Boaz/ Polycarp,

"FH.. next time you take your kiddie winkles for a nice picnic there in Sydney.. remember that the land was once Aboriginal :) Life and history does not always go the way we hope, and it's very diffffficult to speak about 'morality/justice/fairness' without ultimately shooting our own big toe off"

Faulty argument: this is not the 1700's where lands where for grab, we are talking about a land being devoured under the UN and modern international laws. There was no UN or a country called "Aborigina" back then. You are parroting the argument of the greedy.

I thought intellectual dishonesty was your only flaw.

Polycarp,

Land purchases made 12 years before the foundation of Israel aren't relevant to what happened after 1948 (and 1967 in particular).

Nor (as Fellow-Human pointed out), is the siezure of ("unoccupied") land over 200 years ago the same as what happened 60 years ago. If it was, then you can justify anything. When do we start killing the first-born male children?

Maybe you should check some of YOUR sources also.

Efraim Karsh - Political scientist Ian Lustick describes Karsh's writing in Fabricating Israeli History as "malevolent and the nature of his analysis as erratic and sloppy. The book, he wrote, is ripe with 'howlers, contradictions and distortions".
Criticisms from other experts include -
"He is simply not what he makes himself out to be, a trained historian (nor political/social scientist)," and encouraged "robust responses [that] make sure that any self-respecting scholar will be too embarrassed to even try to incorporate the Karsh books in his/her teaching or research because they can't pretend they didn't know how flimsy their foundations are." plus
"..a mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material (...) and the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict." and so on.

The UN "is what it is". Support or criticism comes easily from both sides whenever it suits an argument. The Security Council however, doesn't seem particularly top-heavy with struggling Muslim or dependent states, especially when you see the details of actual votes cast by all members.

Would it surprise you to learn that both Israel and the USA earlier helped finance and support Hamas as a way of driving a wedge between Fateh and the PLO? Looks a lot like Iraq and Iran in that respect.
Didn't think so.

Rache,

The UN is a joke. The very idea that totalitarian, theocratic and other non democratic countries should have a vote on ANY issue which concerns another country is HIGH FARCE.

This Farce is best exemplified by the actions of the Human Rights Commission, recently replaced by the Human Rights Council because of its BIAS against Israel. This UN body charged with establishing and enforcing international human rights has adopted as many resolutions against Israel as the combined total of country-specific resolutions adopted against all other countries in the world. North Korea, Burma, China, Russia, a brace of dysfunctional and despotic African and Middle Eastern countries combined, only attract as many UNHRC resolutions as Israel. This same body denied Israel membership, funnily enough. You can pretend that this treatment is merited, those of us with two eyes find it offensive.

Too continue >> "

* Of 10 emergency special sessions called by the GA, six have been about Israel. No emergency sessions have been held on the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, or the two decades of atrocities in Sudan.

* The U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has been even more hopelessly ineffective than its predecessor, and is permanently engaged in criticism of Israel while ignoring pressing international human rights crises.

The UN Human Rights Council has directed 100% of its country specific resolutions towards censuring Israel. The general Assembly has directed 76% of its country specific resolutions towards censuring Israel. The Committee for the support of Women has directed 100% of its country specific resolutions towards censuring Israel. " http://www.adl.org/international/Israel-UN-1-introduction.asp

This is scarcely believable, but when you actually look into the UN’s anti-Israeli activities it makes sense. To my knowledge there are NO UN resoltions specifically criticising Palestine. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/un.html

TBC

CONT’

This year, during the 61th Session of the General Assembly (2006-2007), the time spent by ambassadors on enacting the 22nd anti-Israel resolution of the year was time not spent on passing a single resolution on Sudan's genocide in Darfur. http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.1359197/k.6748/UN_Israel__AntiSemitism.htm

You say >> “. The Security Council however, doesn't seem particularly top-heavy with struggling Muslim or dependent states, especially when you see the details of actual votes cast by all members.”

No but it is often fairly heavily stacked with enemies of the US, who can, and do use resolutions regarding Israel as a chance to pressure/hurt the US. This year’s members, beside the permanent five were Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Libya and Vietnam.

Lets please stop pretending that the existence of so many UN resolutions indicate Israel has done something wrong. It indicates the political reality of a significant bias against Israel within the UN.

And you can stop pretending that Israel intends to KEEP Palestine. The very fact that Israel has signed treaties and traded land in return for peace with Egypt and Jordan, as well as handing back the west Bank puts the lie to the expansionist Israel argument. Ben Gurion’s quotes do not reflect the reality of the offers Israel has since made. They are thus irrelevant.

You say >> “Also, the idea that Hamas is likely to destroy Israel is somewhat fanciful, despite what they say. At the current rate, it's going to take a very, very long time.”

For starters, Hamas KNOW its going to take a long time, but they have global demography on their side. Secondly, it doesn’t matter if Hamas can’t destroy Israel, they can do an awful lot of harm trying. Israel needn’t be threatened with complete annihilation before it is allowed to defend itself.

I am amazed at the triviality and nit picking in the various threads on this subject. Who cares about the history? - the question is what next must be done to move towards a solution. Yet again Israel military forces have been poorly led into a no win situation and Israel has lost yet another a battle against it's enemy. What are the thoughts about how to create a peaceful and prosperous environment for Israel and it's neighbours? Obviously none of the governments in the region have a clue. Perhaps Big Brother needs to step in....

Dear ORAMZI,

From reading all the posts on this thread
I'm beginning to see that it does no
good whatsoever to quote history,
suffering, point fingers,
or take sides in this conflict.
It achieves nothing - and it upsets people
even further.

You're absolutely right, it won't result in
any agreement.
It only encourages emotional reactions.
With no empathy or understanding.

All we can do is try to understand
that no one has a monopoly on suffering,
and pray that the international community
and the US applies enough pressure to get
both parties in this conflict to agree to
meet face-to-face and discuss ways to end
this conflict that is just and secure for
all concerned.