Strewth,

Neither Ahmadenijad, Nasrallah or Hamas will ever accept your "workable-solution". It was tried not once before. Israel made several offers along those lines, but they were all rejected. Israel would be happy to give those cursed territories to moderate Arabs - but there are none in sight (except Egypt and Jordan who, being wise, refuse to go anywhere near): due to the undemocratic nature of Islamic society, it is always the extremists in control while moderates cower, and the extremists will rest at nothing short of wiping Israel (or any other non-Arab/Persian entity) off the map. In fact they will not stop there either - look at Iraq: the day after Israel is gone, strong Shiite Iran will send weak Suni Palestinians and Suni Lebanese to the gas chambers, and after that - country-by-country, Europe, Australia... A strong Israel is the only thing preventing the middle east and ultimately the whole world, from looking like Ruwanda and Bosnia.

If you think that those terrorists care the least about the Palestinians, your are very deluded. They only need them for propaganda, they only need them when they are poor and miserable, so they can show their wounds to the world. You claim to be humanist, but there is nothing further from humanism than those terrorists.

I am sad for innocent Palestinians and Lebanese, but until they are able to shake off their Islamic dictators, or allow Israel to do it for them, they will have to continue suffering.

Yuyu, we've been through all of this before, haven't we? So I'll be justifiedly blunt. Neither Israel nor yourself have an iota of interest in a solution, workable or otherwise, to the ME conflict. How dare you (and the rest of the Zionist cheer squad) continue to insult us with your lies, delusions and prejudices: your nonsense about so-called Israeli peace "offers" and lack of peace partners, your disgusting, paranoid Islamophobia, and your twisted apocalyptic fantasies about Israel being wiped off the map and Jews being driven into the sea. Haven't you noticed that it's only you and your dwindling band of Zionist zealots believe in this nonsense any more? Haven't you noticed the world's collective rolling of the eyes whenever you regurgitate this tripe? Yuyu, it simply doesn't work any more.

Strewth, I am not a zionist zealot, and indeed as you say, zionist zealots are a dwindling band, also in Israel. What you get instead are ordinary, reasonable and realistic people who just want to get on with their normal life, as individuals, as families and as a nation.

(One caveat: usually zealots dwindle over time, but when Israel is attacked and terrorized as in the last month, for a while it actually helps them increase their ranks and thwarts government efforts to control them)

Israel is eager for a solution. [Except for a headache-inducing zealot minority group,] Israelis want to live pecaefully at least as Australians and any other nation, but sometimes one has to call a spade a spade: if this is not possible, then one has to admit it and get on with life without it, accepting the need to be prepared for war as part of life, and that inevitably from time-to-time, Israelis will be called to defend their country, suffer painful casualties and be harassed and offended by people like you.

Strewth,you and Marilyn refuse to acknowledge the reality of the world's dependency on Middle East oil.Certainly US foreign policy has been attrocious,however the oil must flow or there will be another world war.

US foreign policy is feeding the Islamic Facists.Had the US premoted democracy 60 yrs ago instead of the backing ruthless dictators,they would not be in the quagmire that they are experiencing now.That said,the US are the best mediating influence we have in the world today.The UN is too corrupt and gutless and Europe just lets the US do all the dirty work in securing the oil for their comfortable lifestyles,while it snipes from the sidelines because it is hamstrung by it's own Islamist Fundies who will go tropo at the slightest provocation.

Now put aside your ranting bile and tell us how you would keep the peace,keep the oil flowing and stop the Fundi Muslims from seeking the destruction of Israel.

Good for you Arjay, except when we peaceniks said the Iraqi invasion was only about the oil we were howled down. Seems with the price of oil doubling instead of going down to the $20 a barrel that Murdoch predicted that we were right.

Hmmmm....Then we get to whether Hamas or Nasrullah care about the people of Palestine and Lebanon. Well Hamas's political and social welfare group is trying to restore water, food and electricity that the Israelis blew up to collectively punish the Palestinians - again.

Nasrullah is funding each bombed out Lebanese family with $15,000 US, which is vastly more than our government has done for the victims of Cyclone Larry I believe.

As the US helped to plan this catastrophe and inflict it on the Lebanese as a trial run for Iran they should be forced to pay for the appalling damage we are seeing in towns and villages all over the south of Lebanon.

Marilyn I was totally against the invasion of Iraq and like many others predicted it would be their next Vietnam.They have not replaced Saddham with a better regime.Iraq with it's religious fundies looks like decending into chaos.This is not good for the stability of The Middle East or the rest of the World.US foreign policy has been disgusting,it has just created more terrorists,however the Muslim Facists are a far worse alternative.If they had the nuclear weapons of the US or Israel,they would not hesitate in using them on their enemies.

The US is a rapidly diminishing world power and China who doesn't have a good human rights track record would take the Middle East in the blink of an eye,if not for the might of the US.China with its population and the military might of the US,could control the entire planet,dictating to us how and where we should live.There needs to be a balance of power that controls the undemocratic forces on this planet which far outnumber the democracies of the West.

Sucking up to Muslim Facists will not make the world a better place.Bush used Sept 11 for kinds of stupidity and only created more terrorists.The West needs to consolidate its forces and wisdom,as it did during WW2 and confront the forces of Facism whether they be communist or religious.It is time that the European countries also contributed to world stability instead of being comfortable arm chair critics.If we don't fight for our freedoms,they will cease to exist,as in Afghanistan,Saudi Arabia,Zimbabwe and the once mighty USSR.