Fellow_Human, Col Rouge,

Let me deal with the question of the Palestinian "refugees" so-called.

Here is the definition of a Palestinian refugee.

"UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants through the male line of persons who became refugees in 1948."

See: http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html

This is an extraordinary definition. It applies to no other group in the world. By that definition my children, born in South Africa to parents born in South Africa, are refugees from Germany.

By that definition half the population of Israel are refugees from Arab countries.

The Palestinian refugees live in appalling circumstances. They are certainly oppressed, mainly by other Arabs. But they are not refugees from Israel. Most Palestinian "refugees' were born outside Israel to parents who were born outside Israel.

Only among Palestinians is "refugee" an hereditary title.

Fellow_Human,

Your last post evades my point.

Do the Gazans want to resist a (non-existent) occupation? There were several resistance options. One option was to prosper – to cease thinking of themselves as "refugees" and build the LAND OF THEIR BIRTH which happens to be Gaza.

Instead they chose the path of war and got a war.

The civilian casualties are what would be expected when Hamas deliberately hide among civilians in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Here is Article 28 of Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War

"The presence of a protected person [eg civilian] may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

Fellow_Human,

If the Palestinians feel their cause is just and worth going to war over that is their decision. I cannot tell them what to do.

But it is not reasonable to go to war and expect to escape casualties. It is especially not reasonable to fight a war from a heavily populated area and expect to escape civilian casualties.

And if you announce your intention to exterminate an entire people you have to expect those people to fight back – as the Nazis discovered in the Warsaw Ghetto and as Hamas discovered last month.

Fellow Human “You would have to agree that the Fatah autonomy was rejected by Palestinians because of mismanagement and corruption.”

Fatah was the recognized leadership of the Palestinians, they perpetrated some horrendous and obscene atrocities in the name of their “cause”.

At the time Fatah came to prominence and power, Hamas did not exist.

“Israel’s support to Fatah contributed to Hamas’s popularity.”

Bearing in mind what I have said above, particularly the non-existence of Hamas, I will ask you to advise us-
who would you have preferred Israel to negotiate with, other than Fatah, through its leader, the snake, Arafat ?

“. While I am not blaming Israel it’s a poor crisis management on its side.”

Hamas continued use of terror (like Fatah before it) and indiscriminate rocket attacks is hardly a role model for “crisis resolution”, unless ones objective is the annihilation of Israel and I figure any strategy formulated around that goal is perfectly worthy of retaliation in kind.

In other words, don’t poke a tiger with a stick, it annoys the pokee and will eventually provoke unrestrained retaliation toward the pokee, with serious consequences…. And who can blame the tiger?

Fellow_Human,

It may be that you consider the establishment of a Jewish state to be a monstrous injustice; that the only way of rectifying that injustice is either by destroying Israel or changing the Jewish nature of that state by force of arms.

If that is what you consider to be the right path I shall not argue with you. I am not stupid enough to think I can change your mind.

What I can do is point out what I believe will be the consequences of following the war path.

I do not think the Jewish state will die quietly or soon. If you choose the path of war you must expect the Jewish state to fight back with everything it has. You are probably condemning those in the front line, the Palestinians, to decades of misery, poverty and death. It could end in a nuclear blow out that kills tens of millions and leaves a radioactive cloud over the Mediterranean.

Leaving aside all the rhetoric, empty rhetoric, about "occupation" and "resistance" there are, as I've pointed out, other options available. It could include financial compensation for the descendants of the refugees.

Do you know how the Palestinians can kill "Zionism" Fellow_Human?

The can kill Zionism by prospering. That will lead to trade relations, the flow of labour, and a mingling of Jews and Palestinians.

In 2005 for the first time in decades, prospering became a realistic option. So far the Palestinians have blown it. I say this not because I want to gloat but because it saddens me.

If I have one message for the Gazans it is this.

--Forget the rhetoric

--Lose the victimhood

--Enough already with exterminating Jews

Focus on making Gaza, the land of your birth, an example of what Palestinians can accomplish.