So Where Next?

Israel can, and should be, the bigger man in this. They have Iron Dome which is proving reasonably effective.

The bigger man? Such sentiments are easy when you haven’t got rockets landing indiscriminately around you! At least the Israelis are trying to target Hamas. Unfortunately Hamas are using human shields – this is not Israels fault. There also appears to be huge support for Hamas, so to an extent the population of Gaza are responsible.

The situation is unworkable, until Hamas goes there can’t be any peace, and Hamas will always have a place while there is a large resentment of Israel.

I have to say charliehunt that you have me baffled. I have looked back at the thread and have answered the vast majority of your points in a polite manner and I have engaged each point in a debating type manner. Which is more than you have. You have answered almost none of the points I made.
I would suggest if you are looking at someone to accuse of not debating the points, you need to look rather closer to home.
I know I will now have ability to read and understand called into question as is normal.

That’s not a debate – it’s a waste of time.

Well quite.

I change channel.

Get’s my vote these days.

Derek’s right in this, if you can’t be supportive of those trying to sort things out then don’t be snide towards them either. Or, as my Mom used to say, if you can’t say owt useful say nowt.

See #19.

So, 90 “visits” in more than 5 years. An average of less than once a month…I am unimpressed. The reason for his ineffectiveness is that as a long-standing member of the Labour party pro-Israel group the Palestinians do not trust him and requested his resignation a year ago.

Your last point rather proves my first point above. You really don’t understand what’s going on, do you?

You remain unimpressed by Tony Blair’s efforts. That’s up to you, but, what have you done to alleviate or to try and solve the problems? Don’t criticise the man for trying, at least he’s making an effort. as for understanding what is going on, well, does anyone? The Israeli government has their own agenda. I would imagine that MOST Israelis, now they have a Nation, would just like to enjoy it in peace. The Palestinian people, I suspect the majority of them anyway, just want the same as the Israeli people, peace and security. Hamas has its own agenda, as do all the other terrorist organisations in the region, that agenda being the destruction of Israel. The only possible solution is via dialogue because as their history has shown, knocking lumps out of each other achieves nothing.

Israel can, and should be, the bigger man in this. They have Iron Dome which is proving reasonably effective. But the Israeli Government nor Hamas want a peaceful settlement.

Derek’s right in this, if you can’t be supportive of those trying to sort things out then don’t be snide towards them either. Or, as my Mom used to say, if you can’t say owt useful say nowt.

Regards,

kev35

DerekF – as so often you rarely answer points made in response to your own but simply make the same comment slanted in a different way. That’s not a debate – it’s a waste of time.

And just to counter yet another of your assumptions made in your typically unpleasant sneering manner, I have been peripherally involved in a couple of Arab-Israeli friendship groups through a Jewish French friend of many years standing. I have a lot more to learn but have spent a great deal of time trying to understand all sides. I have never yet met an Arab who has anything but resentment and hate for Iran’s influence in the region.

That’s my last word on the matter in this thread.

So the headlines now are Israel and Gaza and The DR Congo. Peaceful place this world isn’t it

When world war, global catastrophe, economic crisis or other news of death and impending doom appear on my TV I deal with it in the only way I know how.
I change channel.

To be unimpressed by 90 visits in an attempt to solve the world’s longest running conflict says more about you than it says about Tony Blair. He hasn’t been completely successful but then again he hasn’t given up either – like some would do.

Perhaps my understanding of the conflict isn’t complete (who’s is?) but at least I am willing to support those trying to help as opposed to those simply sneer from the sidelines.

I ask again. What justification can there be for this?

Don’t click if easily upset

How anyone can say that this sort of thing will help towards a peaceful conclusion is beyond me, and I suspect most people.

Iran is pivotal to the problem. If you do not understand that, you do not understand anything about the problem.

Sorry, I hardly thought it worth responding after your pathetic jibe about my politics ( to which you have failed to respond ). So, 90 “visits” in more than 5 years. An average of less than once a month…I am unimpressed. The reason for his ineffectiveness is that as a long-standing member of the Labour party pro-Israel group the Palestinians do not trust him and requested his resignation a year ago.

Your last point rather proves my first point above. You really don’t understand what’s going on, do you?

Laughable, but perhaps not surprising. You were the one the brought up Iran in the first place. Hamas’ relationship to Iran is irrelevant in Israel’s escalation of the the crisis.

I notice you failed to answer your very own point about Tony Blair – again not surprising.

If my question was so childish and at a primary school level, it shouldn’t be too difficult to answer then should it.

The answer is still b) by the way.

Who said anything about giving up? Oh, I am a Tory, am I? Thanks for letting me know. You really must make less free with your assumptions about what others are or say. I have no idea if your political affiliations are marxist, left, left of centre or centre or liberal right or none of these. I would not be so presumptuous.

Your second question is childish in the extreme and attempts to reduce the complexities of the region’s problems to a primary school level. Your absence of any response to my points about Iran are noteworthy.

Well, I suppose if you just want to give up then fair enough.
Tony Blair has made 90 visits to the region since he started in his role as a peace envoy in fact I believe he returned there yesterday. I don’t expect a Tory would acknowledge that though. You would rather make snide comments about other trips.

So to answer my point, do you think the Israeli assassination of a Hamas official has a)helped the situation and made a peaceful solution more likely or b) made it worse and made a peaceful solution less likely?

a) or b)?

Hint: it’s b)

Why not try and not live in a state of fear by attempting dialogue and negotiations?

Unless my memory is faulty I believe that has been tried -on both sides -a rather large number of times in my lifetime. In fact I think that Mr Blair is supposed to be involved in attempting further negotiations, although he seems a bit busy creaming in the cash from South America and other areas of the world at the present time.

Unless you know different I am unaware that Iran has ever made any remotely conciliatory moves towards Israel. Quite the reverse in fact.

If they really do live in a state of fear, why do they deliberately provoke the Palestinians? Why not try and not live in a state of fear by attempting dialogue and negotiations?
When the Israelis target Iran next and the whole region explodes into war, will we still be saying that it was justified?

How can this be justified?

Hamas might paint itself in different colours to suit its purpose but effectively it was founded to “to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.” Its closeness to Iran is undeniable and Iran’s intentions towards Israel are as fundementally destructive.

It is hardly surprising that Israel will actively seek to eliminate its leadership. I am not trying to pretend that Israel is a whiter than white nation. Far from it. It is guilty of appalling acts of violence and intransigence but living 24 hours in a constant state of external threat without a single ally as a neighbour it is hardly surprising.

Oh, decided on beef rogan josh in the end.

Democracies don’t close off towns and stop traffic in or out. Democracies don’t deny a voice to its populace, especially through the use of air power, armour and infantry. That picture of Tianamen square may as well have been taken in Hebron.

I cannot believe that by targetting a Hamas leader the Israelis did not thinik the conflict would escalate. Did they really think the Palestinians would just sit back and let this go un-noticed?

The reason for Israel’s actions? An election.
Same reason as the last time they poked a stick at the Palestinians.

How can this be justified?

Missile kills 11 people, 9 in one family

You been there?

They have maintained a state against enmity, yes, but it can’t be even remotely described as democratic.

Yes, and have a diametrically opposed experience of it.

Please justify your last statement.

You been there? It was the first time I ever had a gun pulled on me. 2 in fact.
Haifa train station, 1996. That’s ttrouble with turning up early for a train…

It took me less than 24 hours in-country to change from admiration for the Israelis to disgust 9which never left in all the time I was there) and to go from a long-term media-induced distrust and dislike of palestinians/arabs/moslems to one of wonder at the welcoming kindness I received in the street a hundred times a day there and in every other arab state i’ve since visited. There is no irrational nor emotive garbage there, just a personal beliefe from witnessed events.

They have maintained a state against enmity, yes, but it can’t be even remotely described as democratic.

Snapper is right. The headlines are just what plays to the media on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. There has been global ferment since the beginning of time and as the world’s populations and nations have increased so has the ferment and bloodshed.

His remarks about the Israelis, however, are typically irrational, emotive garbage. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the policies of those who provided the Jews with a nation state they have maintained a successfully democratic state there against massive emnity on all sides for three generations. Many other nations in the second and third world, especially Africa, could learn lessons from the Israelis. And no I am not Jewish nor do I hold a brief for them or the Palestinians in their long-running feud.