No discussion!

My daughter had a friend from university visiting last weekend. She has been continuing her studies in marine archaeology at the University of Haifa and wanted to take the opportunity to see Petra. Needless to say she enjoyed our archaeological wonders; but also something else: the political discussions that she had with my daughter's friends. She said that the Israelis she worked amongst in Haifa were "very nice" but nobody wanted to have any type of political discourse. Odd, amongst academics, don't you think? Perhaps it’s the only way Israelis can protect themselves from acknowledging the truth of injustice they live with day in day out, year in year out.

Meanwhile, 18 members of the same family, 8 of them children, all of them civilians, are slaughtered by the Israeli military forces. And what is the government's response? The IDF will investigate to make sure such events do not recur, BUT, Israel will press on with its efforts to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

"Our estimate is that it was something to do with the aiming devices, or the alignment, or the balance between them, or our radar's location of the shell hit," head of Israel's southern command told Channel 2 TV.

Oh, so it was a technical hitch that caused such devastating loss of life, OR - yet another 'or' - was it the total lack of regard that the Israelis have for Palestinian life?

Small wonder the academics don't want to talk! McM