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I don't think voting CPC or Liberals would make one grain of a difference in this matter, because as Dobbin is clearly showing us, neither one is seriously interested in a serious, genuine effort for peace, that simply cannot be imagined without adopting a balanced, principle based position. Of course, in the long run, genuine peace mediation would benefit all people in the region, Jews, Arabs and all others, because it's the only position that can be trusted by all sides, monitor progress and results as they actually are, rather than through a system of ideologicaly twisted filters (showng us a pretty nicey picture in this little square and obscuring it everywhere else), and act according to principles (our own, so often proclaimed), rather than gang-style affiliation. But that doesn't seem to be an interest of either of the Behemoth parties. They are OK with the way things are, artistically punching each other for non-existent differences, but overall both fine and smug about the way things are progressing (or just the opposite, subject to terminology) on the ground.

The "moving and adding" (4 for 1 and counting) was of course real, and as a result of that very real process the settlements are up 70% (150% in East Jerusalem). And your party, so very concerned with promoting peace and justice, certainly did nothing about it, and even very obviously (you can hardly make it any more obvious, Dobbin, can you?) felt very uncomfortable even noticing these otherwise fully "successful" developments. Correct Dobbin? You don't really want to act against your declared buddy, so you really prefer to look the other way when they go on a dirty business; and if and when somebody points it to you, you weasel, squirm, distract, deviate, go on tangents, call names, etc, i.e. do anything at all possible to ignore the act. Would that summarise your prefered approach to "peace settlement" more or less accurately? Thank you for making it so clear. You're certainly free to speculate about my beliefs but I can't see how it would help us understand and explain the way you act. And my "anonimity" would certainly have a lot to do with it. But I understand, all things must be tried when you simply can't find anything else to defend your clearly bankrupt position.

Amazing, isn't it? They're just moving next door with a four-five fold increase, but I'm not seeing or hearing because life is sunny and beautiful (and "successful"). As your beautiful approach to peace. I'm happy, my buddy's happy, so everybody must be happy now. "Success"! Settlements "ended", peace achieved, million dollars won, Britney Spears called for a date. No end to happiness. Keep trying Dobbin. What have your strategy done in real, ongoing terms, about persistent, ongoing, and massive expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories? May I suggest starting with your highly selective vision? As we have observed on numerous occasions in this conversion, your power of saying greatly exceeds anything that actually exists in this reality, so you can certainly keep exercising it to achieve many more great "successes" (in whichever indirect, complex, opposite, relationship, or without any whatsoever they may be with the actual reality).

OMG, Dobbin, I'm so sorry but if you think that settlements "ended" you must have been severely misinformed (by your strategist one may think). According to the facts recorded in this reality, the settlements have grown 70% since year 1993, and we discussed the most recent massive addition of 2,500 homes (=2,500 families = (approx) 2,500 x 3 = 7,500, i.e roughly the number of settleres that's been moved out of Gaza, in just one most recent project. Quelle surprise! Mais without doubt a great success aussi!), and we were discussing it not couple of days back, but I understand, poor memory. And so, as I already explained, that you can only hold a tiny piece of reality in the focus of your attention, is the problem with your vision (I wish I could help; i.e. I'm trying to) but not necessarily that of the reality. And therefore the question remains (you know which one; or shall I repeat yet again) and therefore sorry, but you haven't earned your piece of cake just yet. Keep trying, Dobbin, we know you can do it!

No, only want, or rather, interested in, a legible and meaningful discussion, where clear questions are answered, facts recognized, and arguments are countered with logic and facts. As quite obviously nothing of the kind has been delivered so far, and with no reason to expect that much of the kind woud be forthcoming, you'll certainly understand me in my reluctance to continue this line of discussion for the obvious reason that it wouldn't be a worthy investment of my time.

Only because it looks like you aren't going to respond in a legible manner, I couldn't really afford to direct any more of my attention to that significant topic, but maybe in the future... think remote one.. really.. we could have a very productive discussion, OK?

We can also discuss the meanings of plain English words, like e.g. "consensus", only let's do it one question at a time.. And the current question being (while it's still fresh in our memory.... hopefully): What has our advocated approach in the conflict done in real, practical terms about massive and ongoing expansion of illegal settlements so far, why we should keep going that same way in the future, and how it is going to promote the agenda of peace, trust and so on (or if not peace, etc then what is it likely to promote?).

That was really funny, thank you. "All lawyers agreeing" on anything? Wouldn't it happen the morinng after the pigs take off to South Pole for an annual masquerade party? Wikipedia: legality of Israeli settlements "According to the BBC, the "overwhelming view" of the international community is that the settlements are illegal based upon Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. [51] The consensus view is largely based on UN Security council resolutions, including resolutions 446, 452, 465, 471 and 476 which find the settlements to be illegal. [52]. In Resolution 465 the settlements are even described as a "flagrant violation". Separately also the legal arm of the UN, the International Court of Justice, has found the settlements to be illegal under international law [53]. International human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced the settlements as illegal,[54][55]. The European Union considers the settlements to be illegal[56]. Similarly contracting states to the Geneva Convention declared in 2001 the settlements to be illegal [57]. " I believe there's now a World Court decision on this issue as well. It is also telling who supports the legality of settlements (from the same reference): "Parties in favour of the legality of Israeli settlements Israel Anti-Defamation League" And who does nothing about their continuing expansion (whatever they may say). I'm not going to comment on this any more though as the question that's been asked clearly still isn't answered ( Dobbin still being tied up with something very imortant :-((

Perhaps you'd like to volunteer and answer the question for Dobbin, as he appears to have been delayed (for a while now, apparently) with other important issues? As soon as there's some way to ascertain that we could have an intelligible discussion here, I (already) promised to answer that question in full and in honesty. Oh, and by the way, do you (and you Dobbin, too) think that my answer to that question, whatever it may be, would somehow, anyhow change the obvious fact that there has been no real, practical action against ongoing and massive expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories? Or could be that, finding difficulty in answering a direct and simple factual question, you somehow find it easier (surprise! and a "success" as well!) to sidetrack into discussing the thoughts and beliefs, etc of the messenger?

Nobody can match yourself Dobbin in that skill, but you know what, I promise to answer that simple question the moment you either provide evidence of real and practical actions against ongoing massive build up of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, or admit that your strategy is clearly one sided and therefore bankrupt as a genuine peace effort. It was asked of you long before you came with this recent deviation, but I fully understand that having nothing to say of real value, you still have to say something...anything

And now you Dobbin are reduced to throwing that standard accusation, so commonly used by "rightwingers" and "conservatives". Normally used as a last resort for the lack of any better, meaningful, substantiated argument. Quelle dommage! But maybe indeed and overall, there wouldn't be much difference, we're talking of course, real, practical difference, between you and them? Think about it. In any case, it certainly demonstrates that you're out of all meaningful arguments to support your strategy. And that's of no surprise, because to work out a meaningful, genuine peace strategy, attempting if not succeeding due to numerous and serious obstacles, to approach peace, one'd need to first, learn to admit and overcome one's own idelogical biases and secondly, recognise and deal with the reality rather than one's ideas and visions of it.

You can run Dobbin but you won't hide. It should be obvioius by now that those examples, of Canada and West acting against the ongoing and massive expansion of settlements, simply do not exist, and therefore the policy you advocate is one sided and despite all you have to say, leads not to the peace but away from it. And it isn't even much different from what we know have from the Harpers bunch, so looks like in things international (as in most things these days, other than pompous rthetorics) Liberals are quickly catching up with the political standard of the day. But you recognized them as soon as they achieved their goals, right? Quelle difference! To ToadBrother: There's no obligation on any one state to recognise another state. If you'd bother to look around with a fresh, unobscured by idelogical prejudice sight, you'll find any number of states that wouldn't recognise another state, and still would exist peacefully without attracting justful attention of our "peacemakers". Why is it stressed so often in this case, to the extent that people who wouldn't stop to think about it independently start repeating the mantra, is yet another paradox of this ostensibly peaceful strategy that doesn't seem to have many actual connections to peace? I'd venture a guess though, Israel wants to be recognized (without dealing with the past sins of the way it's been created) and its mighthy friends could not but oblige, as they always do.

I wouldn't adivise to sidetrack on a search for a guilty party. There's certainly a lot of bad blood in that place and I could hardly think that any of the sides would qualify for the wings / horns (Dobbin may be of a different opinion). So I'd rather focus the question on something that concerns us and relates to us directly, i.e. our own view, and acts in this conflict. It's very obvious (proven with facts) that our position, that of West in general, and Canada specifically, has been severely skewed to one side, despite numerous proven facts that both sides have committed gross and massive violations of peace agendas. So the question remains, why so? What do the have to gain by supporting one side in the conflict, and thus delaying its resolution, and increasing its cost, in lives, destructions, delayed development, and so on? Why could we not assume an honest, impartial position, based on our cherished (back home) principles of fairness and justice, and be an honest mediator working genuinly and in good faith for the cause of peace (if we simply can't help doing something), or, short of that, just let it go and mind our own business?

Dobbin, you're avoiding the same question that was asked of you long before you woke up with that wonderful idea of sidetracking on Oslo and terrorism. And I'll certainly answer your curiousity the moment you provide requested examples, or admit that your strategy is obviously one-sided, and then explain logically how such one-sided approach could be conductive to anything but continuation and escalation of conflict. I hope you can come up with one (examples) or the other (honest admission of obvious reality) soon, or we'll be stuck at this point of our discussion for another extended period, and you'll earn yet another set of great "successes" with your disputing skills.

It's becoming very obvious Dobbin that you will not post those examples, and I think I may know why, because they simply do not exist in this reality. And that obvious reality makes you "peaceful" strategy severely lopsided, and therefore useless and even counter productive for the real process of peace. No spinny words will hide that obvious truth and it will be there staring at you no matter what commendable effort you'd make to not see it, until at some future and hypothetical moment of time you'll learn to recognise the reality and change your wonderful strategy to reflect it closer, and maybe then, at that hypothetical moment, your claims to fame as a genuine and real agent for peace could become something more than just empty claims.

I think to obtain a visa to Canada the applicant has to attend an interview (in most cases), and I would expect that in cases causing attention of the interviewing officer, that question would be asked. I'm not sure if lying to visa officer automatically disqualifies refugee application, but I'm quite sure I read about cases, where e.g. faked travel documents did not, so I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't so with visas as well, but I don't know the definitive answer to that.

Another "misunderstanding" of plain English, Dobbin? OK, let's try again: there's been a 70% increase in illegal settlements in the last two decades, which is a clear and massive violation of the settlements agenda, and what did your "peaceful" strategy do about it in real, practical measures, like those that have been applied to the other side for its violations? Try again, and I'll hold you to it until you either provide examples of such measures, or admit that your strategy is obviously one sided and therefore useless and bankrupt as a genuine, in good faith approach to mediation.

1.Canada does not recognise Hamas government 2. CBC Timeline: Canada suspends aid to Hamas government Plus of course, declaring it (Hamas) a terrorist organisation. Your turn Dobbin: real, practical acts against massive violations of the settlements agenda which is (ostensibly, ie. based on your words) a key element in resolution of this conflict.

No Dobbin, your vision is true this time around and it is indeed an empty space. You'll have to fill it with references, or explain how and why your peaceful strategy refused to react in any real, practical way to a massive build up of settlements in the last two decades (and even as much as notice the problem), and how is it conductive to peace, or whatever else it may be conductive to. The examples of real, meaningful actions against the other side were posted. Canada certainly participated in some, and it certainly did nothing at all, zero is zero, in real practical terms on the settlements agenda, and now you'll either explain the logical meaning of this double act, or leave you strategy, and by extension, party policy that promotes it, utterly bankrupt as a genuine approach to resolution of this conflict. As opposed to making a lot of noise, wrapping laurels around your chest and doing nothing, or worse still tacitly supporting one side, thus escalating and prolonging it.

And ultimately, I would agree with such position, short of us showing a genuine ability to mediate in good faith, the best for everybody would be to withdraw support from all sides, and let them figure out their own affairs. At issue at this point in the discussion is not that the parties do or don't, but how we see it, and how we react to it. With a position severely skewed to one side, as has been clearly demonstrated by the obvious inaction on the settlements agenda, it's very questionnable whether it encourages the sides to move toward a genuine, in good faith peace process, or away from it.

I know. We don't happen to like the guy on the other side, and that in itself should justify us in whatever we do to him. Dobbin is still working on a logical explanation that would reconcile our world famous sense of justice and goodness with somewhat different reality of our act on the ground, and everybody else who thinks they'd have an idea, is welcome to try as well.

OK, you implicitly admit (by failing to provide any argument) that the same standard should be applied to all agendas, but still, Dobbin, we'd still like to know which one (in your view), it should be, i.e 1) normal, common sense standard, where an actual overall progress toward the goal has to be shown to qualify as success; OR 2) Dobbin-like approach, where a massive overall regression could still be seen as important "progress" and "success" as long as some (very specific) criteria carefully selected by Dobbin are met, and without unnecessary reference or relevance to the overall state of the situation? Now regarding our reaction to transgressions and violations of peace agendas. Here's what we have on Hamas (without limitation to listed below and without necessarily limiting the scope to Canada only, though this country indeed participated in some if not all actions): 1) Economic sanctions ()Economic sanctions against PNA following (democratic) election 2) Diplomatic isolation and other "restrictive sanctions" imposed after election of Hamas (multiple references e.g. US eases diplomatic boycott of Hamas 3) Declaring it a terrorist organisation. 4) Specifically by Canada, interruption of aid And here's what there's on Israel's persistent expansion of settlements (which is, according to Dobbin, another important agenda in the resolution of this conflict), in the way of real, practical actions: Of course I cannot pretend to have all information pertainiting to such actions, and if I missed anything, Dobbin would graciously oblige us all by posting references to the appropriate examples. And now everybody, relax comfortably in your seat, as Dobbin would explain, logically and rationally, the nature of this paradox, i.e. why exactly that way of action (and inaction) is correct, rational, and would necessarily lead to successful resolution of the conflict.

If you want call moving one settler out of a small area, while adding another three a progress, by the same definition (courtesy jdobbin) increase in violence should also be OK as long as there's a small area in which it would have gone down. Especially, e.g. massive increase in violence in one area (Gaza) could be tolerated, just as massive increase of illegal settlements e.g. in East Jerusalem (2.5 times). No? Why not? Why would you insist on using different criteria for violence (real decrease and cessation) as opposed to building of illegal settlements (Dobbins interesting definition of "progress", whereby things could go the other way, like totally the opposite way, and still be considered progress).). No, you wouldn't want your creativity to work both ways, but only in the direction you like, do I understand you correctly? Dobbin, Hamaz has increased violence and received real sanctions. Israel has expanded settlements and received an pat on the shoulder. You still have to find a logical explanation to your drastically different reactions to these major violations of peace agendas, so please let us know when you think you're ready to share it.

OK, Dobbin, we have a real obstacle to our peaceful discussion and we need to address it first hand. At issue is the apparent paradoxical contradiction between our (your) word - that build up of settlements is a serious obstacle to you know what, and the absence, I mean absolute, 100% perfect absence of any real and practical acts to confirm that (if I'm wrong Dobbin, i.e. such acts actually happened in actuality - I mean acts not words, please pay attention, you'll certainly oblige everybody by pointing to specific examples). So, we have: 1) The Words; 2) The Act (what's been done to make The Words come to reality - i.e. as already explained, nothing) The Words (halt of expansion and reduction of illegal settlements) are very obviously not the same as The Result (massive expansion of settlements and our absolute, 100% perfect failure to do anything about it), and I'm only trying to reconcile the two, logically. In that, there would be exactly three logical possibilities: #1 The Words are wrong (i.e. what is said is not the same as what is thought, and therefore there was never any real, genuine intent to act); #2 The Act is wrong (we truly believe in The Words, and we admit that our act hasn't been productive to achive them - and if we still believe in The Words as we're writing this, we're going to change our act, so that next time around, the result could be different). #3 And finally, we'd love to, but were incapable to act. However, as we all know from our actual act against Hamas, #3 isn't really applicable here, we can and do act against some parties and some violations. This leaves the logical choice limited to only two options: The Word and The Act. By laws of logic, one must be wrong, so which one would it be? This btw is a direct and clear question. I certainly appreciate your attempts to point out the flaws in my arguments, but this wouldn't be one of them, because as I stated multiple times, the critical agendas of deescalation also include cessation of hostilities (military and insurgent), and progress on human rights. You may not have noticed, but it's your problem, because it's your responsibility in a meanigful discussion to understand the argument of your opponent and respond to it in good faith (you can certainly ask for clarification if necessary). Moreover, as evident there's no lack of real and practical response to insurgent violence from one side, and therefore the question remains, why such response hasn't been forthcoming against massive violations of the settlements agenda by the other side? It's somewhat creative phrase, but I'd certainly insist on overall situation being maintained at an acceptable level, along with any local progress. Otherwise the meaning of "progress" becomes lost for all practical purposes and you'll be able to play your hopscotch game claiming "successes" forever (could it be what this all is about)? I see that you're running out of arguments, Dobbin, and it's of no surprise to me, as you carry that ardous task of ignoring the reality, and excusing inexcusable. You mean, there's been a creeping annexation of land in the Northern Ireland? You'll post some refernce to that, will you, otherwise, it would be you know what, yet another "success". However, the question was, why nothing was and is being done about massive violations of settlement agenda. It appears that it's moving to be a central part of this discussion, and so I won't let you sidetrack anywhere else, until and unless it's answered clearly and completely. The rest is just more attempts to weasel out of the conundrum you found yourself in, but to no avail. You proclaimed that construction of settlements is wrong. You can act and you have acted against party that violated other agendas. Why have you never acted and by all indications, will not act against continuous and ongoing massive violations of one of criitical peace agendas by your friendly party? And how is it "conductive" to peace (or what is it actually "conductive" to?). BTW Dobbin, there's still one direct question you failed to address from the previous post, so again: Do you support Israel's policy of expansion of settlements in retaliation for transgressions of the agreement? We can talk about general meanings of impartiality as soon as we have addressed these pressing issues.

Gosh, what an idea! I'd certainly do that come next election (if I have to throw away that vote - let it be with a bang!). People! Let's write a collective letter to Gilles to let us all participate democratically to a full extent possible (i.e vote BQ in the rest of Canada). We may even elect some Bloque representatives, in E.Ontario, Manitoba, or Vancouver!