No, I really love bloggers....

Here's a new one I've just come across...D-Squared.

Anyway, they had something brilliant to say about the Israel/Palestine conflict on Monday.

Basically, I regard the Palestinian Authority, or whatever it's called, as the moral equivalent of the IRA. In other words:

I think they have a genuine grievance and a genuine right to have their claims taken seriously

I think that their grievance, and their case, is by no means as strong as their more vocal supporters think it is

I think that the population that they claim to represent is being made the victim of unacceptable governmental repression and are the chief victims of an unconscionable political situation

I think that their chosen method of warfare is cowardly and disgusting, and not to be tolerated or apologised for

I deeply doubt that they really represent the people they claim to represent

They are, on balance, the villains of the piece, but the cause that they support in their villainous manner is at bottom, just.

I agree. It is possible to both think the Palestinian people are getting screwed and also to think that encoraging teenagers to participate in suicide bombing is horrible.

I think that what this brings home to me is that a) what a bloody shame it is that there does not appear to be any Palestinian equivalent of John Hume and b) that when you extend this analogy to judge the Israeli forces by the standards of the RUC and the B-Specials during the worst periods of the Troubles, they still appear to have behaved bloody badly.

Good stuff, go read.