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?

Just been reading back.

Came across a quote from Axdpc a long time ago.

It seems apt to describe the hopes of the present Israel administration:-

"Time sanctified everything; even the most arrant theft, in the hands of the robber's grandchildren, becomes sacred and inviolable property."

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The problem is that a couple of generations on anything is believed.

I remember reading in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy that Shintoism was accepted as the official religion of Japan in approx 1870 and that a law was passed making the Emperor of Japan a living God. Within two generations the people of Japan believed it completely.

It is interesting to note that the Emperor gave up his divinity on the orders of the USA in 1946. Now Japanese people don't believe he is a God.

Russell gave this as an example of how gullible the general population is.

but of course not the adherents of hamas and hezbollah or anyone on this thread!

All or some?

obviously it depends whether all or only some are gullible and the extent of same!

Of course, but I suppose what Fred was referring to was the fact that Israelis wrongly think that where they temporarily live is not Palestine.

and you and your little friends are gullible enough to think it is

The Iraelis are gullible enough to think that they have the right to live there and that the Palestinians will ever give claim to their land.

little question .... is iraq a country?

.

exactly so, but israel is no less a country than that, and even so-called palestine covers a whole region that has had very varied boundaries through the ages

That's a difficult question and closely related to the origins of Kuwait and similar in some ways to Belgium. The main difference is that the indigenous people were not dispossessed and disenfrachised as the Palestinians have been and it was not done against their will.

you walk dangerous ground, not least because the indigenous people you talk about were not only nomadic but also culturally diverse - there were philistines, canaanites, moabites and a whole gamut of others

you can then continue your argument if you wish with regard to australia for the aborigines, south africa and north america for the various tribes - and so on, almost ad nauseam

If you want Israel to be where they are due to historic precedent then you have to give Australia to the Aborigines and the US to the native Americans.

The cases you talk about are long ago history. Palestinians are having war crimes committed against them now.

i actually and have always concurred that the israeli gov't has treated the general and peacefully-minded palestinian people absolutely disgustingly, under all sorts of specious pretexts ..... i intentionally and specifically exclude the likes of hamas and hezbollah, as they have determined to live and die by the sword .... unfortunately, they drag many innocents in their wake.

i also believe the palestinians should indeed have their own homeland, but equally, that israel has a right to exist, which seemingly you do not.

if the world was ruled by sensible pragmatists - not women! - then the created problem would have been readily resolved ..... unfortunately, that is but a pipedream

I do believe that Israelis can live there. However, I believe that they must share the total land area and have an overall shared government and it can't be called Israel. If you look at how much land Israel has and how much Palestinians have. The balance is wrong. Hamas are violent in the same way that the original founders of Israel were. They were terrorists then and now Israel calls them freedom fighters.

The populations are Gaza 1.7m, West Bank 2.5m, israel 7.5m

Gaza's population has risen 40% in the last ten years and 75% are under 25. That is an explosive demographic that Israel cannot beat.

Look at the picture below and see how little land the Palestinians have.

so they breed like rabbits?

Partly and the increase is also because more Palestinians have been moved into Gaza by Israel over the last 10 years. Having such a young population will breed vast numbers of terrorists. If things look black now, it is nothing compared to when the 75% are 16 to 25.

Israel has exactly the opposite policy to what is needed. Their current foreign minister is just short of crazy and maybe not even short of it. The Israeli governemnt is negociating with Turkey in secret at present and it didn't tell the foreign minister, who is furious and says he has been insulted.

btw, i am sure a pragmatist would not care one way or another about this "new country" retaining the name israel ..... anyway, for very obvious reasons, there is less than a snowball's chance of israel foregoing "its" name, and i suspect even you would concur, much as you no doubt hate it

I am not bothered one way or the other . Hamas would certainly be bothered. Israel have no idea how much trouble is coming their way. Hamas was democratically elected and recent independent polls indicate that they would get a landslide victory in a new elecection. Israel attempted to strangle Gaza for having the cheek to elect Hamas. Israel's actions since the election has only strengthened Hamas's popularity. Hamas are very keen now to spread their wings into the West Bank.

Fatah is increasingly discredited and the Palestinian Authority is seen as collaborating with Israel. The municipal elections in the West Bank due this month have been delayed because Hamas have refused to stand as have other groups. Hamas have also banned the elections in Gaza. If the elections took place then Fatah would be standing alone and the result would be seen as illigitimate by the palestinians.

The decision to stop the elections is illegal under the constitution. It is also partly due to external pressure from other middle east countries. They were hoping that Fatah and Hamas could kiss and make up. That of course won't happen. Hamas don't resognise even the Palestinian Authority let alone Fatah. The PA was only supposed to be a temporary body lasting 5 years from 1994 and came out of the Oslo accord. Currently it has no legal powers. In practice it has ben increasingly acting as police for Israel and has been almsot as badly behaved as the IOF.

The prognosis is for things to get much worse. Events will soon bite the extreme right wing government of Israel. There are lots of flotillas being planned with dozens of ships in some of them.

Israel may complain that they are being bombarded by rockets. In fact there are hardly any and Hamas has been trying to stop them completely.