My God, how you love to write, or transcribe, or whatever! All a waste of time, as my basic point still stands: violence is getting the Palestinians absolutely nowhere. I am in complete agreement with you on all the disgusting Israeli behaviour you have so laboriously transcibed (if you had read my post more carefully you would have seen that I am already convinced that Israeli violence, agression and land-snatching is the root of the problem). However the fact remains that whatever apalling abuses the Israelis perpetrate can be neatly covered up by them and the western media (I completely agree that it is biased) by referring to the constant Palestinian violence, especially suicide bombings.

My mention of 'a few wet crunches' was too flippant. However I am convinced that peaceful civil disobedience on a massive sale would be infinitely more effective than endless desultory shootings, bombings etc. Expecting the problem to be solved by an Israeli Abraham Lincoln is as naive as Gandhi expecting the problem of the British in India to be solved by the King abruptly deciding that it was time to come home.

As for the other thing: I'm sorry (aren't we all) your Pres. is a fundie dickhead, but you are confusing the number of people killed by him with the broader statement that Muslims are more inclined to fundamentalism. They don't have the power to kill as many as he has (just wait until they get the bomb), but there's more of 'em in proportion to moderates than even Christianity (which, I repeat, I cordially dislike). In many Muslim countries and communities fundamentalism is actually considered normal - even in the US a fundie is viewed as a fundie.

With regard to your very lame response re. women in Muslim countries, you reply to the effect that one can't improve the lives of women in these countries by killing all the men, which is what the President is trying to do. Please let me know what the actions of Mr Bush have to do with the topic of this thread, with me, where I have ever supported him in any form, or where I have advocated killing all Muslim men - a classic CarolC fudge/non-sequitur.