Again, I repeat the words of Desmond Tutu,
April 2002:

"People are scared in this country (the US),
to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish
lobby is powerful - very powerful.
Well, so what?
For goodness sake, this is God's world!
We live in a moral universe.
The apartheid government was very powerful,
but today it no longer exists.
Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Pinochet, Milosevic,
and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end
they bit the dust. Injustice and oppression will
never prevail. Those who are powerful have to
remember the litmus test that God gives to the
powerful: what is the treatment of the poor, the
hungry, the voiceless?
And on the basis of that, God passes judgement.
We should put out a clarion call to the government
of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people
and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice
is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to
achieve this peace, because it is God's dream, and you
will be able to live amicably together as sisters and
brothers."

Encouraging hatred either on one side or the other,
should be discouraged. Because no one has a monopoly
on suffering - and being one-eyed does not solve
anything. There is enough hatred in the world. We
certainly don't need more of it on OLO. Lighten up
people, it takes two to have a conflict - there's
two sides to every injustice. However, enough is
enough. It's time for this conflict to stop.

The ball is now in the court of the international
community, and the US. A red-light needs to be
shone brightly. STOP NOW! Enough have died!
We don't need any more corpses.

Much ranting going on still on OLO - at least Israel has now ceased fire unilaterally.

Nice to see Boazy out of his burqha :) FWIW I had a couple of 'Server Error' screens earlier today, but they were fine after a F5 refresh.

I note that punter57 appears to be yet another wingnut who likes to spray wantonly but doesn't respond to refutation from his/her targets. Yawn - OLO's full of them.

Off to the coast for a few days with the kids. Do be nice to each other :)

Bushbred,

The punter's qualifications are a major in applied ignorance. Incidentally, what are your qualifications in history, just curious.

BOAZ_David,

Yes, we can agree on the inadequacies of Islamic civilisation, such as it is. I'm certainly concerned about the threat that accommodation to Moslem demands poses to the liberal democratic state and I have some knowledge of the history of Islamic aggression. However to claim Israel as an ally is a great mistake, the Zionists are fighting their own war against the indigenous Palestinians for their own reasons.

Punter57,

You still don't appear to understand, Israel needs a crisis in Gaza as an excuse not to negotiate. If the Gazans disappeared tomorrow, Israel would find another justification not to return to its 1967 borders. The Zionists will never leave the West Bank unless the US forces them, what are the chances of that occurring? The Holocaust is an explanation for Israel's oppressive behaviour NOT a justification.

Gibo,

I've never seen as much anti-Arabism, I'm shocked and appalled.

Not much can be gained by Israel firing shells into GAZA now that the incursion is into its third week. More innocent lives will be killed without much gain to the Israelis.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/01/17/robertson.israel.shocking.news.cnn

Games plan for Israel is most likely to assassinate the leaders of HAMAS.

For the first time in many years real peace can be achieved if Palestinians recognize the country of Israel.

Lasting peace is guaranteed if Israel withdraws to pre-1967 border and, Obama and Hilary Clinton of the US helping with the Palestinian/Israeli negotiations.

Hamas has the power to stop the conflict tomorrow by not firing missiles at Israel's civilian population.

Israel can stop the conflict how? By standing back and allowing missiles to kill its people?

While this might be an over simplification I have yet to see anything that contradicts this.

Israel is not attacking any other palestinian area for the simple reason that it is not being attacked.

Hamas in following its dictates that Israel must be destroyed has brought death to its own people and its leaders should be held accountable.

(Philip Tang):'For the first time in many years real peace can be achieved if Palestinians recognize the country of Israel.'

It is not Hamas’ responsibility to recognise the country of Israel, any more than it was Sinn Féin’s or the IRA’s responsibility to recognize Northern Ireland as part of the UK, or the ANC’s responsibility to recognize the Apartheid State in South Africa, or Fretilin’s responsibility to recognise Indonesia’s rule over East Timor.

Yet all these ‘terrorist’ organisations were able to successfully negotiate a peace deal, once their enemies finally recognized that – over the long term - a giant military arsenal is no match for a just cause.

The political leadership of Hamas has said many times that it would accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and has offered a long-term truce on that basis. Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, publicly repeated this offer on 8 November, in which he stated:

"Our conflict is not with the Jews; our problem is with the occupation.