the negotiation farce..

i get it that negotiating with terrorists is bad..

(a) it discouages the moderates.. rather than rewarding them for being cooperative - they see how violence is the only language we understand..

(b) it empowers the extremists.. the palestinian public is likely to view hamas as more effective than abbas if we give in to hamas' demands while we keep on ignoring abbas. and the palestinian authority..

(c) it sets a bad precedent.. copycat violence and terror may well follow when other groups start to view us a societ in capitulation..

(d) it benefits those that want to kill you..

now i understand good and well for these very reasons why we have avoided negotiating with hamas for so long.. it doesnt help that hamas' charter expressly includes the destruction of israel - an ambition that hamas plays out on a daily basis..

but what i dont understand is why our government needs to lie about it.. we have negotiated with hamas so many times.. whether it be previous ceasefire attempts following previous conflict breakouts or whether in connection with the release of gilad shalit..

so why did so many palestinians and israelis need to die and so many houses be destroyed and so many people rendered homeless if we could have just sat down for a chat and solved things.. why did we need an escalation that would force our respective governments to demontrate unachievable achievements when they could have quietly progressed common interests without the public following their every move as it seeks to avert a sense of meaningless loss of life..

my point is - if youre doing it anyway - then just do it.. and do it properly.. and get the best and most peaceful outcome you can for our nations.. so we can stop apologising for our existence and for the low number of israeli casulaties and the gazan deaths for which we blame hamas and they blame us.. who needs this nonsense..