Mr Shaw if you cannot tell me or anyone else for that matter what could be discussed at any "meaningful" talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority hotch-potch of Fatah and Hamas why not just say so.

If you cannot give any examples of what the Palestinian side of the equation has compromised on then why not just say that they have compromised on nothing.

The essential factor required before any talks take place is the statement by all parties and factions representing the Palestinian side that they recognise the State of Israel, they recognise its right to exist and that they recognise and will uphold the right of the people of Israel to live their lives in peace free from attack and threat of attack. If that statement is not made then the Israelis and the Palestinians have got absolutely nothing to discuss.

You call it an "equation"?? Gosh, there are none so blind...

Just read back what you typed here. You want all the compromise to come from the side which is having its best land stolen by a neighbour with a massive military bankrolled by the cowardly, AIPAC-led US, from the side which routinely has about a hundred times more of its citizens killed by said neighbour, from the side whose people are regarded as second-class citizens in said neighbour's territory, from the side whose communities have been divided by an apartheid wall and which has a million and a half of its citizens held under impoverishment and siege by said neighbour (who thinks nothing of routinely violating its territory, trying to prevent its elections and arbitrarily threatening to withhold rightful tax receipts). Your idea of compromise seems to be one side carrying on as normal with its illegal land thefts and bellicosity whilst the other is supposed to act like saints.

The reason there can be no meaningful talks under present circumstances is nothing to do with Hamas and Israel's constant grandstanding about them. It is because Israel simply does not have to talk. Even if Hamas were a bunch of cuddly kittens, Israel would still not be talking about handing land back, and you know it. Whatever Israel does, whatever resolutions it ignores, whatever atrocities it visits on its neighbours in Lebanon and Gaza, including the littering of the countryside with hundreds of thousands of cluster bomblets and blitzing schools with white phosphorus and standing by calmly whilst its attack-dogs slaughter hundreds in refugee camps, no matter how much of the finest land it steals for settlements, it faces no more than the mildest tut-tutting from its western backers. No threat of sanctions, no conditionality on its military aid. So there is nothing at stake for Israel. Well, actually, yes there is. The security of its own people, who, one fine day, will see that their blinkered leaders can't get away forever with the Orwellian lie that the enemy is always without, all too easy to demonise. For your information (again), I have no truck with Hamas and I utterly oppose anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel. Take off your own blinkers for a minute while you try to digest that, because it truly is not an inconsistency. Hamas, unlike Israel, has much at stake. They will not call off their idiotic faux-campaign for the destruction of Israel because that would be defeat for them, but, stop the land thefts, lift the siege and they will talk, and the big wiping-off-the-map nonsense will quietly go away. But that will never happen if your attitude prevails (which it is doing as things stand). I remember the inglorious 70s when I was one of them there trade union militants. We were always going on strike tomorrow unless we got fifteen percent. We always got about three and a half, and carried quietly on working. That's how it works. There was a lot at stake, like losing our wages for example. But you, why, you stand there, arms folded, eyes shut, head shaking, calling for complete capitulation of a hubris-ridden faction, knowing full well it won't happen. So people just carry on dying. Don't you think the people in the Middle East on all sides deserve a bit more imagination than that?