I note you are unwilling to discuss any of the evidence I have provided.

So lets talk about the evidence you have provided.

IDF:3 children killed in Gaza Tuesday were just playing tag"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/899414.html

What you so conveniently left out was that these children were ‘playing’ next to a rocket launcher used to fire rockets into Israel. Israel only had aerial photographs of the area, so determining whether the people approaching the launcher were children was impossible. What normal person allows their children to play near rocket launchers anyway?

This is the problem that always comes up when an insurgent group hides behind the civilian population. Besides, the Palestinians have a history of using children to move weapons and bombs because they know the Israelis are loathe to attack them.

As a democratic society, Israeli newspapers are free to report on this awful incident. As your hyperlink shows. The same could not be said for the Palestinians. Hamas have no time for any of these freedoms.

I suppose Israel gave back the Sinai to Egypt because the Egyptians forced them to as well? Israel never had territorial ambition in South Lebanon. They were forced to attack after numerous incursions by the Iranian funded Hezbollah terror organization.

Your contention that Israel is suppressing Palestinian arts is petty and in the end, just ridiculous. You have no evidence for it at all.

If, as you say, Israel is building a wall to suppress the Palestinians, why have they left 90% of the West Bank on the Palestinian side? This leaves large settler communities on the wrong side of the fence.

Pro-settler opponents claim that the barrier is a sly attempt to artificially create a border that excludes the settlers, creating "facts on the ground" that justify the mass dismantlement of hundreds of settlements and displacement of over 100,000 Jews from the land they claim as their biblical homeland.

I have already provided links detailing deliberate palestinian attacks on schoolbuses. How can you defend that?

Shame on you for distorting the facts and using such a tragic event to score points

Earthrise,

Do you really know what national identity and culture mean. Don't you think you are being reactionary.

Traditional Palestinian culture/identity was necessarily restrictive - old forms of social organisation depended upon traditional heirachies such as clanship, family, and local noteables - and, especially, absence of wormen. This has now have been replaced with public theatre, arts and music, which includes men and women, young and old.

Perhaps you wish Palestinians to return to their rigid and traditional clanship identity; hardly conducive to a vital developing and all-embracing national culture

The arts in Palestine are flourishing - music, literature, theatre, visual arts. These are also exported to Europe, Canada and the USA. This addresses their life - all arts, good art, reflects the society in which they live.

Restrictions are those of self-censorship and determined by the ruling parties under which they live. Under an organisation such as Hamas, a gun to the head is a great persuader.

PNT, Palestinian National Theatre, established in 1984, has a more informative and sophisticated site than we see within mainstream theatre in this country. Go to their links site and then state that Palestinain culture is being wiped out - and these are just a handful of cultural sites.

http://www.pnt-pal.org/links.php

The Palestinian theatre company, Al-Kasaba theatre, established 1970; opened at a Ramallah venue, travelling across the West Bank. They performed at London's Young Vic theatre and Royal Court theatre, also at Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, USA.

"The image of Palestinians," George Ibrahim, its founder, told his US crowd, "especially in America, is that of terrorists. But we are human beings. We are artists. And this is our life."

Six American playwrights including Kia Corthron, Tony Kushner, Robert O'Hara, Betty Shamieh met with Palestinian theatre artists and playwrights - in both Gaza and the West Bank (prior to Hamas’ devastation of Gaza, of course).

INAD Theatre, established in 1987, in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, is registered with the Palestinian Ministry of Culture as a non-profit Center for Theatre and Arts.

cont ...

Earthrise,

What is the solution you are proposing?

Danielle- Dont blame the West for their perception of muslims as terrorists. Blame your fellow extremist muslims for that.

The PAC, Popular Arts Centre, the leading cultural centre in the West Bank, was founded in 1987, its initial impetus was a forum for local dance groups, musicians and artistcs. They organize annual, music and dance festivals.

Haifa University has a resident Palestinian Theatre company, Al Haqawatti.

Palestinian theatre has been discussed in such prestigeous journals as Theatre Journal, and Contemporary Theatre Review .

In Wiki, Palestinian writers 31 pages, Australian 5.

Need I continue ...

An observation: Compare Palestinian arts will the appalling state of Australian arts in every field, and noteably theatre. Where are our current wave of playwrights? It appears it is we who are experiencing a cultural identity crisis in the arts, not the Palestinians.

Everyone would welcome a Ghandi or Mandella in Palestine - then both Israel and a new state of Palestine would live side by side in peace. I notice the irony in your comment - you state “Palestine lacks”. This is the crux of the matter - the insanity of leaderships within the Palestinian peoples, leaderships who are all about self advancement and power; not about the people themseves.

George Ibrahim stated, the average Palestinian is not a terorrist; but they are being exploited and sacrificed by terrorist organisations, organisations from which Israel has every right to defend itself.

You, and others, need to explore the psychology of terrorism.

Terrorists as willingly kill their own people as their perceived enemy; if innocents (on their side) are killed as a consequence of terrorist actions - its happily exploited as propoganda - the more innocents killed in the line of fire, the more celebratiom.

Knowing Israeli policy is not to target civilians, the Hamas used civilians as shields when striking at Israel. They aired this on TV. Consequence - the Israelis aborted a retalitory strike.

Sharkfin,

I lived in a multi-cultural/racial Muslim society for many years. The average, kind-hearted, Muslim is as much a victim of terrorist activies as we are -perhaps more so. In the West Bank and Gaza, they experience covert and overt terrorism by their leadership, daily.

Yazoo,

It is a pretty simple solution, which has been there for quite some time. In 2002, the Arab League offered Israel what Ben Gurion couldn't have dreamed of, a peace treaty between Israel and the Arab world, including full normalisation and trade. All Israel has to do is pull back to the international border (the Green Line), share Jerusalem as their capital and compensate the refugees caused by the creation of Israel. It was re-affirmed last year by the Saudis, it is everything Israel says she wants. Except what they don't say they want.

Of course they really want to keep the West Bank. They want the Jordan Valley for defence, and more importantly, control over the water in the River Jordan. But mainly they want all those places in the Bible (Judea and Sumeria), which inconveniently millions of Palestinians have lived on for thousands of years. If Israel truly wanted peace, it is there on the table.

I'm not naive enough to think this will mean total peace in Palestine. Israel will still be seen by a tiny minority as a Crusader Kingdom, and the Israelis' European invaders. They will face criminal attacks, as we all face, by extremists. The difference is Israel will be a law-abiding nation holding the moral high ground, and no one will deny them their right to defend themselves. All they defend at the moment is their ill-begotten gain stolen in 1967, a devastating Occupation and the murder and subjugation of a whole people.

International legitimacy is the only thing that can protect Israel in the medium to long term. Once America's star sets, no-one will lift a finger to defend the undefendable Occupation. Nothing could save the South African regime, not even the support of Israel and the US. Israel is next unless she joins the family of nations and gives back her stolen property, and stops brutalising others.

For those who live by the sword will surely die on it.