Marilyn,

I’m not in the habit of bowing to the demands of semi literate, pseudo-leftist BIGOTS. I’m afraid that the only one DELUSIONAL here is YOU! Your astoundingly simplistic analysis and your inability to grasp even the most basic facts mark you out as a REACTIONARY of the highest order. Your limited ability to regurgitate Pilger or the more extreme of Israel’s New Historians doesn’t make you right, let alone any kind of expert. It’s hard enough to deal with educated people like Bushbred claiming they have all the answers. Coming from an hysterical grievance monger like yourself, it is intolerable. There is a good reason why most of my questions are aimed at Lev and not at you. Generally I refuse to debate the stupid and the incompetent. Why don’t you go and have your tanty elsewhere and let the adults sort all this out. There’s a dear

Paul and Spy,

Judiasm doesn't deserve a state anymore than the Catholics or Muslims. The sooner we have completely secular states the better. Evidence? The evidence is the body count. As a people who have largely been on the receiving end of the use of religion to abuse human beings, I would expect the Israeli state to behave better. The rise of religious fundamentalism among the Palestinians can be directly linked by the failure for a state to be provided over the past forty years. Nobody here condones their actions, but I certainly the conditions that give rise to them.

Israel's use of collective punishment, and the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilians has been reported by Israeli media (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/901620.html), Amnesty International (http://ngo-monitor.org/article/amnesty_international_assert_that_israel_targets_civilians_), the International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/03/opinion/edbouck.php), and Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/reports/2007/lebanon0907/3.htm#_Toc175028479) among numerous others.

What I find troubling in this debate is whilst everyone is prepared to condemn terrorism from Hamas etc., there are defenders of Israeli state-sponsored terrorism and even denial of it.

If you want peace in a region invite and expand the role of UN-sponsored international peacekeepers, and not merely observers either. People who can shoot back when the situation arises. I have been in areas under UN military command and when given the right scope of operations they are very effective. You want to end the war and see two states? Fine, let's draw the map and have massive international military occupation; and let's see who objects the most to this suggestion.

Danielle,

I already know there is multiple definitions for Mihu Yehudi, and I am well aware of its history. I am not interested in how religions themselves define it, nor am I interested in a State defines it, except where it becomes a means of exclusion from political and civil rights (such as Teudat Zehut or the Nuremberg Laws and Mischling).

Lev,

Sol would have explained “Mihu Yehudi” - also party politics.

Israel’s Supreme Court does and often, over-rule decisions made along any religious grounds. If you really understood the political and civil rights of all inhabitants of Israel, you would be aware of this.

You can’t ignore Hamas’ treatment if its people. Israel never deliberately attacks civilians. Last year Hamas, imbedded in a civilian neighbourhood, televised a program from where it was shelling Israel. Israel immediately aborted its defensive operation.

Re-read the articles you provided, analyse the context, and what is being stated, what is not being stated, nor asked, nor addressed; indeed interrogate the comments of both the interviewer and person/s interviewed; and read the sub-text. For goodness sake, Lev, read them in hindsight of what you now know.

Logically, if Israel acted as you state it does, then it would have brought all its problems to and end once and for all.

Israel is effectively under a constant state of emergency. You disregard Hamas’ shells as crude. But they are not inconsequential and are targetted at vulnerable areas such as schools. Children in these areas carry flak-jackets and helmets. Warning signals are about 5-15 seconds - inadequate time to reach shelters - so they have metal school desks to get under.

Any day Israel could be attacked in a full scale war. No country, no state, functions as normal in day-to-day activities under such circumstances. There has to be constant checks - and for everyone. Whatever those outside such situations think, this becomes as normal as breathing. Remember that Israel does not initiate attacks, unless absolutely vital, but Israel is certainly duty bound to respond.

The last time UN peacekeepers where in the area, the Egyptians asked them to leave ... which they did, doffing their caps. Egypt then attacked Israel. UN peace-keepers are only effective when both sides want peace.

Read Bellum Iustum, preferably in the original language, and with subsequent glosses. Indeed read later philosophical treatises on the same subject. Islam’s Bellum Iustum is “Qann-i Jihad” - a good translation is by Shehzad Saleem.

cont ...

Israel, like other countries, has “rules of engagement” which are strictly enforced. All evidence shows that Hamas don’t.

Terrorist run Gaza attacked Nahal Oz fuel terminal on 9th April, the only channel used by Israel to deliver fuel to the Gaza Strip. Apart from killing Israelis operating this terminal, the terminal necessarily shut down for a week during which Hamas did their song-and-dance propaganda routine accusing Israel of deliberating cutting off fuel to Gaza. The terminal now functional, has resumed delivery of diesel fuel and crude oil in quantities sufficient to operate the Gaza Strip power station, and of cooking gas and gasoline for emergency vehicles.

Regarding electricity, a Gaza power station supplies only 30% of resident’s consumption , Israel supplies 60%, and Egypt 10%. None of this has been affected by the blockade. Nevertheless, Hamas is now waging a propaganda campaign against both Israel and Egypt.

Al-Ahram, the Egyptian daily (15 April, 2008). A front page coverage by Tari Hassan states that Hamas plans to breach the Egyptian-Palestinian border, shelling posts and killing Egyptian soldiers; also detonating tunnels packed with explosives between Gaza and Egypt. Hassan reports that on April 12 Hamas’ sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Qlab a preacher in a Khan Yunis mosque issued a fatwa authorising the killing of Egyptian soldiers. Osama Saraya , Al-Ahram's editor in chief, confirmed that this information and Hamas’ collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood had come from sources in the Gaza Strip and Egypt (Al-Arabiya TV, April 15). Iran and Syria are also implicated. Hassan claims that Hamas’ intention is to force Gazans into Egypt.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri denied this, in turn accusing Al-Ahram (the establishment run newspaper) of inciting Egyptian soliders to kill Palestinians.

Marilyn's got a point Paul L, albeit put a little too bluntly for the semantics among us. Judaism is no more exceptional than the church of the flying spaghetti monster, though it's much better organised. Israel's not the Promised Land, nor is it home of the Chosen Ones. It's a chunk of land nicked from someone else & they want it back.

A large amount of what has occurred over the last 50-odd years can be summed up in two words - "occupied terrritories". The article was defensive from start to end. It wasn't mentioned once.

Danielle et al, you say Israel has every right to have a homeland, but what right has Israel to hold the balance of power in the Middle East with its array of loaded nuclear rockets?

Along with other mature age academic philosophers and historians do say that we were all so grateful that those left of the horrid Nazi exterminant camps were able to return to their own true homeland.

But to have so quickly allowed even those who suffered such hideous sufferings under the Nazis, to begin building the means to create atomic torture and havoc to their natural Arab cousins - even though we also are not in love with those cousins - has sadly made many of us veterans change our historical tunes?