Unfortunately, this wall is necessary - but a few modifications are needed:

1. Some sections need to be moved, so the wall stands exactly on the 1967 border-line.
2. The Jewish settlers should remain on the east side of the wall.
3. Moderate Arabs who can demonstrate their peaceful, benevolent intentions should be allowed into Israel, west of the wall.
4. The wall should be further heightened, fortified and tightly closed.

This will safeguard all reasonable ordinary people who want to live in peace. The fanatics of both colours will be left outside, to kill each other if they so wish.

csteele “It is an indictment that it was only after I had read past this statement that I was able to discern who you were referring to.”

An indictment of what – the limits of your comprehension?

“My focus had been the West Bank Wall which when completed will be 703kms long compared to the Berlin Wall which was 199kms.”

And the Berlin wall formed part of the Iron Curtain which went from Finland to Northern Greece and was constructed to keep the people of Eastern Europe imprisoned within their Communist Gulag.

So since “size” seems to matter so much to you (703 kms versus 199 kms),

lets just say you have just been “upped”, should I call you "shorty"

“excising” my personal view happens to be that the entire West Bank was forfeit and representing the “spoils of war” when the combined Palestinian and Arab forces tried and failed (miserably) to push the Jews into the Ocean during the 1967 war.

“The International Court… blah blah” the toothless tiger used by anyone lacking authority to justify some point of detail.

“One only has to look at the current state of the West Bank to realise how great a crime this is and how it will be regarded in the future.”

Not as great a crime as

blowing up the Israeli Olympic team at Munich in 1972 or

taking and killing of hostages from civilian jets or

kidnapping Israelis and taking them to Uganda from where the Israelis mounted a recovery exercise …

I could go on and on and on

But I will leave it there, for now !

“As to Reagan to agree to secretly sell weapons to the Iranians to free the embassy hostages with money source via drug deals with the Contras really set the tone for the rest of his presidency. A man of conviction maybe but hardly worthy.”

Ah here we go, pointing out the irrelevant, to besmirch the achievements of the man who oversaw the strategy which brought down the Berlin Wall and freed millions from the yoke of communist oppression.

Dear Col Rouge,

You can be a very funny person.

My comprehension has taken me from a very positive and supporting position on Israel to one of condemnation. This has occurred because I have 'comprehended' the gravity of their actions while certainly not excusing those on the other side of the conflict.

That you seem unable to examine the situation with any balanced perspective means I'm hardly going to lose much sleep over your assessment of me.

On the issue of sizes I was actually referring to walls as opposed to fences but the Iron Curtain did certainly extend across Europe.

The International Court of Justice was asked by the UN to determine the legality of the wall under international law.

It ruled that the wall was illegal and its construction must stop immediately.

In the subsequent General Assembly vote in 2004 of the 150 nations who attended only 6; US, Israel, Australia, Federated states of Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands (didn't Australia become a lapdog under Howard) voted against it.

So you want to dismiss the Court, international law, the UN General Assembly? I think that takes a certain lack of comprehension on what it takes to work toward a more peaceful world.

I'm not sure I want to go tit for tat but in the interest of a modicum of balance I understand the one of the first acts of air piracy in the history of civilian aviation was the ordering down of a Syrian airliner to Tel Aviv in 1954 where its crew and passengers were held for several days. One of the first deliberate shooting down of a civilian aircraft was ordered by Israeli Prime minister Golda Meir in 1973 of a Libyan Airliner killing 107 passengers and all the French crew.

Cont..

Cont..

As to “to terrorist minded bombers and fighters who do not stop at blowing up children” could I offer the following from Wikipedia;

“A Jewish group known as the "Bat Ayin Underground" has been associated with the settlement. In 2002, four people from Bat Ayin and Hebron plotted an attack against a Palestinian girls' school in East Jerusalem, using a wagon meant to explode in the morning on the street outside. Four members were convicted by an Israeli court for attempting to perpetrate the attack and were sentenced to twelve to fifteen years.”

Do you regard this as a terrorist act Col Rouge or just settlers defending themselves?

There is a modicum of truth is Yuyutsu's position. One does get the feeling that the greater population of Israel is quite happy to see the settlers exactly where they are. One has to question why the Palestinians have to shoulder the burden of these fanatics while Israel only needs to accept “Moderate Arabs who can demonstrate their peaceful, benevolent intentions”. Unfair in anyone's book I would have thought.

For you to claim “the achievements of the man who oversaw the strategy which brought down the Berlin Wall” was the work of Reagan is also a laugh. The CIA briefed Reagan on his first day in office that the USSR was collapsing from within. Can you point to one act by him that dramatically hastened the result?

Csteele wrote:

"One does get the feeling that the greater population of Israel is quite happy to see the settlers exactly where they are"

Not exactly - it would be nicer to see the settlers evaporate, but one has to be realistic. Even if Israel was by some miracle able to force the settlers back into its own borders, it would be unable to control this violent and angry mob who would terrorize Israel from within, so they better stay out. I wonder whether Australia would be willing to take them into Nauru or pay Indonesia to keep them...

As for checking non-citizens, verifying that their intentions are only peaceful before allowing them into the country, doesn't Australia (under all governments) do the same?

Dear Yuyutsu.

>>As for checking non-citizens, verifying that their intentions are only peaceful before allowing them into the country, doesn't Australia (under all governments) do the same?<<

Exactly! Why shouldn't the Palestinians be afforded just that right? Why do they have to deal with having these fanatics foisted on them? They have plenty of their own to deal with.

Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis should be allowed to export their problems.

The only way those problems can be owned by all is in a single state.