"unanswerable objections "
Can I make something clear Mike - it really shouldn't be necessary.
My reference to mending fences has been throughout, the problems raised by Muslim fighters returning to Britain - it is why I have emphasised the docile and to some degree co-operative position of British Muslims.
The Middle East is a different matter, and is a case of seeking an international solution.
I feel that the U.S. has to drop its use of the veto on behalf of Israel, (half-way there at present anyway) and a world-wide boycott of Israel should be called for to force her to take peace talks seriously.
Whatever the feelings of the Palestinian leadership and Hamas towards Israel, they are in no position to present a serious military threat.
It can be validly claimed that the rocket attacks are a direct response to expansionism, the blockage and the history of atrocities carried out against the Palestinian people.
Israel is a sophisticated, well armed (to the point of nuclear capability) and wealthy State - Palestine is an extremely impoverished Third World one - David and Goliath was a Biblical fairy tale, nothing more.
Without world intervention, led by the U.N., both of us will live to see an encore of the Holocaust.
Jim Carroll