Still dodging the questions that you have been asked Steve.

1: "You want all the compromise to come from the side"

Ehmmmm No Steve compromise involves both parties in any negotiation. I now repeart:

"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."


2: "which is having its best land stolen by a neighbour"

What land is being stolen? From whom? As far as Hamas goes that "neighbour" has in fact given them the territory they now govern - Gaza - Initially stolen from the mandated territory of Palestine by the Egyptians in 1948 and occupied by them until 1967. The Israelis handed the land over to the Palestinians in 2005.

As for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they had been taken by force of arms from the Mandated Territory of Palestine by Jordan and occupied by them until 1967. The Jordanians relinquished any illegitimate claim they had on those territories in 1988.

Under the terms of the original mandate for the territory of Palestine Jews can settle anywhere within its borders. No defined borders exist for any two-state solution as the only offer ever made, the UN-1947 Plan, was rejected by the Arabs and never put into practice or effect.

3: "....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)."

Tell me how many "Palestinians" did the Israelis kill today? Now ask yourself that question every day. You will find that the answer to that question will consistently be zero until the day the next attack is launched against Israel from inside Gaza.

Your so-called apartheid wall was built to save lives and guess what it has, both Israeli and Arab lives.   

4: "The reason there can be no meaningful talks under present circumstances is nothing to do with Hamas and Israel's constant grandstanding about them."

What present circumstances are you referring to? Any part at all attributed to Hamas refusing point blank to recognise the State of Israel? Tell me Mr. Shaw how exactly do you negotiate and carry on a meaningful dialogue with someone who does not recognise you? At the end of such discussions anything that you think they have agreed to is immaterial because to them YOU do not exist.

5: "It is because Israel simply does not have to talk.

That will remain to be the case until all "Palestinians" recognise the the State of Israel's right to exist.


6: "Even if Hamas were a bunch of cuddly kittens, Israel would still not be talking about handing land back, and you know it."

What land has Israel got to hand back to Hamas? Rhetorical question the answer is none. Israel did a deal with Hamas in unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace - The Israelis lived up to their part of the deal - Hamas failed to live up to theirs - documented fact. Par for the course though.

Israel did land for peace deals with Egypt and with Jordan - Both were successful. King Hussain of Jordan tried to help the "Palestinians" and the only thanks he got for it was an attempted take over of his country by the very people that he was trying to help - Again par for the course.

7: "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."

Emotive twaddle if Israel wasn't threatened and attacked none of the above would have occurred.

8: "For your information (again), I have no truck with Hamas and I utterly oppose anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel."

Then just for once let us hear you condemn them as roundly as you condemn Israel. Please treat us an example of your emotive twaddle wittering on about indiscriminate rocket attacks against unarmed civilians, about using "Palestinian" civilians and children as human shields, about placing command centres and ammunition dumps in schools and hospitals - But I do not think that I will hold my breath waiting for that to occur, because I know it won't happen.

9: "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."

Ahhh so that is what it is about as far as you are concerned - a face saving exercise for the Hamas/Fatah leadership. Now you tell me, you have two people who have publicly stated that they are your sworn enemies and who you know to be armed, they ask to meet you but you must first come alone and unarmed to this meeting and stand naked in front of them - if you said that you would agree to go to that meeeting as instructed then I would call you the greatest fool in Christendom, and I would be right - that is what you are in effect asking Israel to do.


10: "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."

Doesn't surprise me at all, but the end result was that you and your like aided and abetted in killing off British industry, and damned near succeeded in bringing the country to its knees.


11: "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?

The people of the middle-east carry on dying because that is what their leaders demand of them in order to save face. The "leaders" and representatives of the Arabs of Palestine are the ones that lack imagination, their entire income of the "Palestinian State" is based on aid and they, the "leaders" are making fortunes out of it. More important as far as they are concerned they know that this gravy-train will continue just as long as they can keep "their people" in poverty in order to play the guilt-card and hold their begging bowls out to useful idiots such as yourself and to their guilt-ridden rich Arab neighbours.

The people of Palestine have had 67 years to sort this problem out - they have signally failed to do so - let them fight it out - it is the only solution now that they themselves will ever accept.