[Skunk]

Originally posted by Black Baron: I think that killing him was a correct thing to do. In the short time it will boost the violance, but in the long run we will have weakened hamas. Yassin was a charismatic leader. Such people do not grow on trees. For example-the capture of Ochalan reduced the activity of his cronies to almost 0.

The Kurdish Workers Party and militant Kurdish had begun scaling back their activities long before the capture of Abdallah Ochalan because of the changing situation.
1. A semi-autonomous state was created in Kurdistan
2. Turkish military pulled out a lot of troops from Kurdish areas
3. Turkey reversed its ban on the kurdish language
4. Turkey removed many discrimanatory laws
So in actual fact, the reduction in activity has far more to do with addressing grievances than capturing 'the big guy', who by then, had already settled in virtual exile.

Hamas has tens of thousands of members and supporters and their primary grievances have not been addressed. They will never have trouble finding new leaders. The *only* ways to defeat Hamas is to remove its support and to do that the Israeli government needs to have a complete policy overhaul in the way that Turkey did.

Originally posted by Yorick: Your words limit quadraplegics in any case skunk. Quads can make art, sing, carry out gainful employment.

With the money and equipment available in rich countries, a lot is possible.
Without it (as in the case of all of the occupied territories), not much is - not that you need me to tell you that.

Sometimes I think you take the contrary position purely for the sake of enjoying an argument: rather than for any rational reason.