So, for example, if Israelis were being blockaded, their homes demolished for Palestinian colonies – we would recognise this injustice immediately and cease selling weapons to those forces committing such crimes.

You say George that “the Palestinians have not had their country taken away from them”. Here you are playing with words. Why are so many of them living in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, then? Is there no occupation, are those people living in the West Bank dreaming when they cannot travel on certain roads because of their religion?

The soviet supported regimes were anti israeli because they were supported by the west or maybe vice versa. Now the cold war has gone, Moscow no longer supports and controls these states but the USA still ‘controls’ Israel and should pull it off.

However, whoever controls Hamas should also pull them off too

I don’t particularly want to get into an argument with you about Anti-Semitism as I have come to believe that you genuinely believe what you write. I would rather know what someone thinks than the kind of racism that you often hear, whispered in hushed tones. That said, I think you are compromising your own nationalist beliefs with support for a “Palestine” that has never existed, in the same way that, say, England has, and in so doing, you have swallowed the Anti-Semitic (A term I use to refer to Jews) lie that “the Jews” are the oppressor of an otherwise free people.

Wonko, Anti-Semitism is contained within your above writing. Why would it be a different story, if Palestine was Jewish? The Palestinians have not had their country taken away from them. Show me in history when Palestine existed as an Independent country. On the contrary, Israel has aceded to nationalist demands and supported the creation of an Independent Palestinian state. Hamas in Gaza is the result of such misplaced trust. Hamas remain utterly opposed to such a state whilst Israel exists.

Indeed, the Hamas charter reads “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and serious. It needs all sincere efforts. The Islamic Resistance Movement is but one squadron that should be supported…until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine…it is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist Invaders… “The Zionist Plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook they will aspire to further expansion and so on. Their plan is embodied in the Protocols of the Elders Of Zion…Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that”.

Even if I were a “nationalist” such as yourself, I could not support the demands of anyone that would elect or otherwise support such murderous lunacy as that of Hamas. Their historical demand is flawed. Indeed, their whole view of history reeks of conspiracy theory. I hope very much that Israel can defeat Hamas and that in the future the needs of Palestinian nationalism (which is a contemporary phenomenon) can be reasonably and peacefully accomodated. That must surely begin with a recognition of Israel’s right to exist, free from terror.

But, and this is important, nothing is as clear-cut as you describe it.

Israel is in possession of the Gaza strip and the West Bank only because of agression by Arab states who previously had a mandate over these areas.

The West is demonstrably not anti-Muslim as can be seen from the side that EU and UN troops took in the Bosnian crisis; the Israeli problem isn’t actually about religions any more.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and this was a key opportunity for the citizens there to show that they could make good on the opportunity presented. Instead attacks on Israel have continued and no apparent efforts have been made by the terrorist government of Gaza (which violently threw out the PLO as you claim it was democratic) to stop said attacks.

Of course Israel is not blameless, but when a situation like this arises both sides inevitably lose some of their moral high-ground — consider the attrocities committed by the British during the Second World War (and yet no-one thinks the war in itself was morally indefensible). Yes Israel shouldn’t continue building settlements in the West Bank, and yes the blockade on Gaza has made life more difficult, but let’s balance that against a self-confessed murderous ‘government’ in the Gaza strip that doesn’t recognise the right to exist of it’s wholly democratic and developed neighbour.

That, presumably, includes the civilian population that voted for them.

I seem to remember Israel attacked a UN convoy when they invaded Lebanon the last time. I also remember them evacuating a village for their safety and then bombing the civilians they had just evacuated. Perhaps Israel is suggesting the UN is supporting Hamas.

So the Red Cross is in on it as well? Is there any humanitarian aid agency that isn’t supporting Hamas?

And they say this while they continue to bomb Gaza despite the UN resolution last night calling on Israel to cease military action immediately.

Like I said, hypocrites.

As I’ve said every time I get accused of being anti-Israel (it’s always a Tory, by the way) – I’m not pro-Hamas or anti-Israel, I disagree with what Israel is doing, I disagree with the double-standards that allows a rogue terrorist Jewish state to operate for decades but allows a free hand for anyone and everyone when it comes to muslims and I support the people of Palestine who have had their country taken from them and been subjected to human rights abuses and Israeli terrorism for decades. The Americans particularly and appeasers of Israeli terrorism in general are hypocrites – if Israel was arab and Palestine was Jewish it would be a completely different story.

I don’t believe Israel’s exhausted all other options to resolve the use of rockets into its territory, but that doesn’t change the fundamental moral justification for their actions.

I would like to think I would be a little more patient than is Israel, but at the same time, I rather suspect that if some rogue element started firing rockets into the south of England the British army would very promptly move to stop that activity.

Israel shows great restraint against the (openly) terrorist Hamas and Hezbollah and I’m curious how you came to be so strongly anti-Israel.

Probably what happened was , the IDF got the people into the hoose, then sector boundaries changed and an new artlery officer wondered why it still had a roof and windows…….