Hamas leader is killed

[WMS]

Well, it was about %@*#&^! time. After the past four years, I have come to the conclusion that the Palestinians will never genuinely try to sign a peace treaty with Israel. There's too much bigoted hatred on their side for that. And the Palis can't be trusted to abide by any agreement they sign anyway - witness the last 10 years.

That being said, I think, for their own security, Israel needs to withdraw most of the settlements - mainly the isolated small ones run by religious-nationalist nuts who want to engage in ethnic cleansing. The large, suburban-in-nature settlements (like, err, Ariel?) should be annexed, in addition to the Golan Heights (screw the Syrians) and East Jerusalem. In return, give up Gaza (does Israel really want it...it's a total pit!) and most of the West Bank. Basically, I believe the Israeli Ministry of Defense has a plan which does this with a minimum of population exchange. The Palis would get about 85% of the West Bank as one contiguous lump. And there should DEFINITELY be a wall/fence along the entire length of the border. I'd stop letting the Palis in as workers, too - let them, in their new independent state, deal with their own problems, and not export them like, say, Mexico does.

Withdraw, fortify, and ignore the rest of the M-E as much as possible...

[WMS]

And there should DEFINITELY be a wall/fence along the entire length of the border. I'd stop letting the Palis in as workers, too - let them, in their new independent state, deal with their own problems, and not export them like, say, Mexico does.

Now I realise why we are 8 points apart in the libertarian/authoritarian scale...

Yep.  Note that I'm closer to the center than you are. I also took the Political Quiz Show, and ended up at 25, a little bit right-of-center...

I don't think, after all the civilian Israeli noncombatants that the Palis *deliberately* killed (often by using Israel's desire for cheap labor) that the Palis have any *right* to enter Israel proper. It takes quite a twisted outlook to, as the Palis do, simultaneously call for the destruction of Israel and ALSO complain that Israel doesn't let them in to work...  

And given how effective the wall/fence has been in preventing Pali suicide bombers, damn straight the Israelis need it!

[WMS]

Sometimes it´s better to be apart from the centre... Or what the creators of the quiz regard as "the centre".

Israel has killed many civilians too. In fact, it´s a country that´s violated more UN resolutions in the last decades than, say, Iraq... I´m against the wall, but I realise why many people support it. But you seem to endorse a wall dividing Mexico from the US, and I don´t see the point there.

Nah, it's better in the center.

Innocent civvies? Or people actively assisting in terrorist activities? Think about that one. And as for the UN Resolutions, well that's because *deep breath* the UN is dominated by a bunch of bigoted, anti-democratic s whose appetite for hypocrisy knows no bounds! Where are the UN resolutions condemning the Iraqi massacres of the Kurds, or the Shona massacres of the Ndebele in Zimbabwe, or ANYTHING Idi Amin ever did in Uganda, or any of the other multitudinous slaughters and repression that SO make Third World life exciting? Where were they when Hispanic Guatemalans massacred 150,000+ Mayans in the 1970's and 1980's? Where were they when Bhutan ethnically cleansed Nepalese in the 1990's? Where have they been in regards to Burma/Myanmar all these years?

I'll tell you: they were busy condemning Israel for killing one person.

As for the Mexico issue...there is NO real border control on the U.S.-Mexican border, only a porous sponge. And I don't think that's a good thing...but that's a topic for another day. Go read Samuel Huntington's latest article in Foreign Policy for a look at this issue...