Glenwriter: It's all relative, of course, but any study of history since WW2 would reveal that in the game of tearing up international law and engaging in acts of serial aggression against the neighbours, Israel and the US would win hands down. The rest of the world certainly has its faults, but with these two we're in the realm of psychopathology.

At 11:49:09 PM on July 25th, Hamlet aka the Prince of Denmark, said the following: "Of course we know what Israelis do to Prime Ministers who actually try to achieve peace."

I would suggest on the basis of this comment that should we should forthwith stop any Muslims travelling anywhere. After all, we know what they do when they get on planes.

Rancitas here speaking on behalf of Rancitas.
Leigh says:
“You (Irfan) keep bad mouthing people who dare to criticise Islam in a pathetic attempt to keep our minds off their foul Islamist deeds. As the saying goes, not all warriors are combatants.

Unlike you, I will not use any of the derogatory names that could be applied to you. Suffice to say that I hold you in contempt. Your childish name calling will not silence me.”

(You'd have to be a bit girlie to let Irfan silence you).

Leigh, like a true hypocrite, says: “Noticed that Carl and Rancitas are still on illegal substances - “

Now that is groundless “bad mouthing” of people who dare to criticise Israel.

You don’t use derogatory names? No you just tell direct, derogatory unfounded lies to childishly assassinate the character of those whose information you can’t debate without getting into one of your tizzies.

Leigh you really need to do a bit of self analysis.

Leigh I guess you would be up to the Nazi’s third measure (see below).

You, Leigh, are proving beyond doubt that you are a dishonest poster. You have destroyed our own credibility. Keep it up.

Right-winger rules of engagement.

First, you ignore the charges, hoping the information will not be given
widespread distribution.
Second If the information starts reaching too many people, you ridicule the
information and the persons giving the information.
Third If that doesn't work, your next step is character assassination. If the
author or speaker hasn't been involved in sufficient scandal, you are
adept at fabricating scandal against the person or persons.
Fourth If none of these are effective, you are know to resort to physical attacks.

But, NEVER do you try to prove the information wrong.

Leigh to a tee. You've lost your way as a poster.

drooge “What would you call it other than disproportionate?”

As I commented, originally, what anyone sees as “disproportionate force” depends on the perspective.

It is all nice and dandy for the Secretary General of the UN to proclaim “disproportionate force” but it is not his “captivity” and “very life” which is at stake.

I have watched the Israeli / Palestinian conflict drag itself across the decades. It reminds me of the rhyme of the ancient mariner – just substitute Israel for the Mariner and Palestine for the dead albatross around his neck..

Whilst Israel has not always acted in a manner I would, personally condone or support, the Palestinian Authority has NEVER acted in a manner I would personally condone or support.

The description which sticks most convincingly to Arafat (and from him Palestinians in general) was “he was a man who never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

Despite a momentarily glimmer that, with Arafat’s death, things could change, they have not.

Now Hamas are dragging the Palestinians backward, into a morass of poverty, not Israel.

It is Hezbollah who are taking Lebanon into the same bog of deprivation as the Palestinians, not Israel. It is Syria and Iran who are fighting a proxy war using the Palestinians as their dupes.

The sooner the UN recognises that Palestinians have demonstrated a fundamental inability to govern themselves and need a colonial authority to administer them, the sooner the lifestyle of ordinary folk in the Gaza strip will improve.

The sooner the organisation which is deemed illegal by most democratic countries, Hezbollah, is deemed illegal and driven into extinction in Lebanon, the sooner the ordinary majority of non-Hezbollah Lebanese will be able to resume the productive and peaceful lifestyle which they previously enjoyed as a French Colony.

All the appeasers and apologists – Israel has fought before for its very existence, since 1948 and most particularly 1967.
When Egypt drove tanks into Israel, it was defeated and eventually saw the light.

It is Hamas and Hezbollah who are blocking out that same light from ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese.

Traditional lyrics by people who understand the futility of war.

Oh how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun?
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fall-in named Nineteen-Sixteen.
Well I hoped you died quick, and I hoped you died clean,
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

And Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some loyal heart, is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in Nineteen-Sixteen,
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen,
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
In an old photograph torn, tattered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame

Chorus

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow,
No gas, no barbed wire; no guns firing now!
But here in this graveyard, that's still no mans land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To a man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation where butchered and damned

Chorus

And I can't help but wonder oh Willie McBride,
Do all those that lie here know why they died,
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause,
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffring', the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing and dying it was all done in vain.
Oh Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again!

Chorus
end
Stop.

Thanks Greg for your gutsy piece ,
Israel certainly appears to be heading for failed state status .
How can they explain a missile right through the "+" sign of the RED CROSS vehicle and the targeting of the UNITED NATIONS POST and killing of the UN peace-keepers.
They have managed [by hard work and continued stupidity] to get a large part of the world's opinion against them and now stand condemned. No amount of their slick PR will help.
It's a horrible and gross overreaction by the Israeli Defence Force that damns many of its peace loving citizens to a life of fear.