I have just been listening to the recording on the IPSC website of the meeting in Wynns with Mike and the others.

All the contributions were interesting, valid - even inspiring. 

But nobody talked about the core issue: Israel's objective.

Israel is not simply a colonial power; or an apartheid state like South Africa.

Colonial powers occupy foreign countries to exploit resources and cheap labour.  But that is not the case in Palestine.

The Israeli government does not want cheap Palestinian labour. It wants a Jewish state, from the River to the Sea. They began ethnic cleansing in 1948, and they haven't finished yet.

So the reason they attack children is perfectly logical.  It is so that their parents will emigrate, to bring their children to safety.

The reason for the mindless pointless intimidation for so-called "security" is to wear people down, to drain their will to resist, until they just leave.

So it is not simply a question of persuading the Israeli state to recognise Palestine and treating the Palestinians equally. That is not going to happen. 

Any short-term concessions to Palestinian statehood are just that: short term, to bide time with the international community.

So whether we like it or not we are not just campaigning for the Palestinians. We are attacking the very basis of the Israeli state.

So we should expect a hard and dirty fight.

Ilan Pappe describes Palestine as ‘The Biggest Prison on Earth’, and what Mike said about Israel not letting us in to see it is probably true.

So we should be thinking very carefully about strategy.