PaulL."These are people who believe in the literal truth of an apocalypse which will bring destruction only to their enemies. "

You must be talking about Christians.

Csteele,

A reality check.

The notion that Iran would risk nuclear annihilation in order to "help" the Palestinians is, frankly, LUDICROUS. States do not behave in that way.

The cowardly and CORRUPT mullahs in Iran are NOT going to get themselves vaporised on behalf of the Palestinians or anyone else?

The Iranians will continue to provide the Palestinians with weaponry that they can use to strike at Israel. Mostly this will take the form of rockets.

But risk a nuclear war?

Nope.

But now I am asking you to consider a deeper question csteele.

When Bush says his motives in Iraq are pure and he is acting in the best interests of the Iraqi people we dismiss this as malarkey. We suspect the welfare of the Iraqi people is not high on whatever agenda the Bush administration is pursuing in Iraq.

Yet many people prepared to assume that Iran's President Ahmadinejad is acting in the best interests of the Palestinians.

Why?

Csteele,

Can you understand that Ahmadinejad's professed concern for the welfare of the Palestinians may be as BOGUS as Bush's concern for the Iraqis?

That Iranian interference in Iraq may have as little to do with the welfare of Iraqis as America's?

Consider that both Iran and the US may be engaging in old-fashioned power politics and that Iraqis and Palestinians are pawns in the game.

If Ahmadinejad truly had the best interests of the Palestinians at heart would Iran be equipping Hamas with rockets? Or would it be offering more in the way of economic assistance?

From your posts I infer that you have much sympathy for the Palestinians. I doubt whether Ahmadinejad shares your sympathies.

Note also csteele that many Muslims also believe in an apocalypse that bring destruction only to their enemies.

Excerpt from an Hadith narrated by Abu Hurira:

"...Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him..."

This hadith, and variants thereof, are often quoted on Arab TV services.

Dear Steven,

"And bitter foes who feel that they will eventually win - do not make peace..." Live with it, Deal with it.

Those words of yours take away all hope. In this world of ours - we need hope so badly, because there's enough hatred in the world.
We've got to think of our children's and grandchildren's future.
What kind of a legacy will we be leaving them - if we accept a world where hatred rules.

Surely the moderates from both sides of the equasion could affect the future outcome? Why are fanatics granted so much influence? Sanity should prevail - but obviously it doesn't.

At least not yet.

I never imagined that the IRA would ever become a somewhat more moderate politically party. Is it possible that in the future Hamas will do the same? Where there's life, there hope.
It isn't much, I know, but it's all we've got.

When a man believes himself to be the "Mahdi" or Muslim messiah..or..partly believes this, and then a body of opinion surrounds him encouraging this belief..and he speaks of supernatural visions at the UN.. ETC...

...the danger is not to Israel if he gets Nukes.. by far the bigger danger is to the USA by stealth.

If Ahmadinajad had this technology, his best bet would be to keep it quiet..and quietly slip some nukes over the US/Mexican border, or.. just place one or 2 in a ship.. which for reasons unknown.. does not seem in any hurry to unload.

LAWYERS and NUKES.
Once America is disabled.. who knows what he might do or try to do.
And given our wonderful system of justice and a veritable ARMY of left leaning "Lets discuss it with them/lets gaze at our navels and work out why all this is our fault/We mussst have 'due process'/ It's all our foreign policy that caused it....LAWYERS..

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
Not to mention the legions of 'They are in fact US.. WE did this to ourselves.. Mossad..the CIA.. its a vicious plot to justify a war' conspiracy theorists....

By the time good ol Ted Kennedy can decide that "WOAH.. it WAS 'them'"
i.e. someone to actually blame besides the USA.. it will be too late.

In fact, some spoon bill/bright spark kinda claims that this type of thing will happen... but then, he also claims to be one of the 'two witnesses' spoken about in Revelation..and his wife is the other one.

http://the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/?gclid=CKCnzKGg_ZMCFSUqagodYjVPWQ
He apparently "knows" things which were not revealed to John. (blink)

But whacko's aside.... I still feel there would not be any kind of serious attack on Israel until the USA was not a threat.

Foxy,

Interesting that you should mention the IRA.

We have to be careful when applying the lessons of one conflict to another. All conflicts are different. There are no "one size fits all" solutions.

However there is a lessons from Northern Ireland that can be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it is this.

Gerry Adams realised that the "armed wing" of the IRA had been DEFEATED.

Thanks to British diplomacy and robust action by various US administrations the IRA's North American support base was haemorrhaging. A new generation of Irish-Americans were asking themselves what the IRA was on about.

Simultaneously support for the "armed wing" of the IRA was slipping in Ireland itself. Ireland was becoming less Catholic and VERY PROSPEROUS. Younger Irish people were also asking what the IRA hoped to achieve by blowing people up.

The "armed wing" of the IRA was looking increasingly anachronistic.

I do not want to minimise Adams' achievement. It took the ability to think outside the box plus personal courage to convince the hard men in the IRA that their time was up; that the future lay with ballots, not bombs.

So peace came to Northern Ireland.

Peace.

NOT reconciliation. Catholic and Protestant continue with mutual antipathy.

The people in Northern Ireland realised they did not have to love each other. They did not even have to like each other. They certainly did not have to hug and kiss in the streets.

All they had to do was quit killing each other and get on with their lives.

Before any of this could happen the IRA had to understand that its armed wing had been defeated. Thanks to Gerry Adams they did although Adams himself would not put it that way.

Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians think of themselves as being anywhere close to defeat so the conflict will continue.

Note that peace does not always imply a benign outcome. Amid cheering by Western Lefties the Smith regime was defeated by Mugabe's forces in 1979. The result has not improved the lives of Zimbabweans.

No, steven, that's not a reality check. It's merely your opinion (and a crazy, paranoid one at that). Here are some facts for you.

The USA:
- Is the only country to have deployed nuclear weapons (on a civilian population at that).
- Created a war of aggression in Iraq. According to Nuremburg such a war is the "supreme war crime".
- Overthrew the Democratic government of Iran in 1953, replacing it with a dictatorship.
- Shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing all 290 passengers instantly in 1988.
- Aided Saddam Hussein against Iran (despite use of chemical weapons and supplied him with components for them).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war#U.S._support_for_Iraq
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/220.html

Recent USA policy questions of US Republican candidates:

"Almost All Republican Candidates Willing to Nuke Iran"
http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=1205
'Bomb, Bomb, Bomb; Bomb, Bomb, Iran'
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/bomb_bomb_bomb_bomb_bomb_iran_1.html

Now what has Iran done, exactly, to warrant your conspiracy theories? Is it all you can do to quote their religious text, that is no different from the Bible to supportr your claims?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m5QFnAoqRZM (Richardson: 500,000 dead kids OK in pursuit of U.S. policy)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5S1YkQs5nXQ (Madeleine Albright: Killing the Muslim children is worth it)