Daniel, these are not well-considered comments.
First, you are totally inconsistent.
You quote Mubarak as though he were a fair and impartial authority in these matters.
President Mubarak is a dictator, one of decades standing, and he has some very large interests in supporting American policies, about $2 billion a year in keeping-the-peace payoffs for a start.
At the same time, you always have been a defender of Israel's de rigueur
position that Hamas - a truly democratic organization - is a terrible bunch of beasts.
And, as we know from other times, you promote the also de rigueur position about the great blessings of democracy in Israel.
Mubarak is little more than a thug, but he is a peaceful thug towards Israel so I guess that makes his opinion worthy?
As to Haaretz, quoting Israelis on anything having to do with Gaza, or Iran for that matter, is rather like quoting a South African paper in the heyday of apartheid on events in a Bantustan. The view is utterly predictable.
I object strenuously to your calling George Galloway a "blustering fool" if only because it so clearly untrue.
Galloway has a piercing intelligence, and he is, without a doubt, the most remarkable orator in Britain today.
His mission on this delivery of assistance to a people left shattered by three weeks of bombardment is not something to make light of.
How do you know, Daniel, that the stone-throwers were not Israeli agents? My God, we have boundless precedents for such activity and worse.
If the stone throwers were indeed Egyptians, then it is certain they were not acting, as we used to put it during the Cold War, spontaneously.
Spontaneous displays do not happen in Mubarak's Egypt, as I'm sure you well know.
So, I’m sorry to say, I don't find even a shred of honest analysis in your words here, but then you are riding your favorite hobby horse again, aren’t you?
