Any Jews out there?

[JockSporran]

I'm not Jewish myself, but I support you. The state of Israel has every right to exist.

I'm probably dropping a spanner in the works here.

Shalom.

[Clanad]

I usually admire your succintness and clarity of thought, jake, but on a few items, this being one of them, you are unable to realize the full extent of what's been happening to Israel for 59 years.

For example, you make an issue of the tragic civilian lives lost in the invasion of Lebanon by the Israelis, but you fail to mention that for months a daily (and nightly) barrage of rockets fired from civilian area of Lebanon were Hezbollah's instrument of terror. The same course of action has been going on for years by Hamas for the Gaza.

Do you recall who the last bomb belt martyr sent by Hamas was? A 57 year old grandmother of 41 grandchildren, for crying out loud! She was more than willing to kill other peoples grandchildren for the sake of martyrdom. All of the Moslem nations surround Israel have pledged to wipe them off the face of the Earth... presumably all the resident Jews along with the destruction of the nation. The first massive attack came just one day after Israel achieved nationhood and that, lest we forget was not accomplished by any invasion or land grabbing by the Israelis... Same with the Yom Kippur war.

Someone mentioned England's response to the IRA situation... I would not deign pontificate on that terrible time, except to say if Wales, Scotland and Ireland had engaged in the same type of actions as Hezbollah, Hamas, Egypt, Syria and, to a lesser extent Jordan, England would have sent fighter bombers and rightly so, don't you agree?

At any rate, the situation is a mess, but to accuse Israel of atrocities in the face of the ongoing near-total war from all sides is not very fair, in my opinion...

[claymore]

DO unto others before they do it to you

[Theland]

The Arabs had the West Bank for 20 years until they lost it in the '67 war, so why didn't they set up an independent Palestinian state then? Simple, they want ALL of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and they admit it!

[Theland]

Lighten up a bit.
http://www.jerusalemonline.com/ahmedinijad.asp

[David H]

Glad to see so much support for Israel and accurate history. I'll add the PLO were offered everything back except East Jerusalem and they wanted none of it. All those added territories were taken over after wars where attacks were made from there and the only way to control it was to occupy the land until the terrorism stopped, which is didn't.
Most of Palestine was and remains in Jordan, when Israel was formed in 1948 many Arab countries TOLD the Arabs to leave as they were going to wipe it out, which many did. They were not, as some Muslims and Anti Israelites claim, thrown out of their own country. But when the promised attack didn't come any Arabs who had not returned within 6 months of leaving were not allowed back, and to make a case for themselves the Arab countries refused them as well, creating the refugee camps many remain in. It's all planned purely to get rid of Israel altogether if they could, any negotiation will only pacify a proportion of Arabs, the rest will continue their mission to remove every Jew from the Middle East.