Anyone who has seen a cat with a still living mouse will understand.

Secondly the approaching Israeli election in Feb 2009, and the departure of killers Cheney and Bush on Jan 15. The story so far indeed.

Who initiated this conflict? Hamas. At least Egypt and Julia Gillard are not mistaken on that score.

Who is offering a reasonable way out? Israel.

All countires and peoples need to and have a right to defend themselves from direct attack.

I am fascinated by Israel’s foreign minister being ignorant of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We need more objectivity in reporting the Arab/Israel conflict. Israel has ignored every UN resolution in the last 30 years and the press never reminds us of that. The instant the Arabs fail to toe the UN line 99% of journalists cane the Arabs.

The US is a stingy country when it comes to foreign aid, but to make that worse, 50% of US foreign aid is to Israel in the form of armaments.

The middle east is a complex problem and it will fester on for ever if we don’t think hard about pressing Israel into observing the 1967 borders and denying them the latest military weapons if they fail to comply. Yes there are some thorny bits to this suggestion. The Jewish diaspora are immensely powerful and have the ear of governments around the world. That does not make them right.

Australia must get out from under the Jewish lobby position that either you support Israel or you are a terrorist. David Ben Gurion was the terrorist that lit the torch fueling much of today’s middle east problems. Australia must be genuinely neutral in this dispute.

Brian

I support all Palestinians rights to the pre 67 border….alll Jews out of the West Bank…that’s ALL JEWS OUT………it will happen within 5 years……. I support Hmas ‘right to represent the poeple who’ve elected it……Nazi pigs, the Israeli Government…there’s no difference

It’s bad enough that the Poms were originally responsible for the mess which is Gaza and the West Bank, now we just see Israel with it’s devoted friend, America (and now of course, Australia), rushing off with Haretzian “shock and awe” to kill as many Palestinians as they can, in the shortest possible time, just to ensure the Jews don’t feel obligated to explain themselves to the civilised world.

It beggars belief, that they wait until the Palestinians toss a few of their home made rockets and kill 20 Jews in several years, while the Jews kill 500 in a couple of days and call it a “measured response”.

We should not only not be supporting them, we should describe them as what they are, murderers and ne’er do wells, who want the entirety of Palestine to be called Israel, and kill all the Palestinians. Personally I wonder how long before Iran says “enough” and flicks them a long range message or two, just to be going on with..

Ah well, one can hope, I suppose. In the mean time, I am inclined to support Hamas in their struggle to free themselves of the failed final solution.

Jeff, you neglected to mention that going to pre-1967 borders would mean Israel giving up Jersusalem, it’s capital city. There are two chances of that mate - buckley’s and none.

While the current hostilties are horrific, I think it would be a productive gesture for Hamas to commit to stop lobbing rockets over the border into Israel? Surely that is not a big ask? Perhaps then the Israeli aggression would be seen in a new light.

Israel and Hamas honoured a ceasefire.

Hamas began bombing Israel after the ceasefire ended and kill Israelis.

Israel demands Hamas stop bombing Israel with essentially no other demands.

Hamas continue bombing unless Israel ceases to exist.

Israel responds predictably and as their democratically elected people require of their government and succeed in killing more Palestinians than Hamas killed Israelis.

Jeff Sparrow and all other blindly leftist twits iare indignant.

It certainly made the Germans at the end of the second world war think twice about what had been done in their name for the sake of security.

But there is only one extra factor - the nuclear dimension. The Oz last Saturday led with Dimona increasingly being within range of military grade rockets. While I don’t necessarily buy that (even though the Federation of American Scientists estimate up to 130 weapons - probably stored safely underground?), I do buy into the perceived threat by the leadership of Israel for a dirty bomb or tactical nuke courtesy of their enemies in the absence of amenable leaderships of their neighbours like Jordan, Egypt, West Bank.

An episode of the West Wing tv series traversed this with Clinton esque fictional Bartlett centre left regime referring to the proverbial donkey cart ‘high tech’ delivery system. They had a Clinton presser on their content advisory credits - for real. Here are the episode profiles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_West_Wing_episodes

at #112, 113 and 114 broadcast in USA in October/November 2004, or via your local DVD shop any time ( I watched them all 12 months back).

And notice earlier episodes #110 and 111 of May 2004 which are fictionally situated in Gaza with plot line of murder of US delegation members and Camp David type of peace talks. These are just a tv show but they are also probably the perceptions of the elite in US politics and broader audience, with quality script writing.

I agree humanitarian aid should have been and still should be allowed thru’.

Are u suggesting that Hamas did initiate this latest conflict but only under taunting duress from Israel, Tom?

Difficult to ‘make’ Hamas’ actions ‘ligitimate’ even if this were true