Dane wrote:

"We constantly hear bleating about the holocaust and how we must remember it to prevent it happening again. In every major city in the world millions are spent on memorials and museums to remember. But did this prevent Pol Pot or Rwanda? Where were the Jewish politicians screaming about preventing genocide? What about the Australian Jewish media - did they mount a campaign to condemn genocide? Just recently in Bosnia, did anyone hear anything about from Israel when the Bosnians were being ethnically cleansed? The answer is no, no and no. The brutal facts are that Jews only care about suffering when its Jewish."

The brutal fact is that the above statement is a lie. Israel has taken in Muslim refugees from Bosnia. Jews have been very active in seeking decent treatment for Aborigines and have been in the forefront of protesting the detention of boat people by the Howard government. Part of the purpose of remembrance is to see that it doesn't happen to others.

Psst..David that might be the case for the few in Australia but in Israel they lock up refugees and even deport them to Darfur while the diaspora in the US lobby for the rights of the Darfurians.

And in fact the Palestinians are the only refugees in the world denied their rights of return. By the jews, who were the reason the west wrote the refugee convention in the first place.

It is deranged that Russians, Americans, French and Europeans of all descriptions born in the last few years have a "right" to be in Palestine when the Palestinians who were flung out of the country in the ethnic cleansing are denied that right in spite of dozens of UN resolution saying that Israel had to allow them back.

You all need to grow up. Israel is not a state, it has never been a state and it will never be a state.

It does not want peace, it just wants all the pieces of land around it with no arabs so they can live in their fantasy that they had an empty land.

Marilyn, once again you are posting things that are simply not true.

You wrote: "I see that the Israeli's have denied entry to Jimmy Carter".

Complete rubbish. Jimmy Carter is in Israel now and has met with President Shimon Peres plus other Israeli politicians. You're simply posting factually incorrect information in the hope of smearing Israel. See the following link for the true situation with Carter's visit.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975577.html

Another of your ridiculous statements: "Israel is not a state, it has never been a state and it will never be a state."

If your intention with posts such as that is to come across as someone completely detached from reality then you're doing a fine job.

Finally, you once again assert that Israel "just wants all the pieces of land around it" (in previous posts you've referred to Israel wanting to expand its territory to include parts of Lebanon and other neighbouring states).

Please give me some evidence to support your statement, bearing in mind that Israel previously controlled the Sinai and Gaza and by returning that land it chose to REDUCE, not expand, its territory.

Marilyn is not worth replying to. She makes up nonsense, gets into pointless arguments about linguistics which she doesn't understand, is disordered in her presentations. I don't think she gets any support except from Israeli haters. And they will believe anything, it is a part of their mindset.

A Jewish homeland was planned and begun long before WW2. The declaration of the modern State was after the war but the land was populated with Jews Christians and Muslims goes back long before then. Some Jewish families in Israel long predate Mahomet as do Christian and Samaritans.

Several Islamic states have been practicing a form of religious cleansing, resulting in reductions in non-Muslim populations chiefly Christian. The land of Palestine was a leader in this cleansing process. Many of the ethnically cleansed people from these other lands have been accepted in Israel. This includes Muslim derivations such as the Baha'i who shifted into Haifa.

The Israel haters don't like to hear this, but Israel gives a democratic vote to all, equality in law, allows all religious faiths to build their places of worship, allows atheists and gays to live in peace. This is not the case in many of the Islamic states, when was the last Church built in Saudi Arabia? Why do Jewish schools in Iran not have Jewish headmasters and why are they required to open on the Jewish Sabbath? This would be unacceptable in what most Australians regard as a civilised society.

Israel accepted refugees from Darfur yet the haters misrepresent them them when they closed the doors and said rightly that this is an Arab problem and they cannot take any more.

We hear much about the Palestinian refugees but little about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands let alone Baha'i, Druze, Samaritans etc. They provide about half of Israel's population and had nothing to do with the holocaust. The haters try to dismiss them by being in denial about their treatment in the lands they left - after all we cannot spoil a good prejudice can we?

Continued.

The basis for the American (and Australian support) is simple. They want a reliable democratic presence in the region which contains the Suez Canal and so much of the world's fuel oil reserves. Also Israel is a great innovator in engineering and medicine, we don't want to lose that.

Marilyn,

I agree that Israel is an illegitimate state but the reality is it's here to stay.

There is no theological justification for Israel. God fulfilled his promise by leading the Jews out of captivity into the promised land. It was Jewish sin that led to the destruction of the second temple and the diaspora. God never invited them back; proponents of a racially-ethnic-based nineteenth century nationalist ideology did. Israel is fundamentally illegitimate yet it is here and will stay here.

I think at some point in the future Israel will become a true liberal democracy along western lines. I think Israel is about 20% Arab; so when Arab-Israelis own 20% of Israeli land, populate 20% of the army, constitute 20% of the Knesset and fill other important posts in the judiciary, police, government etc then it might be recognised as a liberal western democracy. As you know there are Nüremburg-type laws which prevent inter-marriage and limit Arabs in the army, civil service etc. This is may not be leading to the same end as the Nazis but the parallels are there. Did the Nazis not ban Jewish-German marriage? Did the Nazis not limit and eventually ban Jews from occupying important positions in the army, judiciary, civil service etc? Were there not many Germans who saw Jews as a fifth column in German society (just as many Jews see Arabs today)?

Not doubt people like logic will call this 'hate'. The truth is in Australia we treat everybody equally. We don't have laws preventing inter-marriage or limiting the rights of some citizens. We aren't occupying anyone's country and we haven't killed thousands of innocent civilians in the past decade. I, and we don't 'hate' anyone.

We have a peaceful society in Australia precisely because we don't hate anyone. My father has a saying: you reap what you sow. Israel was born of terrorism and hatred. It's well documented that Jewish death squads had a policy of sowing terror throughout Palestine to frighten off the Arabs. Israelis today are reaping the rewards of 60 years of hatred against Arabs.