I find alot of this confusing, firstly because our media consistently portrays Palestine as the victim and Israel as the aggressor.

A few years ago a news story showed a palestine boy hiding behind his father as bullets were allegedly fired by soldiers from Israel. I naturally felt very angry towards Israel. Then imagine a few years later to find out the the reporters film was staged.

Melanie Phillips has written about this.

Then there was the claim that Israelie jets targetted and ambulance and a picture showed a hole in its roof, without any damage to the interior of the ambulance, it turns out that the ambulance was being used as a rocket launcher.

Whatever else may be said about what is happening in Israel/Palestine the over-riding fact of the matter is that the so caled "settlers" and their world-wide backers and supporters are beyond any kind of rational dialogue.
Why?
Because they firmly believe that Israel/Palestine was (long ago) "promised" to them by their self-serving tribal deity.
They thus have "god's" backing/mandate for their actions.

End of story! No correspondence will be entered into!

JamesH, I presume when you refer to a hoax Palestinian ambulance, you're referring to this story http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance , which is comprehensively reviewed here http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/ambulance-attack-evidence-stands-the-test/2006/09/01/1156817099370.html I think that a report from a real newspaper with a correspondant in Beirut, that includes interviews with witnesses is more credible than a conspiracy theory blog post from the US. But maybe that's just me?

Perhaps you'd be so kind as to post a link to the Melanie Phillips article you mentioned?

It seems like the real campaign being fought in the Middle East is the propaganda war. I'm not sure who's winning, but the truth seems to have gone missing.

Interesting that Israel is disparaged for its treatment of "Israeli Arabs", yet there is no mention of the treatment of Jews and non-Muslims in Arab lands- or the fact that many Israeli Jews arrived there after being chucked out of Arab countries in which they had lived for generations (longer, in fact, than many so-called Palestinians have lived in "Palestine").

One wonders which borders will satisfy the "Palestinians"? Hamas have recently publicly stated (no doubt they say something else in private) that they will accept the 1967 borders, yet the Arabs have been whingeing (and fighting) about the 1967 (and 1948) borders since the formation of Israel.

Why is the world so keen to support Muslims trying to regain the territory won in conquest, of dar-ul-Islam, now regained by its rightful owners? Should we support Osama bin Laden's claim to Spain?

Ho Hum,

What you and those like you ignore is the fact that it was only after two invasions by massive combined Arab armies that the settlers you speak of came into existence. The 1967 6 day war was the second time in 20 years that the combined might of the Arab world tried to exterminate Israel. They gave it another go in 1973.

If you really want to see racism, look to how non muslims are treated in the Arab world. If you hold this beside the treatment of Israeli Arabs and can’t see the difference then you are ignorant and stupid.

Have a look at the Hamas charter if you want to see how truly racist this organization is. Some highlights

>> Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

>> "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

>> "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

>> "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

Hitlers Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are two of the most popular books in the Arab world. Yet these are the people Lowenstein calls the true representatives of the Palestinian people

Until such times as Arabs stop blowing themselves up in crowded restaurants and schools, I think it is unsurprising that Israelis don’t want to live in the same buildings. It’s an unfortunate fact of the ongoing war.

Actually there are interesting parallels between David and Goliath and Israel and Palestine. While received wisdom is that little David was a brave hero for going out and facing big Goliath, some consideration would show David to have been a coward hiding behind superior weaponry. David, with his projectile weapon, outranged Goliath; and consequently could, and did, stand outside Goliath's range and shot him. Goliath was not only big, but apparently dumb as well - he brought a knife to a gun fight!