Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

I agree 100% with Haystack....In the land of BULLSHIT....is just that, bullshit.

stop talking shite about the haulocoast blah blah...the israelis are doing what was done to them by the europeans not the arabs.

The israelis have no sympathy from me and never will they way they are going.

The European campaign to end the siege on Gaza has declared its intention to send another aid flotilla to Gaza Strip in July.

Mazen Kuhail, a spokesman for the campaign, told a press conference held in the European parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday that six ships are ready for leaving Europe en route to the besieged enclave.

"We believe that this second flotilla will be more important than the first one," he elaborated.

The campaign along with other organizations supportive of ending the siege on Gaza had sent a "Freedom Flotilla" to Gaza last month that was attacked by the Israeli naval forces and blocked from reaching the Gaza shores after 9 activists on board were killed and tens others injured.

Kuhail was invited by a British labor member of parliament to address the press conference.

He asked the world to inspect the aid shipment to be loaded on the second flotilla.

In The Land of the B

There was an interesting story yesterday relating to your crazy anti-semetic views.

There was a demonstration by Orthodox Jews in Tel Aviv on Tuesday about the building of a hotel. The demonstration had to be broken up by police on horseback with batons. The protesters were shouting that the Israeli government was anti-semetic and that they were Nazis.

Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the Wests best ally in a turbulent region

By JosMar Aznar

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moments peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israels destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israels right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the worlds future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israels strength is our strength and Israels weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israels right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israels legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israels vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.


JosMar Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004.

And, of course, he is wrong. No one should be an ally of a brutal, rougue state like Israel. In fact they have very few friends now.

The European parliament intends to vote on a draft resolution on Thursday condemning Israel's deadly attack on Freedom Flotilla convoy and demanding an end to the blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip.

The draft resolution is calling for taking all necessary measures to make sure that the investigation into the attack on the convoy will be transparent and impartial.

The resolution demands the European commission president and the high representative for foreign affairs to urgently submit a plan to the international quartet including mechanisms to end the siege, open the crossings and secure a maritime passage to Gaza.

Iran's ambassador to Bahrain Hussein Abdelahyan warned Israel of any intention to intercept or attack the aid ship Tehran intends to send to the besieged Gaza Strip next week.

Abdelahyan told a news conference on Tuesday in Manama that if Israel targeted the aid ship, Iran would not hesitate to retaliate.

He noted that the ship will be loaded with food and carrying officials from the Iranian Red Crescent, denying that there will be military forces on board.

"a brutal, rougue state like Israel"

You really have no concept but to lap up the propaganda and spew out the hatred.

Wouldn't you just love an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel with hundreds of thousands of dead and dying?
I can just see you grinning and pontificating in your smug, arrogant and supercilious way.
Until the Israeli submarines and missile boats and F16s launched their nuclear tipped missiles in retaliation.
And then it would all be Israel's fault, as usual in your type of mentality

I am no supporter of Iran and do not wish to see Iran with any nuclear weapons. In the same way, I don't wish to see Israel with similar weapons either. If Israel bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, as they might, I would probably support that. But then again I would support it if it was done another country instead.

Israel behave appalingly towards the Palestinians every day. They are currently demolishing Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and expelling what are termed Jerusalemites (people with families who have lived there for generations). They are building at a fast pace in the West Banbk, which is supposedly an area earmarked for Palestinians. Settlers are burining Palestinian olive trees and bulldozing Palestinaisn homes near settlemet areas. They are being protected in this by IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces).

Amnesty International has called on the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) to end house demolitions which leave thousands of Palestinians living in daily fear of eviction from their homes.

Amnesty's new brief report titled "As safe as houses? Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes" reveals the extent to which the Israeli occupation forces are destroying homes and other structures in the occupied Palestinian lands.

According to the UN, in 2009 more than 600 Palestinians, over half of them children, lost their homes after they were demolished on order from the IOA, Amnesty says.

Amnesty added that the IOA also deprives the majority of Palestinians of their right to obtain building permits.

"The majority of people are denied building permits by Israel, even after lengthy and expensive bureaucratic and legal processes.

Hays,

Do you wish Britain to have or retain Trident, or any other forms of Nuclear Armoury?

No. Not especially. As part of Nato, we have no real need.

OK, so the French will protect us, huh?
No, Obama wouldn't.
I didn't realise fantasy land was so highly populated.
Perhaps the UK could use its nuclear arsenal to get rid of that little Jewish state which is such a nuisance - then haymaker and fahel and fred would be so happy.

ITLB - why are you so convinced Haystack is an anti-semite?

When he suggested chipping into the Hamas rocket fund, he wasn't being anti-semitic.

He was just being a c*nt.

but it's a good exercise chipping into those too .... ask tiger woods!

In The Land of the B

I don't want to get rid of the people in Israel, just Israel as an entity. Rename it Palestine and make everyone living there equal and let back in all the Palestinians refugees and people displaced by Israel. Have an election and set up a new government with PR so that everyone gets a few seats. There are Arab MPs now in the Israeli parliament, but they get threatened with expulsion if they say anything against government policy such as killing people on humanitarian flotillas.

Gausie is just being Gausie and not to be taken too seriously. Funding the rocket fund for Hamsas would be similar to donating to the people of Tibet who are oppressed by China.

now try to get sensible haystack
israel is here to stay...... however, in many people's opinion including my own, its gov't has severely overstepped the mark .... not only has israel annexed additional territory under a variety of pretexts, but it has also severely mistreated the ordinary populace of gaza, again under a variety of excuses

no, i am not an apologist for hamas and hezbollah - heaven forfend .... they too are a bunch of murdering thugs, but that does not excuse israel's abuse of humanity to the ordinary citizens

and yes, i do believe there should be a separate state of palestine

As I've said before, there has to be an independent Palestine and the vast majority of Israelis know that.
Personally I disagree with many of the policies of their current government and of the militant settlers.
I think Isreal is right in this war situation to blockade Gaza as long as the policy of the latter is to destroy Israel. However the blockade should be of military material, not foodstuffs etc. The current policy of stopping certain non-military items is pointless and was stupidly designed to try to increase the disatisfaction of the populace with Hamas. Plainly futile.
However, the boarding of the ship was correct and of the six vessels in the flotilla only one had the extremists aboard and was crazy and hate-filled enough to attack the soldiers with iron bars, axes etc. Do that to a boarding party anywhere in the world and you will be killed.
The Turkish IHH members were determined to cause bloodshed and they got their way. To pretend they were peace loving caring folk beggars belief - though some, like fred, fahel and haymaker here, will believe anything anti-Israel.
What is sad is that some here use their feelings in an attempt to delegitimise and demonise Israel and are simply, as Stalin called them, "useful idiots" used by Islamofascists to promote their agenda.
Of course it is fair and reasonable to feel considerable sympathy for innocent Palestinians caught up in deprivation. Note, however, that the Arab and Muslim nations have done little for their Palestinian "brothers", knowing how extremist many are. They could easily have used some of their vast oil wealth to lift them out of poverty and provide services and infra-structure. Note how every town and village is labelled a "refugee camp".
It is also true that many of the most able Palestinians have left the territories to carve out new lives for themselves in their own diaspora.
The Israeli population is divided with the right just out-numbering the left. It swings both ways, as it does in most Western democracies.
The underlying problem is lack of trust of the other side and until the Palestinians as a whole accept the existence of Israel, that mistrust will continue. It needs great statesmen on both sides. Israel had that in Barak at Camp David, but Arafat was too rooted in terrorism and lacked the peace making vision.
I could go on and on with this, but enough for now.
I notice how the likes of the unholy trinity of fred, fahel and haymaker stay silent on the other great tragedies and sufferings of the world eg the current slaughter of Uzbeks, Darfur and many other situations.
However, whenever Isreal is involved then their view is not only one sided but smacks of the language of age-old anti-semitism born of some Christian teachings, scapegoating and centuries of cultural sterotyping, eg Shakespeare.
Why do they concentrate their hatred and vilification on a nation of Jews.......draw your own conclusions.

Yes. That is a common opinion. I don't think it goes far enough by a long way. Israel exists on Palestinian land. They are the agressor and yet they expect to call the tune. Having a separate Palestinian state is not enough. Israel would have to give up a lot of their land (all of it as far as Hamas is concerned). the Palestinians don't recognise Israel as their land was given away by third parties to Israel. the Palestinian Authority (which in fact has no authority) may well accept a separate state agreement, but it will not stop Hamas and their supporters. You cannot crush Hamas without another Hamas springing up.

There was a time years ago when Israel could have made peace with the Palestinians. That time has now passed. Israel's government is exactly the sort of government that is going to make things worse. Syrian's President al-Assad has said Israel's raid on the Gaza aid flotilla has increased the chances of war in the Middle East. He said Syria was working to prevent a regional war. But he added that there was no chance of a peace deal with the current Israeli administration, which he called a "pyromaniac government".

In The Land of the B

I could post on the troubles in Darfur, Tibet, Korea, China, parts of Russia and plety of other places. This thread is about Israel. On another thread about Darfur, I might well post.

And once again you raise the spectre of the Jews. It is the same tactic designed to deflect attention away from attrocities committed by Israel. It works less each time it is used. The holocaust was a terrible thing, but I didn't cause it and the Arabs didn't cause it. I think that increasingly people are bored with it being brought up. That is a pity as people should not forget. If it is constantly brought up by supporters of Israel then its impact and significancy will be devalued.

God forbid that Hamas should ever get its hands on one of those Nuclear devices that can be bought from Eastern Europe for about $2million. When you take a nations land and their dignity, then why not have the perfect suicide bomber go to Tel Aviv.
But then hamas cant get their hands on $2million!