Carol, the pictures you use to describe the situation tell a lot about how you see it (and that's where I strongly disagree). In your pictures, Israel is likened to a man who has to change his behaviour to avoid further damage. The 'opposition' (a road, a small baby) cannot be expected by anybody to change its (her, his) behaviour. No move to change will ever come from that side.

McGrath's picture (a man in a hole) is similar in that respect: Any change of the situation has to come from a change in the behaviour of the man (Israel). Nobody in the right frame of mind should expect a hole to change its ways.

I do not see the deadlock so one-sided. Both sides are led by grown-up men (though it doesn't look so all of the time), both sides can do something that could lead to a change. I do not see the onus for a change only on Israel's side as your pictures seem to imply.

Yesterday, a group of 55 leading Palestinians made a plea for stopping the suicide bombings. I saw an interview with one of them. He said they had wanted to say that much more early but many of them are afraid to speak out for fear of being murdered as 'collaborators'.

Such an initiative gives me as much hope as Israelis speaking out loudly against the politics of settlements (without fear of being murdered for that, by the way).

Carol, your riteous indignation made me grin, for there is more truth in that misspelling than you may have meant. Much too often the indignation from supporters of both sides seems to be a mere rite to me, so that to call it 'riteous indignation' often hits the nail. To aks, as Doug does, where is your indignation about XY, why don't you speak out against..., is not helpful at all in such a discussion, as long as only the dead on one side are used to try to embarrass someone else.

Doug, as for the number of dead on both sides, there have been periods of days, even weeks in which more Israelis have been killed than Palestinians, but on the whole and on longer periods, listen to Carol (or read her lnks in other threads). She's right here without any doubt.

Wolfgang