I have no desire to be a cyber-Gandhi, all though I have to say that as a tactical matter, all the evidence points to superior effectiveness of peaceful resistance in comparison to guerrilla warfare. That is a nice bonus to go along with lot less violence. What I gather from listening to people who actually broker peace professionally, it is pretty easy to predict success or failure of peace talks. Basically both parties need to want peace, and the acid test for that is whether they consider some conditions clearly unacceptable to the other party unnegotiable. If so, they do not really want the peace enough, and the more cynical among the diplomatic corps consider more suffering the only known cure to this ailment. For example, I followed the Aceh peace talks fairly closely. Yes, the Tsunami helped, but it was after GAM dropped the demand for full independence that all the pieces basically dropped in place. I don't know what these conditions are in the Israel - Palestine conflict, but I'd guess the Israel needs to get over the fact that practically all the settlements have to go and that it is not simply reasonable to expect any Palestinian leadership to stop every single suicide bomber. From Palestinian side the right of return is something that will simply not materialize and they also need to get their own armed factions in control somehow. There are however enough people in both sides who believe there is something to be gained by fighting to keep this thing going ad infinitum. Sure, the White House could probably stop the current Israel offensive, but still no outsider can enforce peace. Which is precisely why I am less than thrilled about plans to place foreign troops under UN, EU, NATO or whatever flag in Southern Lebanon. Yours, Teemu Helsinki, Finland __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html