True enough stones can kill every bit as much as bullets. But the death toll shows that this time it's not the stones that are doing the vast mass of the killings.

If this was Northern Ireland, or South Africa, I doubt that many people here would be saying that the violence of the soldiers with the guns has been no worse than the violence of the boys with the stones, and has been a moderate and restrained response.

And that doesn't mean I'm saying that the stone-thriowing is the right thing for anyone to be doing (let alone the lynching of the two soldiers or the other killings by civilians on both sides which have taken place).

Aside from everything else, in the context of the present upsiring throwing stones (or even firing rifles) against the Israeli army just doesn't make sense as a way of fighting. In fact it is suicidal - and it can only be seen, bizarrely enough, as a way of provoking the enemy into over-reacting, and killing the stone-throwers. And in that it has succeeded only too well.

As I suggested earlier, if the self-sacrifice involved could be channelled into a genuinely non-violent resistance by some Palestinian Gandhi, something good come out of this. Stranger things have happened.

The most positive and encouraging post here has been Jack-the-Lad's. My heart goes out to those who are managing to make music across the sectarian divide, and bring together the two communities who have so much in common in spite of everything. For one thing, they are both attacked by anti-semites of one sort or another. But they have far more important things in common than that.

Salaam and shalom is the same word.