greetings Frank and Rob :)

I see you skated over the significant point .... Where did we get the RIGHT.. on any ground, legal, moral or ethical to hand over one nations home, land, property, everything in fact, to another?................Short answer is we didn't have the right... not then... not now... but as the most powerful force in the world we thought we could do it without significant repercussions... how these things do come back to haunt us eh Frank?

( Don't want here to hear lawyers arguements about how we didn't "actually do that exactly."............that's what we did....... that's why we are where we are now)

Answer to Rob.........the land now called Israel used to be known as Palestine and the peopLe who lived there, Palestinians.

Essentially the palestinians, were driven from the homes and lands they had worked for two thousand years or longer by a process now called ethnic cleansing... this was shortly after the second world war........by a massive influx of Jews.

We ( the British) had been given a mandate by the UN at the end of WW2 to govern Palestine and see if we could find a way to reconcile the demand of the Jewish people to return to thier homeland ( The Biblical Israel)....against the insistence by the Palestinians that this was thier land... had been for thousands of years and they weren't prepared to give it up because if they did... where the hell were they expected to go?

The Jews, largely funded by collections among the jewish population of the US started off by quietly buying up property from the palestinian Arabs... usually through front companies to disguise the fact it was being bought by Jews... Once purchased the property would be crammed with jews...mostly refugees from Hitlers Holocausts the poor wretches.

The Palestinians clocked on real quick that thier land was going to be "Swamped" ( probably heard the same term used about illegal immigrants to the US. )... by Jews and protested...

To try and preserve the peace... ( and buy enough time to work out some sort of compromise)..........the British instituted a qouta... so many Jews allowed in a month.... we quickly ended up with ships full off Jews off the coast of Haifa stuffed full of Refugee Jews who had run out of food and water and might die as a result..

But the Jews ( And I don't blame them for this... would feel exactly the same way in thier shoes) had already formed and put into place, a plan. Life in exile amongst the rest of the world had brought them to the edge of extinction.... Hitler had killed 6 million of them, in just a few yearss... They HAD to have a homeland, thier survival as a people depended on it..... and we ( The British) were stopping them ( Imposeing qouta's etc.)......... so they launched a terrorist campaign to drive us out ( useing weaponry bought by collections in the US.paid for by collections in the US).

British army personnel ( In some cases, the same men that had fought thier way too... and liberated the Jews from.......... death camps in Europe) .. were ambushed in the streets... and hung from lamposts as a warning. The British Army HQ was hit by a Truck bomb which killed a LOT of our people.... ( Yep ... Israelis invented that tactic decades before it was used on Us Troops in Lebanon.).........

The Palestinians were angry that we didn't stop this " flood" of Jews that were beginning to burn them out when they couldn't buy them out.

Appeals to the rest of the world, the US in particular, to come in and help us went ignored... we had plenty of problems elsewhere... rationing at home... a communist insurgency brewing in Malaysia. In the end.. we said "sod this" and left...

What happened next is heavily disputed but I believe it to be beyond doubt the first post WW2 example of the modern day phenomena of "ethnic cleansing" ... ( The jews being far more organised, better funded, and desperate)....though it wasn't to be the last in that land...... (What you are watching in the west bank and Gaza right now is another bout of it.)...........but it ended with most of the Palestinian people homeless refugees.... which they've been to this day.

That's my potted history of the early years of this conflict Rob......... I'm sure plenty of people will jump in to point out where I'm wrong, but I think It'll be details only...the broad outline, I'm sure, is correct.

My heart goes out to both sides, the Jews and the Palestinians... I think I can understand why both sides behaved the way they did. The Jews were a desperate nation, already driven close to total extinction..... the Palestinians were a people in fear the same might be about to happen to them.

The difference between today.. and then........ Is that the Palestinian fear is very, very real... as a people... as a nation, they are on the very edge of extinction... and it's the vastly more powerful Israeli's who are doing it.

Back to Frank..........." terrorists are those who target exclusively civilian targets.." ... but that's not what happening is it Frank... this Intifida started with basically boys throwing stones at 60 ton tanks .. ( Yep.. I know that's a gross simplification, nevertheless. essentially it's true) .......The Israelis escalated and escalated and escalated on the principle of "peace through Superior Fire-power"... for every Israeli dead, four Palestinians have died.....Check out the Royal Jordanian Embassy website... they are treating Thousands of casualties from the west bank every month.......

And as for definitive acts of terror......... Is it a terrorist act to target clearly marked Red Cross ambulances and medics? If not, why not?

What else?...........oh yes..... "the situation in Palestine\Israel certainly involves some injustice"..... Frank, I would truly like to shake your hand.....you are one of the very few US citizens I've come across who would acknowledge that
injustice between the two sides might be a factor. You use the term "Some" I would use the term... " Great".

As for Religous fanaticism and "anti-modernism"... I see those as symptoms most societies display when under extreme, possibely terminal pressure,.... For instance religous revivals and church attendance in your country and mine rise dramatically during times of stress... War's...economic depressions.. The aftermath of the WTC... they dip again in good times.

What else?.... ahh...

(Me)"The Palestinians have had everything they ever were, are, or could have been taken from them by force."

( You) Not true, they never had anything to begin with and they are outcasts in the Arab world. If there were no Israel there would still be no Palestinian state

Never had anything to begin with? They had thier own way of life, and homes, and friends and nieghbours, they had thier own land, they even helped us a little in our wars ... who are you to say this is worthless and of no account? If what they had was worth so little why did the Israelis take it at gunpoint?.. and why are they......knowing they will probably die doing so ....( Rifles against Gunships? Not the best of odds)... willing to fight for the tiny fraction they have left.

Frank... I truly wish you were in a position to make some serious decisions on your countries behalf.... ( Goes for a lot of other people on this board too ) We may disagree but I can sense there is more serious thought being applied here then in Foggy Bottom.

Salute!