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• Saturday, February 25, 2006 05:42 AM

  Please stay Retired, Mr Keeley!

  I could summarize this article as "if those damn Jews would just move back to the 1967 borders, then we might have peace", but that would not really do justice to the naivety shown in this article. What a wonderful group of people to have met too on your trip - Assad, Assad's Lebanese puppet and Hamas - up for the higher bidder now - hear that Syria and Iran? Such a jolly group of imminently reasonable people to sit down and chew the fat over a warm cup of coffee!

  Seriously, diplomacy is always useful to keep contact with folks like these, but one would be a fool not to insure that it is at the end of a 10 foot pole. I am certain that individuals like Mr. Keeley feel that if we just keep taking (like we have for 50 years now) that something would be accomplished. But in the Middle East, as happens in the rest of the world, actions tend to speak louder than words and trust is a commodity that is in precious short supply. Smoke and mirrors pronouncements such as “They don't recognize Israel as it exists” just show the level of denial of some people are willing to go to avoid the nasty fact that none of the groups named in the article even think Israel should exist – and that includes the Jewish side of the population in particular.

  So, go to an international conference, say all the right words, sell more snake oil and please stay away from the real area where decisions are made. Solutions like this are the reason this problem will never get solved, because they do not recognize the motivations and goals of the participants. Because frankly, they are nasty, brutish and up to now (thank goodness) not short.

  —Ironclad Read Ironclad's other letters
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