Always talk, always cooperate and always be prepared. They are less corrupt, so far, so that makes them a better potential partner and a more dangerous one. Governing brings realism-slowly.

My dear Dror The ideology was formed in the year 622. That makes it 1385 years that it has been in existence, sometimes dormant for many years, sometimes active as it is right now. Why should it change over a period of the next 10 years ?

Question is whether Israelis will have the courage to step up.

The situation will not change, the gang members keep rotating in and out. Consult the Torah for guidance; keep moving forward, with a careful watch for possible dangers.

Let them become recognized by the international community with Israel's blessing. This way the world can finance their day to day operations freeing up millions of Iranian dollars for their advanced weapons and training. It is amazing that there are so man y self destructive, self hating Jews in Israel. It is no wonder Olmert & Livni got elected and they can stay in office to do the work of the ayatollahs. Of course the real solution is for Israel to grow a pair and take out the 6000 strong Iranian trained Hamas "executive" force. But of course that won't be politically correct now that Hamas has shown how civilized they are with the release of Johnston.

Hamas is a vicious, terrorist bunch who kill indiscriminately, men, women and children.... And they will not acknowledge the existance of Israel.....ever. Hamas is Cancer to mankind and it is time to do the Chemo. They dug their own hole in Gaza....Let them be buried in it....Never Accept any accomodation with Hamas.....

It is hard to believe that this article eminates from Israel. The argument that Hamas should be given a chance because it can bring about order and eliminate other forces within the territory under its control would have held true for the Nazi party in Germany. How does the heading "Give the Nazis a chance? sound. Why should Israel give Hamas ten years to build up its forces so that it can better carry out its designs of eliminating a Zionist state and more efficiently carry out its terrorist activities in the meantime?

Past negotiations have been fruitless, and the left wing liberals live in a world of elusion. Take off the rose colored glasses. Let Hamas fail in Gaza, like they deservedly should. Why should Israel do anything to a political group whose goal is the ending of the Israeli presence in the Middle east. What are these people smoking.

Hamas is like the KKK and Nazis. Treat them the same way.

These leftists drive me mad when they say we should give the Palestinians something. They have been trying to kill us for the past sixty years, and in spite of this we have been very soft-handed in fighting back. Not only have we not broken any rules of war, we have often put our own soldiers and civilians in harms way to make the Palestinians' lives easier, so we owe them nothing! Our duty should be to give our own people peace, security, and strength, and the interests of the Palestinians should come in a very distant second if at all. They are the agressors in this conflict, therefore if anyone owes anything to anyone else it is they to us. But we shouldn't ask them for anything. Peace is our right and we should take it, and if Palestinians, by means of rockets or anything else, attempt to keep that peace from us, then we should take it by force. Our only consideration in regards to them should be to take as few innocent lvies as possible, other than that any means are acceptable in achieving peace for ourselves.

There have been plenty of hudnas with Hamas over the years and as long as it suits them they will not attack but they will use it as a chance to rearm and reorganise to patch up any damage Israel has done to weaken the organistion in the past .. whenever they feel they need time they call for ceacefires claim its in the name of peace but the reality is to strenghen themselves and when they are ready they hit back. Last ceacefire we had Israel refused to do anything but the palestians fired plenty of rockets and they still do. Even if Hamas agreed to a ceacefire if Israel opens the crossings and transfers supplies there are plenty more terror groups who will take advantage. The fact Hamas have got Alan Johnston back doesnt make them a reformed organistion. At a time when the rest of the world wants to isolate Hamas which weakens them by the day why should Israel give up this advantage which is has never had before .. just because your now in the domiinant position doesnt mean you should give it up in the name of goodwill., Right now most the western world and the UN are isolating Syria which would put Israel in the dominant position tacticaly Olmert comes along and tries to bail out Assad and instead of saying your in the weak position here he says to Assad we want to do a deal based on your terms. Israel is run by idiots who dont know a thing about politcal tactics and jump as soon as the P word is mentioned doesnt matter if the deal offered is good or bad for Israel if an arab says peace Israel says tell us what you want and you got it. Let Fatah and Hamas work out their differences and when they are united politcly and get their act together and end the terror and recognise Israel then say to Hamas we want to talk with you help your situation. Time to stop acting guilty whenever Israel is the political high ground the arabs are experts at twisitng politcal situations to their advantage Israel is terrible and has alot to learn from the arabs in that area of things.

Dror ZEEVI's column is indeed of interest. There would be on paper a temptation to achieve some kind of truce during a " transitional"period. However, backing up Hamas by entering discussion with them would amount to providing legitimity to a terror organisation which is also a small scale dictatorship. This is against the basis Jewish principle and would amount also to kill a second time all the victims of Arab terrorists . We all know and admit that Arab terror organisations should be eliminated one way or the other, we all know that Islamists dictators go against the flow of history by supressing freedom and imposing religious orthodoxy and the exemples are numerous, mostly in the Middle East where Islam has always be a cause for unstability , poverty, and civil unrest in the non-oil prdocing countries. ( religion never fed anyone, even when wearing a beard ...and this includes our own zealots ). The only thing to do to day, while maintaining and even enforcing Hamas isolation short of appearing illogical with ourselves, is to observe, think and retain lessons from past history. 1) without the humiliation of Versailles treaty, Hitler would not have taken power 2) Without Antisemitism being latent in Europe for centuries, the Wannsee conference would not have taken place. but also 3) without the weaknesses of the Westerne world, Khomeini would not have returned to Iran to start his regime of religious dictatorship fueling the terrorist movements in this part of the world till today. Let s provide for humanitarian help if needed, but let s find an intelligent way, even if by diplomacy to remove Hanniyeh , that local Hitler, who does not deserve the tears of anyone including the Israeli left ! Palestinian is one thing...Hanniyeh and his gangsters is a different story and we should not mix both.

If such a hudna includes terms such as conditions hamoering new arms shipments, stopping the shelling of isreali frontier cities and zero tolerance to suicide attacks, then it is good for isrealis and palistinians. If hamas breaches any of these key requirements, the truce ends without any gain to hamas and no loss to isreal. But on a pessimistic note, the secular right and their evangelical christian backers are determined that the state of isreal be turned into a military frontier for battling *muslims* rather than a refuge for the jewish people as originally intended. Given the ascendancy of the secular right and evangelicals in isreal today, and the fact that neither appears to appreciate the concept of pikuach nefesh, the military frontier state and an end to the original zionist ideals of a safe jewish haven appears to be the destination. Unless of course more and more ideas like that of the author are considered.

Keep stiffling, strangling Hamas till they release all captured Israeli soldiers and recognize Israel's existence, then give them half the chance. Meantime, give them the medicine.

Give us a chance to live in peace, that will only happen if Hamas does NOT live in peace.

Both the Hamas charter and its intentions remain unchanged - destroy Israel. Hamas is a sworn enemy and the borders with Gaza need to be hermetically sealed and even food shipments should enter via Egypt. Oh, and we shouldn't bolster Abu Mazen by giving him weapons either. Abu Mazen seeks the same thing as Hamas and only prefers different means. Be pretty stupid to arm and train his fighters only to have them kiss and make up with Hamas - wouldn't it?!

in the face of all the facts to the contrary has never succeeded to astound me! "The past days have demonstrated that the organization is not seeking to intensify the struggle against Israel. Its reasons for this are obviously tactical. The organization has not relinquished its aspiration to annihilate the Zionist state and it will continue pursing this goal covertly. However, at this time Hamas is in need of calm in order to build the area under its control, and to this end it would be prepared for calm. " The writer states this as a fact that he (and I) believe, but still endorses giving them the opportunity to advance their goal in destroying you all. Unbelievable! I believe that you all would be better to confront Hamas and tighten the screws even tighter. Squeeze Abbas for responsibility and accountability. I doubt you'll get it from him either but I expect you have a better chance with him.

The Left is getting desperate. They can't paint the Palestinians as peace loving victims any more. There's too much evidence that contradicts that image. So since they can't use that old image, they appeal to Israelis to contain Palestinian "extremism" by doing more for the Palestinians. But that argument is not persuasive enough because many Israelis are becoming aware that there is no such thing as a moderate Palestinian ideology anymore. Fatah may be more secular, but it's no less extremist than Hamas. Their goal is the same: the destruction of Israel. The fact is that no matter how these people are treated, it won't make any difference. The proof is in recent events in the UK. Those immigrants had it all. Great future for their kids, nice jobs, good professional careers. None of that helped. Appeals for more money, more freedom of movement, more of this and more of that, it's all very nice for the Leftist soul, but don't try to sell these ideas as the price to pay for convincing Palestinians to live in peace with Israel. And it may be too late to change the Palestinians' minds anyway. The latest poll says that most Palestinians prefer Hamas. I quote in full a recent newsflash by INN: "A new poll commissioned by the Jerusalem-based Al Quds daily website contradicts other surveys and gives Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh majority support. "Given a choice between Haniyeh, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, convicted terrorists Marwan Barghouti, former PA minister Mustafa Barghouti and newly appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, 51 percent of the respondents backed Haniyeh. Abbas and Marwan Barghouti each received 13 and 12 percent support respectively." It's time for Israelis to find other alternatives to appeasement.

You can outlaw them for some time. You could starve their finances. But in the end, the problem is inside people's minds. All you can do for now is to keep them from getting their own country. And that's just the beginning. Jews were removed from several Israeli towns and that was OK with the world. Why can't that be done with Gaza and the WB? Not forcibly, but through financial incentives.

I must say your knowledge of history is impressive, given that some of my ex-compatriots have distinguished themselves by having no idea what the Munich Pact was, but having knowledge single historical events without context and without understanding the people involved is not much better than not knowing history at all. Without the Versilles treaty Hitler wouldn't have come to power so quickly, but he would have come to power eventually, because he was what the German people wanted in their hearts. Remember that part of the reason for the severity of the Treaty of Versilles was that the Germans fought like barbarians in WWI; they leveled cities and murdered civilians, sometimes even preying on them (as in the case of the Luciatnia. Granted they did it to advance their war effort and not out of hatred, and in all they behaved much better than the Nazis would a quarter of a century later, but that was largely due to the fact that Germany was dominated at the time by civilized Western-European aristocracy (Wilhelm II was related to Queen Victoria for instance). When in the process of the war this aristocracy was killed off, the common people who remained wanted nothing but blood and power, and so they elected Hitler, who promised it to them. The Palestinians, likewise want blood, our blood, and they say so openly. Fatah had been corrupt for years, but remained in power while it was leading the terror campaign against Israel. During the Second Intifada, however, Fatah scaled back its terror attacks and Hamas became the most bloody terror group, and so when electiosn rolled around it gained power. Providing aid to the Palestinians and negotiatiating with them is like trying to by the friendship of the Nazis through deplomacy and concessions (which by the way was tried to great effect as you know). I have studied a lot of history, and one thing I have learned is taht all governments, no matter how primitive, are democracies to some extent, because no government could stay in power without a large degree of popular support, especially in an environment like the PA, where the general population is so heavily armed. The Palestinians have allowed Fatah and Hamas, two of the worlds largest terror groups, to dominate them for the past sixty years. Why? Because they wanted them to.

was meant for another column. I meant to send it to the opinion column "Is Jerusalem hotbed for radicals?" where the author appeals for more help for Jerusalem Arabs so they won't turn radical, but I sent it to this one instead by mistake. I apologize. But in some way it also applies to this column. This is another Left-wing writer appealing for more appeasement, not to Jerusalem Arabs on this column, but to Hamas.

you would all know that this is not the time to let them have the head just above the water. no time for a cease fire! we should anihilate them before they gain strenghts>> vasic principle.

I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go visit the Gaza Strip and give Hamas a chance. Good luck!