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?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Z2Znc159x1M

hamas to deport 200 of the released prisoners .there own people being deported .
loverly country they do not want them and they are palestians

Wrong as usual. It is a condition specified by Israel to allow the release of certain prisoners.

yes you are correct

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) A Hamas official said Thursday that close to 200 of the 450 Palestinians to be freed in the first phase of a swap for a captured Israeli soldier will not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank, ...
All 3,214 related articles

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Hamas have already said yesterday that they will be capturing a few more Israeli soldiers. It seems to be a reasonable strategy as Israel is holding about 11,000 Palestinian prisoners. The majority have no charges against them. They are just supporters of resistance against illegal occupation.

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Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands. Of course there will be further violence. It is just a matter of time. It is unrealistic to think otherwise. Israel needs to withdraw from the West Bank and abandon all settlements. That won't be a solution but it would be a sensible start. Anthing short of that will see generations of conflict. Only two days ago several members of the Israeli parliament including government ministers declared all West Bank land as being Israeli land with the intention of occupying all of it. That is about as far as it is possible to get away from a peace agreement.

Netenyahu also wants to find a way to legalize the settlements already built on private Palestinian land.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-israel-move-to-legalize-west-bank-outposts-unhelpful-to-peace-efforts-1.389688

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Unfortunately that is reality. Israel's right wing coalition wants to keep building settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem more or less for ever. Only today the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published this article about plans for a huge new building program of 2,600 units creating a brand new Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, which is regarded as Palestinian. This is the first such building program since the 1990s.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-planning-thousands-of-new-homes-in-east-jerusalem-1.389784

You will not get even the slightest chance of peace until settlement stops and a promise given to remove exisiting occupation. Hamas, in particular, won't accept any Israeli settlement at all of the West Bank.

Palestine won't get a positive vote from the security council. Their best outcome is nine votes for and the US being forced to veto. That would isolate the US and Israel even further. They will then apply to the general assembly for statehood, which they should easily manage by a decent majority. That gives them legal access to the International Courts for war crimes etc against Israel for occupation, land seizure and himan rights violations. At that point you may well see a substantial rise in violence within the West Bank as the population attempts to force out the occupation.

The only scenario that avoids this path is for Israel to stop settlement. Netenyahu has elections looming and massive pressure from his right wing coalition partners who are even more hawkish then he is. He doesn't dare stop settlement. He is even looking at ways of making the illegal settlements retrospectively legal under Israeli law. That should be enough to indicate that his hands are tied.

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Israel's long term aim appears to be that all of the area including the West Bank and Israel should be called Israel with Palestinians living there as they do in Israel (which is effectively as second class citizens). Hamas and many other Palestinian groups want all of the same combined area to be called Palestine with Israeli's living within it.

It is wrong to assume that Hamas or any other Palestinian group is anti-semetic. They have said many times that they are happy for Jews to live in a land called Palestine. When control of Gaza was handed back to Palestinians, Israel ordered all Israeli settlers and citizens to withdraw back to Israel. This was not a request from Hamas. Interestingly, a few months ago, Israel offered all Jews living in Tunisia the option of leaving and going to Israel. The Jewish community in Tunisia turned Israel down saying that they were perfectly happy in Tunisia.

The area is stuck in an impass. Obama and Netenyahu both have looming elections and cannot upset their backers. The Arab Spring and all that has brought and will bring with it could not have come at a worse time for either leader. Their hands are tied and their destinies set while the Palestinians are on the point of a major change in tactics and attitude. Israel over the last couple of years has managed to upset the international community in so many ways. The US is committed to support Israel like it or not and it seems that Obama in particular doesn't like it.

Israels deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon has said that his government would not halt building in occupied Jerusalem.

He said in a press statement on Saturday that building in Jerusalem is out of the discussion about construction or settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Israel will continue building in Jerusalem and all its suburbs now and in future, he added.

The Israeli government recently endorsed the building of a new suburb south of occupied Jerusalem that would isolate the city from the West Bank and would include the construction of 2610 housing units.

Does the liberation of 1000 Palestinians for 1 Israeli soldier have any relevance to the value the Israeli administration places on the individual value of human life. Especially in that of Arabs and Israeli.

Although the liberation of the prisoners is welcome, it also points out the arrogance and values of the present administration.

When the Israeli was captured, Hamas wanted 250 prisoners for him. Israel was warned by their own defence experts to go for the deal as they would probably pay 1,000 soliers in years to come. Israel thought they could find him and virtually every Israeli spy discovered in Gaza had an additional task, which was to find the soldier. Of course they didn't find him and Israel has released 1,027 prisoners. They still hold around 11,000. The Israel soldier made a point of saying that he was well treated after he was released. That is better treatment than the Palestinian prisoners get in Israel jails. It is to be expected that more soldiers will be captured. It is a good bargaining chip. Lebanon captured and exchanged prisoners over quite a long time, freeing around 5,000 Lebanese held in Israeli jails.

There has been much said about freeing terrorists, but the bulk of prisoners are held without charge under administrative detention. Just being a supporter of Hamas is enough to get a whole family detained. If a Palestinian in the West Bank is asked to go to be interviewed by the occupation forces and refuses then they arrest his brother, sister, mother etc and hold them until he reports for a dose of questioning and torture.

Netenyahu has only agreed to the deal because his popularity is at rock bottom and he has elections looming.

I would judge the decision Netenyahu made, will add to his popularity.

His judgement and actions seem to belong to a bygone age.

May he go with them.

It's the UK and international strong presence in these processes, by displacement of these people which remains the most effective policy . A large proportion of Identity checks are are made but are still able to transfer cross border because country boundaries don't really exist now. imo

But no one wishes to recognise this now.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/unesco-grants-palestine-full-membership-1.392974

Out of 173 countries voting, 107 were in favour, with 14 opposed and more than 40 abstentions.

At Unesco, the US does not have veto power.

UNESCO grants Palestine full membership

United States, Canada, and Germany vote against Palestinian membership.

The United Nations' cultural agency decided on Monday to give the Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that will boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations.

UNESCO is the first UN agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on Sept. 23.

The United States, Canada and Germany voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favor. Britain abstained.

U.S. lawmakers had threatened to withhold some $80 million in funding to UNESCO if it approved Palestinian membership.

U.S. officials opposed the Palestinian UNESCO request and say it could harm renewed efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Palestinian officials are seeking full membership in the United Nations, but because that effort is expected to take some time, they separately pursued membership at Paris-based UNESCO.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15518173

The UN cultural organisation has voted strongly in favour of membership for the Palestinians - a move opposed by Israel and the United States.

The Palestinian move has put Unesco in a bind.

Following a US law passed in the 1990s, America says it would cut funding to any UN body that admitted Palestine as a full member.

That amounts to $70m (43.7m) a year - over 20% of Unesco's entire budget.