Hi to everybody...I've just watched a programme on BBC2 called The Birth of Israel. I hope some of you here managed to see it because it was a very in depth study of how Israel came into existence...after watching it, I still retain my feelings that the Palestinian people have been very wronged and have been left to their fate by the rest of the world, including the Arab countries. The disgrace is the fact that the surrounding Arab countries could not unify to defend the Palestinian people...in the Arab war against Israel, several Arab countries sent armies into Palestine to allegedly defend the Palestinians, but each of their leaders had their own personal agenda for going in with regard to the lands of Palestine, namely they sought control of it and to expand their own territories...and none trusted the other. The Israelis did not come out of this programme with clean hands, but defended what they did and only one regretted what had happened in one of the Palestinian villages they entered where one of many massacre by the Israelis took place. The rest of those interviewed included Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel, and fighters for the Hagganah and Irgun forces all of whom showed no remorse whatsoever for the driving out of the Palestinians from land rightfully belonging to them. It is 60 years now since the foundation of Israel and the wounds on both sides in this on going conflict are still raw and bleeding. Israel is still expanding its settlements into Palestinian land, and it looks to all intents and purposes that it will continue to do so now that it has established itself as a powerful state albeit under constant siege...I can see no way that peace will ever come unless the Palestinian people are completely and utterly crushed, which looks to be the aim of Israel now...it is an on going tragedy that contains within in it a fuse that is smouldering away and at the end of it is a time bomb of a catastrophe on a terrible scale...