I want publicly to congratulate Antony Lowenstein and others, some of whom I know personally, on their brave and timely initiative, and Dr Larry Stillman on his measured analysis of the context. This is a debate we should be having. I am not Jewish by religion - I am a practicing Catholic brought up in that faith - but I am proud that my mother was Jewish, and a refugee from her homeplace Vienna after the Nazi Anschluss in 1939. Yes, I know that makes me Jewish in terms of Jewish tradition under which identity customarily passes down through the mother. And I know that in any case, as a person with just one Jewish parent, I would have been marked for the camps had I lived in Europe under Nazi rule - a sobering thought.

It is a painful but necessary debate now involving the Australian Jewish community. I have crossed swords on occasion with the AIJAC and I have a low opinion of them. I know they do mot speak for Australian Jews but for a particular hard-right neo-con faction, now becoming more and more discredited as the truth emerges about what is really happening in the Middle East.

Tony Kevin

As a retired farmer, formerly poorly educated but having developed an intense interest in political philosophy, might say that the Israelis, mostly former people who were cruelly and obscenely murdered by the German Nazis, have now proven their true potential regarding most all aspects of what we might term Western progress.

Moreover, it is thus so interesting that though the Nazis appeared to regard the Jews as low life, it may otherwise have been that they feared that Jewish proven success in business and leadership may have caused a fear of them possibly polluting what the Nazis believed was a superior Germanic or Anglo culture.

Also we do pay respect to the way the Jews as Israelis are proving themselves, leaving the Arabs next door with verily little thoughts about progress, and mostly resigned to an afterlife.

But looking at the whole Middle East in a democratic sense, or better still by using balance of power principles - a critical adjunct of political philosophy - for the US and allies to have allowed Israel to go militarily nuclear may prove to be one of the most disastrous decisions of modern times.

The above is the only reason that Iran would want to build an atomic arsenal, and yet may not only set most of the Middle East aflame, but much of the Islamic world.

Ode to the decisions of those who have little sense of the real future. Certainly John Howard with his misplaced loyalties is proving to be well among them. where

"leaving the Arabs next door with verily little thoughts about progress, and mostly resigned to an afterlife."

I guess you haven't been to Dubai. And perhaps you don't know alot about the educational and business achievements of the Palestinian diaspora. For instance, did you know that Joe Hockey is of Palestinian heritage?

It is difficult for someone who is not a Jew but who is deeply appreciative of the contribution Jews have made to culture and science, to observe the mess they have made of creating their own state of Israel. Perhaps nothing has been more disadvantageous for world peace than the uncritical support given to Israel by the US. Organisations like the Anti-Defamation League, which links criticism of Israel with anti-semitism to maximise the corporate power of US capital, and Christians United for Israel, which is encouraging George Bush in his apocalyptic visions of Armageddon and the Rapture,
have helped create a hell on earth in Palestine. The lack of effective criticism of Israel is astonishing.

This article is timely and an expression of support for those critical of current directions within the state of Israel appropriate. Publishing such an article in OLO is most apt as I believe this discussion should not belong exclusively to the Jewish community.

Well said Irfan. There are many hard working and successful Palestinian people in the Australian community.

Irfan, may be mistaken seeing you've been there, but thought Dubai was always a Western-inspired effort.

As a matter of fact in a University of Third Age group where I have been taking groups in Philosophical Topics, one of our members was a former nurse in Dubai who says how even in the medical areas most of the undergrads are usually preferably Western, and even if the locals get work, they are given lower wages.

In fact, most of our social scientists regard Dubai a bit like a heap of Crusader castles, not bringing democracy to the Middle East, but the American Way, as it happened to be Western Christian Way back in the Crusader days.

Looks like George W's presidential offsider, Dickie Cheney could be shifting his mob of Halliburton oily camp followers over there permanently.

Hells Bells, will us Westerners ever learn? As Mubarek of Egypt let fly against some smart ar-se British journalists when they asked what the real problem in the Middle East was?

Simply Western intrusion an injustice