chicot

You don't regard the West trying to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria as dangerous? I think world war III may do quite a bit to blow up your foundation and it might not be all that reversible either.

This is a curious form of debate. Rather than stating exactly what you mean, you hint at things and expect me to guess where you're coming from. If I guess wrong you can say that wasn't what you meant or "aha, you don't know your history after all". I'll guess that you're trying to imply that the reason that the "attention is only on Israel" is due to anti-semitism. If there really is no case against Israel and it only gets so much criticism due to anti-semitism, then why are there so many Jewish critics of Israeli policy? As for there being a problem with Jews in the holy land, Jews and Muslims have lived together in the holy land prior to the advent of Zionism in relative peace, certainly far more peacefully than did the Jews and Christians in Europe over the same period. Take a look at some of the early Zionist literature. When you have a group coming from outside, saying that you are inferior, have no rights to the land on which your people have lived for generations and making no attempt to hide the fact that they mean to displace your from your homeland, it's really unlikely to go down too well.

Actually I know my history pretty well but I explained why I believed the histories of Syria and Jordan were not relevant, therefore the onus was on you to explain their relevance. As for why the Palestinians in question left the land that is now Israel, that is a matter of dispute. I very much doubt that what I believe is the same as what you believe and as neither of us was actually there at the time we will have to agree to disagree. What could have happened in an alternate universe doesn't really get us anywhere. Like it or not, we have to deal with the universe that we live in. Do you really believe that slaughtering Gazans by the thousand is actually going to improve Israel's security?

Well, enlighten me then.

I am not talking about people who left the land that is now Syria or Jordan. I am talking about people who were made refugees in the chaos that followed the creation of Israeli. As such, they have the right of return. As the people I am referring to did not come from the lands now making the present-day states of Syria or Jordan, the "long histories of the great nations of Syria and Jordan" are entirely irrelevant.

I would argue that those who lost their homes as a result of the creation of the state of Israel or are their descendents have a considerably greater claim to Israeli residence and citizenship than in any random Arab nation.

I am by no means an expert but I think there is some question of whether Jews are a race, religion or both. Still, if you prefer it I will label it "religious majority" instead. Whatever you want to call it, my reply to Tom stands - full citizenship of Israel is not and has never been on offer to all Palestinians. Would you dispute that?

Garbage. Some Palestinians have Israeli citizenship but that is something that has never been offered to Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank (nor to the wider Palestinian diaspora) as doing so would interfere with the racial purity of the Jewish state.

Liverpool, UK. I think he is from the deep south but for some reason he's been over here for years.

I've met Earnie Shavers. He nows works the door in bars in Liverpool (my hometown). Even though he's well into his sixties he still looks like a dude you really would not want to mess with.

So you think Tyson was a harder puncher than Foreman? I think that's a pretty hard call to make. Foreman absolutely destroyed Frazier and Norton and I'd say they were both way better than any of the chumps Tyson was knocking out.

The thing is the EDL and their ilk have been around in various guises long before radical Islam became a problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, these people are morons and they have to have someone else to blame their problems on rather than look in the mirror. In the past, they would hate ethnic minorities for various reasons such as taking their jobs, getting earlier access to social housing ...etc. Now that people are (rightfully) concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism they have made that their cause celebre rather than their usual bs. Don't be fooled though - even if there was no problem with radical Islam, they would find some other stick (both metaphorical and literal in some cases) with which to beat Johnny Foreigner. There's rational and valid ways to respond to this atrocity. Some sort of inter-communal march to show that we are all opposed to this would be a valid response. Throwing bottles at the police and trying to incite racial hatred is neither valid nor rational.

I'd have no problem with going down the lawsuite route but I suspect (though I'm certainly no law expert) that it would be next to impossible to make anything stick.

The EDL are ignorant racist thugs who need very little excuse to "protest". Their reasoned response to this atrocity was to throw bottles at the police. Thankfully they have very little popular support over here.

Alive but shot in the throat so he can't speak. Very convenient