Great post!

It's about time the Gulf states started exerting political pressure on Israel (and America) to negotiate. I've always been pissed off by the way the Gulf governments encourage a domestic anti-Israel rhetoric (which at times is often anti-semitic) - in part to appease the more radical sections of the public - but make no real attempt to exert political influence on America or Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians.

It's nice to see an Israeli politician being put on the spot, but he doesn't look uncomfortable, and I don't really hear anything new. We've heard the same rhetoric before - and he shows no signs of compromising on the important issues. Settlements were removed because they were too costly to defend - not as a gesture of peace towards the Palestinians. Furthermore it is perfectly clear that they intend to steal further land for settlements in areas which are cheaper to defend. He makes no apologies for the illegal apartheid wall and again, as always, there is no possibility of any kind of joint control of Jerusalem. "Israel never initiated...Israel always just reacted" - this is completely untrue. Israel initiated the murder and expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. Furthermore, if violence stops Israel will still not negotiate on the key issues - like Jerusalem and the right of return. Israel did not simply attack Hezbollah, they collectively punished the Lebanese people - and for this he makes no apology. "I'm not making any account with the past" - again, Israel refers to past injustices committed against the Jewish people and Israel to justify its actions, but will never accept that Palestinian actions are a direct result of past injustices committed against them by Israel. How has Israel forgiven and forgotten?

QM - "Displays of weakness are unacceptable. This enemy respects only brute force. " - what kind of bullshit philosophy is that to live by?

Firstly, peaceful negotiations are not a sign of weakness. Working with the UN is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Iran and Syria is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Muqtada al-Sadr is not a sign of weakness. America should never have gone into Iraq the way they did - illegally, unprepared, ill-informed, and without a mandate from the international community. Britain shouldn't have followed - blame Blair, he is a complete idiot and the most hated PM in British history. Unfortunately, British support meant that Bush and his neocon army began to believe their own lies.

Secondly, how the hell did we end up in a world where people think that the only way to achieve anything is by threatening or killing people? No one respects brute force. It may temporarily coerce people into submission. But it fosters hate, resentment, and revolt in the long-term - just look at Palestine. Ghandi and Mandela achieved an awful lot without heavy artillery and torture!!!

Thirdly, you are assuming that you can easily define who the enemy is - you can't!!! if America had done some research before they invaded, had consulted anyone who knew anything about Iraq, they would have realised just how complex the political, religious and ethnic division in iraq are. Before the illegal invasion of Iraq, there had been increasing hostility between Shi'a and Sunni - due in a large part to the extreme form of unitarian Hanbali Islam (known in the West as Wahhabism or Salafism) spread by Saudi with the help of petrodollars. Wahhabis are particularly vocal in their condemnation of the Shi'a - branding all Shi'a as heretics. Couple this with the appalling treatment of the Shi'a under Saddam and the regional power aspirations of Iran and Syria and you have a potent recipe for disaster. The last thing anyone should have done was ignite a sectarian conflict - which is now effectively a civil war - in the most religiously divided country in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the unquestioning support of the US and Britain for Israel's illegal invasion of Lebanon, has inadvertently increased the power of Hezbollah - a Shi'a party. Hezbollah were widely heralded as the defenders of Lebanon against the unjustified brute force used by Israel to collectively punish the Lebanese people. The inability of the Lebanese government to respond to Israeli aggression - which was directed not just at Hezbollah but at all the peoples of Lebanon - has given Hezbollah a chance to seize power. The Sunni, Christian and Druze of Lebanon do not want to be ruled by a conservative Shi'a party so there is an increasing likelihood of a second sectarian civil war in Lebanon.

So where has brute force got us?

Thousands dead in Palestine and Israel. Thousands dead in Lebanon. Thousands dead in Iraq.

As the prospect of a wider sectarian conflict consuming the whole of the Middle East becomes ever more likely, I think it's time that we stopped advocating brute force, stopped saying you're either with us or against us, and started advocating dialogue.

"supposed injustices " - The appalling treatment of the Palestinians for over fifty years is a very real injustice. The collective punishment of the Lebanese people is a very real injustice. American support for tyranical governments in the Middle East and wider Islamic world is a very real injustice.

In reply to your comment:
“" You do have to be an expert on Islamic law to understand martydom. There is no reward in Islamic law simply for blowing yourself up and killing people. This is simply murder and suicide. You will only achieve your reward if your actions help the Muslim people in their fight against oppression. In other words the main motivation for martydom is strategic."

Uh-huh.

Ever heard of the phrase "Allahu Ackbar"? "God is great". It has a lot to with religion, and culture. Radical Islam is enstilling a certain mentality in Muslims, and they justify it by the supposed injustices caused by the the West and the Jews. I'm not talking about the peaceful aspects most Muslims adopt, but radical Islam. While some might be motivated solely by political reasons, most Islamic martyrs are generally culturally religious. ”

"supposed injustices " - The appalling treatment of the Palestinians for over fifty years is a very real injustice. The collective punishment of the Lebanese people is a very real injustice. American support for tyranical governments in the Middle East and wider Islamic world is a very real injustice.

"Yes, J.D., Israel does recieve a lot in foreign aid and so does Egypt. If you recall the ringleader and four other hijackers in the 9/11 atacks came from Egypt."

Excuse me?

19 hijackers committed 9/11.
15 were from Saudi Arabia (KSA).
2 were from the U.A.E.
1 was Lebanese.
1 was from Egypt.

No body ever asks why the country from which most of the hijackers came from never gets questioned. Obviously because one doesn't fool around with the oil supply coming to the US from KSA. But either way one can't keep seeking scapegoats for what basically was and is a misguided foreign policy.

One is the case of a large country bombing and attacking a neighboring Lebanon. These were Lebanese Red Cross. So, is that why the UN post was attacked? Because Hezbollah uses it to store rockets?

The other is the case of a terrorist regime in southern Lebanon launching rockets into Israel as the have been doing for years and years.

In this case, the Israelis watched them load injured civilians into an Ambulance (they must have been able to see, they hit it with a helicopter) and then shot the roof with large caliber, and at least one missle.

"On Sunday, Shaalan and two other members of his crew narrowly survived Israeli missile strikes on two Red Cross ambulances. One ambulance was carrying three wounded Lebanese. They too survived but are in critical condition.

Shaalan says that the strikes came despite requests from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Israel for assurances that Red Cross vehicles would not be attacked, and despite the vehicles being clearly marked as Red Cross.

The Red Cross unit in Tyre now has just four ambulances to serve 57 villages, he says. Across the whole of southern Lebanon, it has 40 ambulances serving what is left of a population of 200,000."

i think the news is far more concerned with the content of his comment, rather than the use of the word 'shit'. i could be wrong, but there's a whole lot of political chaos going on right now in the middle east, and i don't really know enough about it all to comment on that side of things with any degree of certainty, as the media is rather unreliable at times.

although i'm pretty sure the point is that bush wants syria to bargain with hezbollah, who is not a nation, but rather a militant group of terrorists. bush and blair maintain the "can't bargain with a terrorist" attitude, while pushing off the responsibility for a cease-fire on syria, who supposedly supports hezbollah financially... i think... :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

the israelis refuse to cease-fire until they get the two men back that were captured by hezbollah forces, and the whole thing seems to stem from the lebanese gov't not enforcing a directive 2 years ago to take back the border along israel. :: http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-07-12-voa64.cfm
so umm... yeah... that's what i gather anyhow...