And from THAT you derived that I didn't support removal of Israeli settlements from occupied land??



Not if they want to resolve the conflict peacably, no, it's not an option in my view ...



Er ... not if they want to, um ... coexist ... peacefully ... which is kind of my point. Attitude change. Is this concept really that difficult to grasp?



Yes. Did you know here in the States, since everything is black-and-white and so clear cut, we don't even have a court system to resolve disputes? Things never get to even a hearing since only one side is always so obviously and so clearly in the wrong that it's just a waste of time ever bothering with a deliberative process -- the police simply cart-off the accused guilty party. No muddling with "complexity" or "nuance" here -- it's really quite straight forward.

The system was invented by the recent President Bush. Huge success. True story.

Yeah but what it if they don't though? What if they prefer perpetual armed conflict in which they have the advantage as the price for hanging on to Palestinian land? 60 years of it so far, shooting their own prime minister, breaking ceasefires, fomenting hate, hmwell it's all beginning to look a little... d'you get my drift?

km

Your guess is as good as mine (although mine might be less one-sided ;-). If either side doesn't want peace, though, its going to be awfully hard to come by ...

And apparently it's just as black and white in the ME, since both Israel and Hamas are each absolutely convinced that they are completely right while the other is completely wrong. Israel to Hamas: You are wrong and you must go! Hamas to Israel: You are wrong and you must go! Seems simple enough to me.

Oh, but wait... doesn't that sorta kinda indicate dual complicity? And doesn't it really underscore what's been going on in that region since way before 1948? This mess is as ideological, as emotional, and dammit, as personal as it is legal or illegal! The reason there's been no lasting solution is because of sheer momentum. It's like stopping a two-mile-long freight train within 20 feet.

I really am tired of all the hollow bluster about UN Resolutions and international laws and prosecutions because this mess precedes such civil posturing and rhetoric by so many decades and with so much weight that the law — no matter how important and logical and well-intended — just can't exert enough gravitational pull to cause any lasting results.

It comes down to the momentum of the dispute vs. the inertia of the law. Guess which force will prevail for a long time to come.

Waiting for the cries of "That means you support Israel!" And if my POV demonstrates support for Israel, I can only deduce that those who level that indictment must support Hamas. Hmmmmm... we both feel our positions are correct and the other must be wrong. Something familiar about that...

km
Your response was complete gibberish ?

Right Steve

km loves to spout out , and the UN does nothing , in fact what have they done so far in this crisis = NOTHING . What will the UN do ? create more mandates and then continue to do nothing to enforce it.

There is one thing that both sides seem to agree on is that there needs to be a 3rd party peace keeping force on the boarders . Arab League seems to be the right choice since the UN does nothing.

In what way? I asked you a question about suspected terrorists and you answered with some gibberish about suicide bombers?

km

Here was my answer

Yes if they are captured - normally suicide bombers are not - but you can get their leaders for supporting them.

There's a reason that the UN doesn't do much . . . it was designed not to do much. If you give five different nations the right to veto any action that the collective will of the global community wants to take, then you're guaranteeing that nothing will get done. So if you really want the UN to become what it might be, a world government, then the first thing that has to happen is to strip away the veto from the super-sovereign nations, the "big five." Of course, none of those nations would accept that move.

A dash is conjunctive - you should have put a full stop there instead if you wanted to make disjunctive.

Anyway to run with what you actually meant - what should happen if someone does summarily execute a suspected terrorist instead of organising a trial - should they be prosecuted for murder?

km