Blood brothers

Jerry

Though not really off the topic of "Blood Brothers" it strikes me as noteworthy that both Gaza and the West Bank are supported by imported dollars. What would happen if these dollars stop? First then the world would see what the word catastrope means. So it will be in America when the dollars being borrowed dry up. Those people who will be put to work on projects that will no longer be funded deep into the future will become the starving proletariet. First then America will be in trouble and through it, the entire world. That is Obama's genius plan.

hadrian

The West's purblind when it comes to the complexities of the Arab/Islamic world, Mel. As you know so well, certainly so far as Great Britain goes, just so long as their 'multi-cultural, we're-all-equal utopian delusion is kept in one piece despite allthe evidence to the contrary, they do not care. It is specious, sloppy thinking by a people who have been taught not to think and in the face of such a foe horrendously dangerous. One fears Obama is taking the USA down a similar route. Let's hope he either sees his naivity for what it is fast or that the Americans rumble him if he is deliberately doing what he's doing...though I prefer to assume he is just unrealistically optimistic about Islamist potential good-will!

Myke Smyth

Melanie is right, the entire population of Gaza is either poisoned by Islamofacist terrorists or are Islamofacist terrorists. When will the world understand that Israel is fighting for its survival. These threats must be erased.

Adam B.

When referring to the Holocaust denying "historian" Irving, the media present him (rightly) as an extremist. When referring to the Holocaust denier Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, the media always prefix his name with "moderate." Go figure.

An American

Fatha and Hamas are leading the West down the garden path and chuckling all the way...
meanwhile, they'll stop at the mailbox to get their monthy check courtesy of Western taxpayers. They must think it hilarious to be well-paid to do nothing but be the Muslim world's annointed irritant to Israel.

Obama will be happy to play along since his heart isn't in protecting Israel or it seems the US, after his last naive and troubling interview with Al Arabya.

In the interview, Obama insulted the American people and President Bush by implying that in the past we hated/distrusted all Muslims, but he, the Messiah, would make it right. In truth, Bush bent over backward to reassure our US and Muslim populations...nor were there any retribution against US Muslims after 9/11. In return, there was no appreciation among US Muslims who didn't seem to think it the right thing to take on the radicals Muslims among them or abroad...so much for returning the goodwill that Bush and the American people extended to them.

But Obama is painting a different story...he is the savior come to make all things right between the US and the Muslim world. Its the old tired game of making someone look bad...Bush... so you can look good.

God help us...we have a foolish amateur playing with our lives.

Sarah

Slightly off topic but I wanted to comment on the article about the BBC - I completely agree about BBC bias - I'm not strongly pro-Israel (and I don't agree with Melanie Phillips very often!) but I thought the coverage on the BBC news site yesterday was bizarrely biased against Israel.

Mr Jeeves

Adam B. re. your comment on Mahmoud Abbas' holocaust denial his 1982 doctoral thesis is a bizarre and unscholarly document which although not explicitly denying the holocaust does link it to a Zionist-Nazi conspiracy and argues over the numbers of victims which is equally distasteful. He is however on record in an interview with Haaretz in 2003 as saying "The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgiveable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind". In long running conflicts such as these there surely must be some room for rehabilitation and contrition of previous statements of hatred or the Middle East will never see peace.

Myke Smyth perhaps you would like to expand on your suggestion that 'These threats must be erased'. This is exactly the sort of ambiguous and unhelpful comment which if it were eminating from the other side of this conflict would immeadiately be decried as genocidal. How exactly would you propose to 'erase' 'these threats'.

RUTH

It's no excuse for Israel to bomb Paletinians into the stone age though is it?

Nice distraction, but that's about all.

We Israelis and Jews dislike each other just as much, according to your post yesterday.

But that doesn't mean Arabs should come along and prize us apart with texts designed to highlight our differences, does it?

Michael

So the Republicans funded Hamas did they?

Is that Barack Obama that bad after all?

Raymond Joseph Douglas

Fatah uses political means to try to destroy Israel.Hamas uses religious means to the same end. Can anyone tell me why Israel should trust either ?

Original Tony

"As thick as thieves" comes to mind or "leopards don't change their spots".
They are all the same and feed off the same lie.

Adam B.

Mr Jeeves, I understand your point, but has Abbas explicitly repudiated his doctoral thesis (a thesis for which he received his PhD)? And could this be yet another case of Palestinian leaders speaking to two audiences, one for domestic consumption and one for western ears? The two are often at odds!

davod

"Fatah uses political means to try to destroy Israel.Hamas uses religious means to the same end."

The Muslim Brotherhood, which insinuates itself into the rest of the world, is doing a very good job of Dhimmifying most Western governments.

Barbara

Mike Smyth,

The world fully understands that Israel is fighting for its survival. Half of the world doesn't care in the slightest, and the other half is looking forward to Israel failing and being overrun.

If the Arabs do get their way and put six million Jews to the sword, how much sympathy do you think the world will evince? Does anyone imagine that there will be huge marches decrying the slaughter? Everyone reading this knows that there won't be, there will be dancing in the streets and the passing out of candy, just as after every suicide bomb and 9/11. The UN will tut tut, and then go back to its oh, so important work of fancy parties and useless pronouncements. And the few refugees who manage to escape will be told that they brought it all on themselves and they shouldn't expect any help.