for his life and his position as head of the PA, officials told The Jerusalem Post.

This is the first time that Israel has been an active participant in the power struggle between Hamas and the Abbas-controlled Palestinian security forces that started over a week ago. Earlier on Thursday, a shootout between the rival factions left one Hamas gunman dead and eight members of the Fatah force wounded.

Sources in the Likud opposition party were quick to condemn the decision, calling it "wrong and pathetic." In a letter of appeal to Olmert and Peretz, Likud MKs wrote: "Past experience has taught us that giving weapons to the Palestinians has ended in its being turned against the IDF and Israeli citizens

I see Abbas is pushing for a referendum on an independent Palestinian state.
I guess that consigns the proposition of a 'binational state’ to the dust bin of history-where it rightly belongs. On this and other recent stands, Abbas is shaping as a prime candidate for the Nobel Peace prize. -and a Gandhiesque figure for his people

An independent Palestinian state? What, side by side with the West Bank settler state and Israel improper? And what about my question? You've had your holiday and time to think - how about an answer? Oh, and before you get too carried away by Ghandi: he had sufficient sense and morality to reject political Zionism.