Park Life

You can only sell players that want to go. I'm sure he'd have loved to have sold a few more players but they were unwilling to give up their lucrative contracts (which he gave them). Correcto.

Your reverse logic is incredible. Israel are occupying the territory. They have grabbed all the power and if they were to offer a two state solution Hamas would jump at it, but Israel won't do that. I can't comprehend how you can blame Hamas for being unflexible while Israel starve millions of people and refuse to enter talks. At camp David in 2000 "all the concessions came from the Palestinian side, none from the Israeli side." http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals....p;href=fulltext In 2006, Hamas were advocating two states.... http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-04-07-hamas_x.htm http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/2...alestinians.usa Last month "Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stated explicitly that the Palestinian Islamist group will end its armed struggle against Israel if the Jewish state withdraws from Palestinian land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War." http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/05/31/110041.html I think Camp David was the eye opener as to Israel's real agenda. God knows they've been offerred so many concessions and whatnot.

HF stop persecuting him he's JEWISH!11

I like the funny ones.

England v Spain final.

He must be, his arguments are that slanted and wierd.

Despite its victory in free and fair elections, the U.S. and Israel sought to undermine and destroy Hamas. Israel suspended the transfer of tax revenues collected from Palestinians in the amount of $50 million a month. This began the strangulation of Gaza and set off a humanitarian crisis. While the public strategy involved the collective punishment of the people of Gaza for electing Hamas, Israel and its U.S. ally also undertook a secret operation to overthrow Hamas, funneling arms and money to Fatah fighters to enable them to carry out a coup in Hamas' base in Gaza. Hamas won the battle for Gaza, and Fatah was routed. Yet mainstream accounts of the conflict present Hamas as having launched a coup in order to come to power. Israel continued to step up its pressure on the people of Gaza, cutting off much-needed supplies, electricity, and essentials and launching a military assault late last month. The siege and the latest invasion of Gaza have caused untold suffering, death, and misery. But they have not accomplished Israel's aim of fomenting a Palestinian opposition ready to topple Hamas. On the contrary, the group continued to gain influence since the 2006 elections. The reason for this is simple. When a people lose their livelihood, their homes, their loved ones, and their dignity at the hands of an occupying power, they resist -- and in this case, the resistance movement is led by Hamas. If elections were to be held in occupied Palestine, Hamas would likely win again. This is not because all the people of Palestine agree with Hamas' Islamist principles -- and not at all because Palestinians are anti-Semitic fanatics -- but because people living under inhuman conditions imposed by an occupying power will turn to organizations that give voice to their aspirations for liberation. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On August 13, the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) of the British House of Commons urged all parties to exercise maximum efforts to form a national unity government in the occupied Palestinian territories that will include Hamas. The report further recommended that the British government engage moderate elements within the movement. The day before that, the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, stressed "the need to conduct a dialogue with Hamas so as to help Hamas develop politically, in view of the fact that Hamas is a fact on the ground." And on August 2, the International Crisis Group issued a report in which it questioned the feasibility of enforcing law and order and bringing about a political settlement based on a two-state solution in the absence of national unity among the Palestinians. That report cast doubt about the ability of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to secure a cease-fire with Israel and reach a political settlement in the absence of Hamas. These attempts and these calls have not been launched in a vacuum. Rather, they were preceded by many meetings, behind the scenes, in different European capitals. Western participants in those meetings were introduced to the political thinking of Hamas and to the movement's most senior leaders. If these meetings demonstrate anything, they demonstrate the fact that many in the West genuinely believe that the international community can do business with Hamas. Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian political landscape. It is a mainstream Islamic movement that is committed to the principles of democracy and legitimate and peaceful political participation on an equal footing for all Palestinian groups. The movement has deep roots in various sectors of Palestinian society. Isolating Hamas is not a feasible political option because the movement represents a very wide segment of Palestinian society, a fact that was clearly manifested in the elections of January 2006. Former secretary of state Colin Powell recognized this when he called, in a recent interview with National Public Radio, for the need to find a way to engage with Hamas.

Promoting Democracy after Hamas’ Victory Marina Ottaway Web Commentary, February 30, 2006 The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has given rise to much soul searching in Washington about who lost Palestine. Although the George W. Bush administration continues to defend its decision to “allow” elections to take place in Palestine, rather than acceding to Israeli demands to stop the process, a growing number of voices is joining a chorus of doubts about the U.S. policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East.

‘Those who’ve suffered least compromise least’ Mary Wakefield 21 March 2009 Mary Wakefield takes a postwar tour through Gaza and surveys a psychological landscape warped by conflict and suffering — and hear whispers of a further Israeli incursion The border control at Erez, separating Israel from Gaza, was built in a happier age. It looks more like an airport than a checkpoint, a vast glass hangar designed with streams of Palestinian commuters in mind. Only a handful have made it through in the two years since Hamas took over. Now, two months after Israel’s 22-day war (Operation Cast Lead), there’s barely a soul in sight. One vicar outside, perspiring in the car park; one girl soldier inside checking passports. After that, just an eerie unmanned security process. Wait. Proceed to a steel holding pen. Wait. Walk down to a revolving zoo-style gate. Wait. Wait. Despair. Yell: ‘Hello?! Anybody?’ Then another door, another corridor, through a warehouse to a turnstile then out, abruptly, into no-man’s-land. It takes a few seconds to adjust to what looks like the aftermath of apocalypse — Lego-lumps of broken concrete, pylons, a deserted, bomb-pocked track. It’s like a metaphor for the whole peace process: abandoned by Israel, whose Prime Minister designate, Bibi Netanyahu, sees no need for a separate Palestinian state; shunned by the Islamists, whose guru Osama reinforced the party line last week: ‘We must not tolerate the Gaza holocaust or collaborate with the Crusader–Zionist alliance.’ Ignored even by America, who finds it easiest now to throw hush money at both sides. As I reach the Palestinian checkpoint (three men drinking mint tea) and meet Hamada, my guide for the day, I think about a conversation with an Israeli official in a dark bar in Jerusalem: ‘The truth is, we can live with Gaza like this. It doesn’t have to be a one-state or a two-state solution, there’s a third state: occupation. Realistically, why would we want anything else?’ http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/3453...ise-least.thtml

Most of the gay friends I've had have been very intelligent.

Israel's premeditated murder of activists was no mistake by Ahmed Amr (Monday, May 31, 2010) "Israel’s has a well established record of planning and executing premeditated atrocities. They’ve shot Libyan passenger planes out of the sky and carpet bombed Gaza, South Lebanon and Beirut. One can go down the list of infamous massacres from Sabra and Shatilla to Jenin to Deir El Yassin, Qibya and a hundred other places where they’ve slaughtered innocents. Aside from the attack on the Liberty, the only thing that distinguishes this latest war crime is that the victims were not Palestinians or Arabs. With the assistance of the Jewish Lobby and their well-placed partisans at FOX noise and CNnothing, Israel always manages to wipe the incriminatory blood stains off its garments and make a miraculous recovery as the perpetual victim." If you think about it, Israel’s calculated murder of peace activists in international waters [1] on a mission to break the siege of Gaza makes perfect sense. A lot of observers were baffled that Netanyahu’s government inflated the importance of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which was delivering vital humanitarian aid to the largest concentration camp in the world but had the secondary mission of publicizing the brutal and illegal siege of Gaza. To casual observers, it seemed like Israel’s belligerent posture was amplifying the international media attention given to the flotilla. It seemed so counter- productive for the Israelis to hand the peace activists what amounted to a nuclear powered bull horn. The only excuse that Netanyahu and Lieberman could make for their seemingly irrational obsession with the supply ships was that the peace activists on board were delegitimizing Israel. The Israelis couldn’t make the usual ‘security’ arguments about terrorist threats - not with so many unarmed European Parliamentarians and peace activists on board. So they dreamed up a new category of criminals nobody has ever heard of before - de-legitimizers. There are millions of decent people who abhor Zionism and view Israel as a racist Jewish supremacist state. Israel and her supporters can argue with that, but since when has delegitimizing Israel been a capital crime that justified piracy on the high seas? The flotilla was in international waters when it was assaulted - seventy miles from its destination.[2] It was a pre-dawn raid and, in an operation of this sort, the darkness elevated the risk of inflicting unnecessary casualties. Quite a few journalists were on board and the dark offered the Israelis a veil to ward off any cameras that could clearly document that the violence was premeditated. The overwhelming evidence suggests that this Israeli raid was planned, perfectly timed and achieved its desired objective - to scuttle a scheduled meeting with Obama. What else would explain the hurry? Was there a clock ticking away? The answer to that question is yes. Only a few precious hours remained for Netanyahu to weasel his way out of an appointment at the White House. That might help explain the smug self-satisfied look on Netanyahu’s face when he announced the cancelation of the visit. The scheduled meeting at the White House was no ordinary tête-à-tête. It was a carefully orchestrated event. A week earlier, Obama had dispatched Rohm Emanuel to Jerusalem to butter up Netanyahu. According to news reports, Israel's prime minister was given "unequivocal assurances" from the US President that an accord agreeing to talks on a nuclear weapons-free Mideast would not endanger the Jewish state. The assurances included a significant upgrade of Israel's strategic and deterrent capabilities and a promise that no UN resolutions would be adopted that would hurt Israel’s ‘vital interests.’ One has to presume that Obama’s promises included blanket amnesty for last year’s war crimes in Gaza. As a bonus, Netanyahu stopped in Europe to pick up membership in the OEDC - making Israel the only wealthy country in the world to get lavish American aid. Of course, Obama and the Europeans expected a little reciprocity and a more flexible Israeli posture in the proximity talks with the Palestinians. It was Netanyahu’s turn to give a little. There was talk in the press of a love fest where a ‘new and improved’ Netanyahu would make an appearance and be willing to make a few hard choices to end the interminable conflict. The Lithuanian-Israeli Prime Minister who opposed Camp David, the Oslo agreement and the withdrawal from Gaza was under pressure to deliver the goods. Sabotaging peace initiatives is something the Israelis excel at and Netanyahu is a skilled practitioner of obstructionism. Lest we forget, he secured the position of Prime Minister by putting together the most right wing coalition in Israeli history. He leads a government that is made up of pro-settler parties and outright expultionists. Freezing settlements or withdrawing from the West Bank or making any kinds of concessions on East Jerusalem would unravel his government. Netanyahu didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. There was a strategic imperative to create a crisis to justify cancelling the meeting with Obama. Murdering the peace activists on the high seas was a high risk maneuver and it came at a well calibrated cost. Let’s first dispel the rumor that Israel is or has ever been concerned with its international reputation. Notice that it was Netanyahu who cancelled the White House appointment. Why the rush to get back to Israel? Was there any better way to do a little damage control than by making a few concessions in Washington in front of the fawning lenses of pro-Israeli CNN cameras? But the White House was the last place the Israeli Prime Minister wanted to be. And if all it took was piracy and murder on the high seas, it was a price Netanyahu was willing to pay. Israel’s has a well established record of planning and executing premeditated atrocities. They’ve shot Libyan passenger planes out of the sky and carpet bombed Gaza, South Lebanon and Beirut. One can go down the list of infamous massacres from Sabra and Shatilla to Jenin to Deir El Yassin, Qibya and a hundred other places where they’ve slaughtered innocents. Aside from the attack on the Liberty, the only thing that distinguishes this latest war crime is that the victims were not Palestinians or Arabs. With the assistance of the Jewish Lobby and their well-placed partisans at FOX noise and CNnothing, Israel always manages to wipe the incriminatory blood stains off its garments and make a miraculous recovery as the perpetual victim. Anybody with half a brain should be able to figure out that this most recent Israeli atrocity was premeditated. Netanyahu will pay a price and there will be a price to pay but it will be paid in short term currency. Obama might or might not figure out that he gave away the store and walked away empty handed but with mid-term elections on the horizon, he’ll still shield Israeli leaders from accountability for their war crimes. Relationships with Turkey will be strained and a few European foreign ministers will fume. The United States had no problem figuring out how to react to piracy with the Achille Lauro, but all they can muster up in response to this latest act of Israeli state terrorism is a benign statement of ‘concern.’ Washington might even work up the courage to ask the Israelis to conduct an inquiry. Israel will be ostracized for a few weeks but Netanyahu will have accomplished his goal by derailing yet another peace initiative and winning additional time to continue building settlements and dispossess the Palestinians of their native soil.

you assume that they are competent - the reord shows that while Israel can deploy massive force and kill people (even in Dubai) it backfires on them because there is never any sense of proportion It's the equivalent of the Glaswegian "Who you lookin' at Jimmie?" no, i agree that they often get it wrong. my point is that they over-reacted but it they were provoked. many on here think the international media is biased towards the israeli cause. i think these days the opposite is true. there are two sides to this story Hardly. Israel still gets away with murder ('scuse the pun) and the western media continue to let them. The news reports don't focus on the murdered, which could number over a dozen, but instead the "PR disaster for Israel" as if it was a marketing campaign gone wrong. The dead have almost been pushed to one side. I was thinking the exact same thing this morning.

Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was also on board the Mavi Marmara. Insisting that no one on board the boat was armed, she said the attack was an act of piracy and a "massacre". At one point, she saw a man being shot dead by an Israeli commando. "We still don't know how many people were actually murdered because there are still many missing," she said. "When I was on the upper deck I saw an injured person being brought to the back of the deck being tended to by a doctor and someone who is trained in first aid. He was shot in the head. It was clear it was not some paint ball. It was a bullet." Ms Colborne described scenes of chaos on the ship in the moments after the Israelis boarded. "As I walked up, the dinghies the Israelis used were bristling with arms. I couldn't even count how many ships there were in the water. It was just literally bristling with ships, helicopters, gunfire. The whole thing was just horrific. "All I know is that there was gunfire everywhere around." The people on board the ship had no idea that the Israelis might use deadly force, she said. "We had no weapons. We were on a peaceful humanitarian mission. We knew there might be problems with the Israelis because of the way they treated previous convoys in the past and because of the way they treat the Palestinian people. "We never considered that they would murder so many people on a humanitarian mission. It was very clear there was no way we could have been carrying weapons on board. Yet we were attacked with live gunfire."

Peter Crouch will be on Cloud Nine as hitman aims to emulate England's World Cup greats EXCLUSIVE By Matt Lawton Chief Football Correspondent Last updated at 7:44 AM on 3rd June 2010 * Comments (1) * Add to My Stories Ten is the number worn by the football gods. Pele, Maradona, Platini, Zidane. But England’s No 9 at a World Cup has also long been associated with greatness. In 1966 and 1970 it was Bobby Charlton; in ‘98 Alan Shearer. Nat Lofthouse was the first back in 1954 (in 1950 they did not have fixed squad numbers) and some other wonderful players have since followed Bolton’s ‘Lion of Vienna’. Glenn Hoddle and Peter Beardsley are members of the same exclusive club, as is a certain Wayne Rooney. But Rooney’s preference for the 10 this time around has provided a vacancy and the player chosen by Fabio Capello to wear the nine in South Africa this month is not someone who necessarily captures the imagination like his more illustrious predecessors. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2...l#ixzz0pmdYY5Pg

Rush goalie?

Always been too defensive.

England's 2010 World Cup squad have arrived in South Africa in upbeat mood after it was confirmed that Fabio Capello had agreed a new contract The 23-man squad arrived in Johannesburg at 08:00 BST on Thursday after an 11-hour flight from London and will head on to Rustenburg which will be their base for the tournament. England are a best price 7/1 to win in South Africa with Ladbrokes, who have launched an incredible World Cup offer for new customers, offering £25 free when you deposit just £5! This offer has never been seen before, with Britain's biggest bookie offering punters an amazing 500% sign-up bonus. Ladbrokes will then give you 4x£5 free bets to use on any sport by phone, the internet or via your mobile phone. In addition, Ladbrokes will also send you a £5 free bet card in the post for you to use in a Ladbrokes betting shop! Capello, who had been linked with the Inter Milan manager's job once England's World Cup campaign was over, agreed a new deal on Wednesday that will see him stay in charge of the Three Lions until after Euro 2012. England's first World Cup game is on Saturday, June 12th when they take on the USA.

I'd take 6-7m if there was any confidence in it being re-invested.

Attention span culture.

I like the main thrust of your point. ....this isn't helping, right? In all honesty, I find that sort of thing pretty tedious and tend not to spend time with gays of the "oo, get her!" variety, so I suppose it's hard for me to judge. The fact that people are generally surprised to discover I'm gay suggests the camp 'n' screaming stereotype is fairly ingrained even in the most open-minded of people (myself included, frankly!), but whether that's just the way it is or it's perpetuated by überfags being überfaggy? Difficult to say. Either way, for all I play up that kind of thing for laughs on here sometimes, I'd hate to think I was defined by my sexuality. There's more to life. Eurovision and lovely pink cocktails, for a start! (Still not helping, right?) I don't think you are defined by your sexuality on here at all. You are though.

Just think you're coming across a bit naive about Israel's agenda. It routinely blocks aid from the Red Cross, Medicines Sans Frontiers etc..IDF shoot at ambulances, water trucks and anything that moves. Israel is carrying out genocide by stealth against the Palestinian people. From NO IDF have released images of some of the weapons they found on board. Turns out the metadata confirms said images are from 2006 Laughing http://s3.amazonaws.com/ember/tTl8z3PwzxcD...LXslrOrIu_o.png

No, just incase they are carrying illicit weapons for Palestine.

Anyway its not about talent, winning these short knockout competitions is about organisation, belief, tactics and a chunk of luck. We have the best manager there for a change. I expect big things from England.