Gaza-Israel and Hamas should negotiate under certain clearly defined conditions

Both sides in the Middle East could learn from the Northern Ireland peace process. There the Provisional IRA through its political wing Sinn Fein has accepted the reality of British rule in Northern Ireland and now also recognises the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland). It has decided to pursue its claims to a united Ireland by peaceful means only. There is no future in this insane violence, which is tearing the heart out of Gaza.

Palestinians resent their expulsion from legitimately held lands with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.This is natural. Israelis now hold lands which are de jure Palestinian.

But the reality is that the state of Israel now exists. Israelis and Palestinians must now deal with the de facto situation. Both sides should now call a ceasefire.

Hamas should accept the right of the state of Israel to exist and agree to pursue its aims by peaceful means only. This does not mean that Palestinians would give up claims to land from which they were ejected by Israelis. It just means that they would accept the de facto situation but would continue to campaign by peaceful means only to recover their lands or else secure adequate monetary compensation. Violence has failed. Israelis will not be driven into the sea. The US -in a doomsday situation-would not allow this to happen.

Israel must show more respect towards Palestinians. The plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is horrific. Some of this may be self inflicted but much of it is due to Israeli activities.

Certainly Israel must defend itself from Hamas rockets but the over reaction this week-with so many civilian casualties resulting from Israeli air strikes- just produces more recruits for Hamas.

In short Israel will not be destroyed. Hamas will not be destroyed. There is stalemate. It is time to call a prolonged ceasefire. Time for sanity to prevail.There is a strong suspicion that politicians are using this as part of the upcoming Israeli election campaign.

Hamas should learn from the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. The Israelis should learn British government blunders in Northern Ireland. As Winston Churchill put it, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

Israel is losing the battle for public opinion on the world stage.
Where is Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair?

SeaGen, the world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbine

SeaGen, the world’s first commercial-scale tidal turbine, located in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough and developed by British tidal energy company, Marine Current Turbines (MCT) of Bristol, has delivered electricity into the grid for the first time...

Below is an excerpt from the Guardian:
"The trial at Strangford Lough, in Northern Ireland, uses a device called SeaGen and generates power at 150kW. However, engineers have plans to increase power to 300kW by the end of the summer. When it is eventually running at full power SeaGen will have an output of 1,200 kW, enough for about 1,000 homes.............

"The best way to think of it is an underwater windmill," said Martin Wright, managing director of MCT. "There are big masses of water moving on the Earth's surface as a result of the gravitational attraction of the moon. Therefore you have streams occurring where you have accelerated flow."
Tidal generators harvest the energy of these moving streams with the added advantage that the resource is, unlike wind, predictable........."

Michael Fisher looks at events surrounding the visit of US President George Bush to Northern Ireland

Hillary Clinton made no mistake on Bosnia-She is guilty of LYING

Lets call a spade a spade. This video shows clearly that Hillary Clinton told lies in relation to her trip to Bosnia. It should be compulsive viewing for Hillary. Today Clinton told a news conference that the wear and tear of the presidential campaign had caused her to misspeak about the circumstances of the visit. "I made a mistake and, you know, I had a different memory," she said. "And you know, my staff and others have, you know, all kind of come together trying to sort out. So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I am human."

This was no mistake. It was a calculated effort to exaggerate her claims of foreign policy experience. Lets be blunt. Clinton deliberately misrepresented the facts . She lacks the good grace to admit that she told untruths. She is treating the electorate with contempt.

She spoke about her contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. In reality she took no part in any negotiations.

She claims that she argued for US military intervention in Rwanda. No evidence of this exists. What does exist is evidence that Bill Clinton stood idly by and allowed the butchery of between 800,000 and one million people.

Clinton's foreign policy claims are in ashes.

Lies are nothing new to Mrs Clinton. For years she claimed that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary of Mt. Everest fame. On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first human beings to conquer Mount Everest. How did Hillary Diane Rodham born in 1947 get named after a man who the world came to know some 6 years later?
Eventually she admitted that she was not named after Sir Edmund.

Released documents seriously dent Clinton claims and damage her credibility

The National Archives and the William J. Clinton Presidential Library on Wednesday released more than 11,000 pages of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s public schedule for her eight years as first lady.

According to the New York Times

…..There are redactions — blacked-out sections — on more than 4,400 pages, and on many days there is an entry for a “private meeting” that gives no clue as to whom she met or what the meeting was about. The documents offer no support for her claims, made during the presidential campaign, that she helped to negotiate the Irish peace accords or facilitated the flow of refugees in the Balkans. Neither is there evidence in them to back up her claim that she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation Mr. Clinton signed as president. The legislation, sponsored by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, sailed through Congress and landed on Mr. Clinton’s desk 10 days after he was inaugurated. Indeed, on the day Mr. Clinton signed the bill into law, Feb. 5, 1993, there is no indication on that day’s calendar that she attended……

These documents indicate clearly that Hillary's claims are an enormous sack of gas. They confirm that she played no part in the negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland. Her claims in relation to the Balkans and the Family and Medical Leave Act are fallacious.

The blacked out sections indicate an attempt to dupe voters.

The words of Mitt Romney are apposite "she’s never run anything. She’s never had the occasion of being in the private sector, running a business, or, for that matter, running a state or a city. She hasn’t run anything, and the government of the United States is not a place for a president to be an intern. You need to have experience actually leading and running things".

Perhaps Hillary should consider a career as a fiction writer.

Clinton claims on Northern Ireland an enormous sack of gas.

Hillary Clinton makes grandiose claims in relation to her foreign policy experience. These can be taken with a grain of salt. She has attempted to magnify her role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Toby Harnden, who used to be the Telegraph's Ireland correspondent:
“Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a "wee bit silly" for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province. "I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player." Trimble is speaking from a Unionist perspective.


Tim Pat Coogan, an Irish historian who writes from a republican perspective on Northern Ireland, said that the first lady did not play a decisive role in negotiations to resolve the conflict."It was a nice thing to see her there, with the women's groups. It helped, I suppose," Coogan said. "But it was ancillary to the main thing. It was part of the stage effects, the optics.


In short Hillary met with cross community groups but took no part in the peace negotiations. Hillary had no central role in the peace process. Clinton has peddled myths in relation to her alleged foreign policy experience for far too long. Waltermitty springs to mind.