I live in an area with lots of houses. Some of my neighbours are very nice, others are not. I have learned which things bristle with my not-so-nice neighbours and try my very best not to rile them on those issues, even though some of the things they do cause me a degree of nuisance.

If they do something that I really cannot live with I first try and talk to them then as a last resort would refer the matter to the police / a solicitor.

I would not dream of kicking down their front door and opening up with an AK47. This would be looked on rather badly by the world at large, plus if I was unfortunate enough to kill any of them it is certain they would want revenge and would lie in wait for me, or my wife or other members of my family, to try and return the harm I'd inflicted on them. Then I'd have a choice of raising the stakes and killing a few more of them, and they would kill a few more of me.... and I think you can see where all that leads eventually.

Another thing i would not do: if the government decided to give me a home in this neighbourhood cause I didn't have one and couldn't afford one of my own (in fact I bought my house while not all of my neighbours had to buy theirs) I would be glad of the house, move in and make it as nice as possible for myself.

I would not, once again, kick in my neighbour's front door, have a look around, and seeing that the upstairs bedroom and living room were nice and spacious announce "I'm taking these" and then phone my extended family and say "right, you can move in whenever you want".

If my neighbours objected to this, I wouldn't call a few big friends of mine to come round and sort out my 'cheeky' neighbours (who do they dare think they are anyway, telling me I can't live in their house?)

Finally, if my neighbours and I got off to a very bad start and banded up on me, yes I would barricade my house, defend myself physically to the best of my ability and within the law if they intruded into my house, refer it to the authorities.

But I still would not move any of my large family into my neighbours houses and give them a free hand to rough up my neighbours whenever they want. That would only be adding fuel to the fire.

Now that's because I want to live in peace, and get on with my neighbours and my life.

I had a few run-ins with one or two families early days, but I found ways to get around these problems peaceably without resort to violence, though I am ashamed to say that there were nights when I lay awake thinking of how I could burn their cars or do some other harm to them without getting caught. So, yes, I do understand when people are driven to violence by the apparent hopelessness of a situation (on both sides). Can you imagine what would have happened had I taken that course? I'd be living in 'Baghdad' now, unable to leave my house for a day or two safe in the knowledge it wouldn't be burned down or broken into in my absence. Nowadays we manage to get along, though we will never be friends as such, at least the situation didn't escalate into something worse from which we would ALL suffer.

The key problem with your analysis (if I may) is that it posits Israel as a country just quietly minding its own business until, out of the blue, along came an Islamic spider, and sat down....

Of course we both know that's not a very accurate picture. Sure, I know all about 1948, 5 Arab armies etc., (though the phrase is misleading, conveying as it does an image of Mongol hordes, rather than the ramshackle and small outfits the arabs fielded). But even before that there was Irgun, Stern etc., and all the tit-for-tat leading up to 1948.

Now as I said above, even if you get off to a bad start with some of your neighbours as I did it is possible to row back from total disaster (e.g Egypt, Jordan). And deep down my neighbours know I'm here to stay. Once we found a way to all extricate ourselves while saving face (this is very important, and requires some generosity of spirit) they were happy enough to leave me be, and I, them. Of course it would require me not to interfere with them either - and not to try living in their house if I was not welcome.

(and the trouble started simply because I asked them not to do things that interfered with my quality of life, such as burning their rubbish nearby and the rubber-smoke smell fill my house if I inadvertantly left the windows open. Though we fell out over this, nonetheless because neither of us escalated the issue, I did notice that they started to burn it further away and eventually stop altogether. Prayer is also useful for achieving this end, for those of you out there who are believers, BTW).


Off to say a prayer for both sides for the mo'