Israel does not occupy Gaza. It left that territory some time ago and established there a democratic state. The people elected a Hamas government which has in its charter the elimination of Israel and fires hundreds of deadly rockets at its neighbour. The world, including Europe has placed a boycott on Gaza as a result. Hamas has gone on a murderous rampage to place itself permanently in power. The poor Gazans are paying heavily for voting for mad fanatics. If Israel were to intervene to restore democracy the usual suspects would complain yet again.

Gaza has a border with Egypt, an Arab neighbour, which has closed itself off to Gaza. The Egyptians, who the Gazans are not attacking, have no stomach for Hamas either. Surprisingly much of the western press manages to criticize Israel for the Egyptian actions. Israel, which supplies electric power to Gaza was recently criticized for Gaza blackouts when the supply from Israel was still there.

The China Post English language edition gives a different and truer perspective of the ME situation. For example it reported correctly that Israel had not stopped electricity supply to Gaza. China Post comes from Taiwan, a predominantly Buddhist country which has no historic antipathy to Judaism. Could this be the difference?

Christianity and Islam alike have as their objective the conversion of the whole world to their respective faiths, claiming that divine benefits flow only to their own supporters, perhaps that is the problem. Asian religions, as with Judaism preach that there are many paths to Paradise.

it is conveniently ignored that the nazis tried to solve the 'jewish problem' by exporting them, but could find no place that would receive them, in any significant number. this doesn't excuse the final solution, but it does make clear that the developed, western world regarded the european jews as someone else's problem.

after the war, they solved the jewish problem by giving them their own land. the fact that moslems lived on that land and were about 85% of the population was ignored. everyone congratulated themselves on solving the jewish question. well, not everyone, the people who lived in palestine before european jews poured in to take their homes at gunpoint were not impressed by the justice of the dispossession.

some of them continue to fight, as would i. they have justice on their side, which is less valuable than the patronage of the u. s. a. but more enduring. the zionists are simply bandits. they complain bitterly that the victims of their invasion will not lay down and die quietly, out of sight. when hamas strikes it's feeble blows, that is the home owner trying to get back his home. when israel retaliates, that is the bandit home invaders compounding their crimes.

don't waste any sympathy on the zionists, irgun made their bed, let them learn what being on the other end of terrorism is like.

Firstly, lest anyone accuse me of being anti-Jewish, I don't care what god or gods people choose to worship as long as they don't try to inflict them on me. However, I do care for the truth.

The article is based on a lie. The truth is that in 1948 the Israelis dispossessed from their homes and farms by brute force, using guns and bulldozers, about 700 000 to 900 000 indigenous Palestinian Arabs. This is recorded by the Isreali historian Ilan Pappe. The truth is that the Israelis have continued to ignore aspects of the Geneva Conventions and a great many UN resolutions indicating that they should take a somewhat more polite attitude to the human beings they have dispossessed.This includes not murdering civilains in refuggee camps, as happened in Lebanon in 1982.

The truth is that people who have been driven out of their homes by force of arms are recognised by the UN as having the right to fight back to remove the occupiers. It is a truth that holds for me should Indonesia try to dispossess me from Australia, and it also applies equally both to those Jewish heroes who fought back in Warsaw against the Nazis and to the Palestinians driven out by force of arms to wherever they now live. I will not comment on Israel's atomic weapons, or much about the fact that Israel now rates as one of the most highly armed nations in the world, or much about the fact that Israel had a kill ratio of 20 Palestinian Arabs to 1 Israeli during the first Intifada (tanks and fighter aircraft against stone-throwers). All this is well-documented by Israeli historians who are not frightnend to speak out against abomination.

There will be those who claim god gave Israel to the Jews in Bibilical times. From my reading of the Bible, Moses and his mates invaded Palestine by force of arms and promptly set about murdering the opposition. And I couldn't care less what religous beliefs were held by Moses and his mates. Invasion and murder is still invasion and murder.

It waa Edward Said who described the Palestinians (correctly in my view) as victims of the victims.

The establishment through the UN of the Israeli state was to my mind an act of genocide against the Palestinian people. That genocide and its consequences continue today.

A one state solution - a democratic and secular Palestine - in which all who want to can live appears to me the only long term solution. It is not on the agenda now, or in the foreseeable future.

HenryVIII

My reading of the bible is a little different. My understanding is that God fulfilled his promise and delivered the Jews to the promised land. However, it was Jewish sin that led to the distruction of the second temple and the diapora. In other words, unless I missed a burning bush or something, God fulfilled his promise and never invited the Jews back.

Passy,

Edward Said may have described the Palestinans as the victims of victims but that doesn't make him right. In every Western country where there is a Jewish minority, without exception, you'll find it to be the wealthest, best educated, and most politically powerful of all minorities. In short, there is no minority that compares to its power and status. The fact that we must endure constant bleating about Jewish 'victims' and the holocaust just proves my point.

To be honest, I couldn't care less about the holocaust. Jews constantly tell us we must remember so it doesn't happen again. Yet where were the Jewish voices speaking up during Pol Pots murderous reign? What about Rwanda? What about Bosnia? The truth is the Jews couldn't care less because to recognise other people's suffering might detract from their own monopoly on suffering.

Something like 5000 people die every day from preventable diseases today. Yet all we hear is bleating about something that happened 65 years ago! If you want to see suffering go to Darfur, go to just about any country in the world today and you'll find it. You could start by looking at Central Australia.

Lev, it’s fraudulent to claim to disassociate from Hamas’ racist aims and then to support all of its tactics and strategies including the war crimes it commits against its own people when it uses them for cover to fight its battles let alone to claim that there is any justification whatsoever to target innocent civilians on the Israeli side of the border.

I'm amazed also at all of the international lawyers and political scientists who have come out of the woodwork here with their false interpretations.

How about getting real and doing something in the name of peace and reconciliation between the people in the region instead of spreading malevolent hatred.