El Pibe

aaah, big endians and little endians. *sighs* Actually I think the more appropriate analogy is the one about a tree falling in a forest.

They are all scared stiff they will lose what's left of their congregation to the Catholic church old age, IMO. *corrected for you*

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And how will Israel Normalise relations with Iran > for instance a country whose PM has said they want > it wiped off the face of the world? The > Palestininas have some ways to try and solve the > conflict, they could maybe stop supporting and > voting for Hamas who keep firing rockets out of > territory that they were given by Israel in a > recent attempt to try and normalise it a bit. The > Palestinias too it could be argued are trying to > make it manageable on their terms, with far less > leverage admittedly, ie extract concessions from > Israel using international pressure and then > continue with hostility. > > Nope, I don't think it is within Israel's power to > normalise it becuase their many enemies don't want > them there, end of, non -Negotiable, so I agree > it's untenable . Either Israel will cease to exist > or it (the conflict) will go on for ever, I can't > see a solution. Many of israel's actions and > policies are despicable but so are those of the > other lot. A few points*, I'm afraid I'll semi-fisk. The Palestinians are trying to manage, that's not the same thing as pursuing permamnently manageable conflict by any stretch of the imagination. They are trying to work towards a solution but the party with the power isn't interested at the moment, it has been in the past and inevitably will in the (possibly horribly distant) future, and though the palestinians will not accept permanent occupancy, it isn't in their interest in any way shape or form to pursue the continuance of the conflict. It _is_ for Israel who gets to continue building settlements, bagging the water and avoiding ever having to deal with compensation, right to return** or a settlement over Jerusalem. Iran has nothing to do with this. First comes the acceptable solution then comes the normalisation with neighbours. There is no 'end of'. You could equally have said that of Arab champion and implacable enemy Egypt in the mid 70s and within a couple of years they were allies, Egypt even helping to police the ghettoisation of Gaza. Iran is led by a populist leader smitten with his rhetoric. They aren't a direct threat in that their fully mobilised armies barely made it ten miles into Iraq at the height of the war there, I'm not sure how they're expecting to reach Israel, plus they're not stupid enough to rain missiles down on a country with a good track record for disproportionate response possessed of hundreds of nuclear warheads. In time the rhetoric war with the US will calm down and the reformers will gain the upper hand again (remember the arab spring (yeah they're not arabs I know) really kicked off there and tensions are unresolved) as they did in the 90s, and things will change there. The really interesting question in all of this is how the Arab Spring has changed matters. In the short term it has strengthened Israel's hand. Syria has its own problems, Iraq is in political stasis, most of the Gulf States are busy with their own repression and deflecting anger to Israel ain't cutting it any more for these regimes. For those in a democratic transision with their fates in their own hands there's now no point getting all uppity about Israel/Palestine as an outlet for frustration, they have countries to build and economies to revitalise. The mute response of the Egyptian people is particularly key, and has been reflected in the cautious approach of Egypt, still ostensibly cooperating with Israel, but much more lukewarm. I suspect it has played a very big role in securing the ceasefire having quite a weight of influence with both parties. I also applaud its lack of sabre rattling. In the longer term genuine democracies and more successful economies mean Israel as beacon of democracy is masively undermined, whilst governements will no longer be existential threats but will want to be partners in the process. Again a continued belligerent stance will isolate Israel further. Ultimately its easy to despair and say this is fundamental and eternal hate, but that can be said of many conflicts many of which have found or are finding peace, think N Ireland, S Africa, Colombia, S Salvador, Guatemala, France & Germany, christ France & England (wasn't that the origin of the term Detente in the modern sense?). What it takes is for brave people to say "I will talk". That's already happened in Israel and it wasn't Hamas or the PLO who killed him! Peace will be met through compromise and dialogue and am confident that this will (eventually) come to pass. *apologies for coming back to this but have quite literally had hands full with a very sick little boy for a while **If I was a palestinian negotiator I'd just drop these, accept that you lost the war in 1948 and just concentrate on creating a viable state, which is actually pretty much what happened in the Oslo Peace Accords.

I do love this guy

Duck & Cover

Funnily enough if my boy is sick for more than 4 days I go to my GP and they send me to A&E EVERY BLINKING TIME! Parental panics my bloody arse.

It lost me on "temperate weather". Has he BEEEEN there?!?! I'm pretty sure that "28C weather" must be a 24 hour average where the 35C 100% humidity daytime temperature plummets to 30 with 100% humidity at night. THe low number is accounted for by the swirling rains that come every three hours on the dotfor 15 minutes. Try getting emotional about anything frankly when that's what you face day in day out 365 days a year.

That Pixie Lott has a lot to answer for goddammit!!

A boozer is a pub, a bar ain't.

some sleep would do nicely.

I'm pretty good with spiders, came face to face with a golden orb spider in the mayan ruins of Tikal in the Guatemalan jungle and can honestly say i shat it a bit.

Whole sole and plaice is on sale every other day or so in sainsburys, incredibly cheap and delicious meal takes about 10 minutes.

I got caught in the Cotswolds as a tropical style thunderstorm descended on the area. That was pretty ball-sac reducing I can tell ya. In my late twenties, burning the candle at both ends and with a stressful job, I used to suffer occasionally from sleep paralysis. Stuck helpless at the mercy of your own psyche, now that's scary!!

Actually there were, doesn't make them right of course. The late great gore Vidal had a disappointing penchant for these theories. Funnily enough the whole Konya thing was naive, misguided and factually very very iffy but that's another story. Is Sharon any relation? That the current Israeli strategy is the baby of that war criminal isn't surprising. If only Rabin had lived...

"still get a sense of evil Isreal from you both" What a very silly man you are sometimes quids. What I'm trying to offer are potential ways forwards to cut the very tedious gordian knot of intractable conflict. It is within Israel's purview to solve the conflict, it isn't within that of the Palestinians. Of course Israelis aren't evil but their decision makers are wrong and aren't working to end the conflict simply make it manageable on their terms. I find this a morally reprehensible position. I also think history suggests its an untenable one in the long term, the far more sensible way forward would be to normalise itself as a country and its relations with its neighbours. My personal opinion is that it should do this by changing the nature of itself as a country. One state based upon rule of law for all its citizens. I reckon joining the EU and signing up to the Human Rights Charter would be sensible way forward too.

well no, you're wrong huguenot, the US love affair didn't realise until the mid to late sixties. This is all about the six day war. Israel's ridiculous preponderance of power has come about thanks to the US's interest int the region, and its only interest in the region is oil. Increasingly the US's rhetoric and its applicability to Israel, especially in the light of the urge to self determinate is becoming irrelevant. I accept that it has been a factor in the facilitation of the conflict but it is nothing to do with the war itself and the concerns of its participants. The US may think its an oil war, but its really a water war.

This has nothing to do with oil. It has a lateral relevance in that the US gives a shit because of it, but otherwise this is what it says on the tin. The solution is blindingly obvious, dialogue and compromise, but it is necessary for those with power to make the compromise more so than those without because they have no chips just rhetoric and ultimately violence. Israel has chosen managed war so that it can pursue its goals, ownership of water and colonial expansion, dead civilians are simply a propaganda win and an acceptable byproduct. It has also learnt the lesson that no one cares about dead innocents, babies or otherwise so its hands are free to act, likewise with extra judicial murder, sadly a lesson the US has learnt well. All this takes us towards a worse world not a better world and daily mail readers scoffed at the Nobel peace prize award to Europe. The solutions are simple but so far politically unpalatable. Genuine compromise and subsequent existence in a place where the law courts are where conflicting wills are settled, not by raining whizzing shards of metal cutting through flesh of those just trying to get by day to day.

Yeah they deserved to die, I love your muscular liberalism, it turns me on.

spot on quids

I hadn't actually read what Hague and Blair had said. Hague, well he towed a tiresome diplomatic line that blurs the truth. Blair, well for once he didn't lie, but he did state the bleedin' obvious that escalating wars tend to escalate, thanks Tone. I'm not sure why this got Bell's goat so much, it's nothing we haven't seen a million times, same shit same shit in this case.

"Simple. Israel wear the black cowboy hats in the simplified world of simpletons." Except in the other world of simpletons where the palestinians are wearing the black hats. Then everyone else tires of the tedious endless argument and decides they're all as bada as each other. What results? 25 years of statis. Who suffers? The civilians, as usual.

that's your heart fudging what your head was thinking ;)

I'm not sure Blair actually counts as a 'western politician' any more does he?

blimey, last week unaniminty that we were getting pounded by Pardew, the week that we're pummelling the Potters. I'm not so sure. Arsenal 3 Tottenham 2 Liverpool 1 Wigan 1 Man City 2 Aston Villa 0 Newcastle 1 Swansea 0 QPR 1 Southampton 0 Reading 0 Everton 2 West Brom 1 Chelsea 1 Norwich 1 Man Utd 1 Fulham 2 Sunderland 0 West Ham 0 Stoke 1

The smoke trails are all wrong for your common or garden grad style katyusha, that looks much more like a heavy artillery BM-27. Bloody Steve Bell, should have done better research, ooooh it makes my blood boil I tell ya. 3/10?