The Conflict (Repost - Originally Posted July 7, 2007)

So, your neighbor likes to throw stones at your kids when they're in the garden. Your neighbor won't listen when you ask or tell him to stop, he just keeps throwing stones. He's even started throwing them through your windows and your kids are to afraid to even move because wherever they go, stones are landing on their heads.

You try and call the police, but they won't help. You ask your other neighbors for help only to find out they're supplying stones to this one neighbor who's doing the throwing because they don't want you there.

What do you do?

By the way, any stones you throw back may hit your neighbor's kids and if they do, all the street will call you a murderer and the one neighbor who was on your side has started to come under pressure because you dared throw stones back and you hurt someone.

The stones keep coming in and your children keep getting hurt.

You build a higher wall so the stones can't get in, but then the street complains that you're trying to cut off natural light from your poor neighbor who you are victimizing. So, you promise to stop throwing stones if your neighbor does, the neighbor agrees, you stop throwing stones then the neighbor starts throwing stones again.

Why is your neighbor throwing stones at your kids? Because he wants your house. He says it was his before you moved in (it was originally yours anyway), but it never was his - he was squatting there while the house was owned by someone else. You moved in and tried to make friends, and the very next day all your neighbors (who's house, although 'next door', is actually part of yours) started throwing stones at you.

So, the whole street is against you, the village is turning against you, your neighbor is still throwing stones at your kids, others in the street are giving stones to your neighbor to throw stones at your kids, the police won't help, you're not allowed to throw stones back, you're not allowed to build a bigger wall and if you try and make friends, the neighbor's kids start throwing stones at each other and the street blames you.

Any ideas?

The problem with the above is that there's no clear route because if you believe that someone is in your house, you will want to evict them. if you believe that you are in your house and someone is trying to evict you, you will try and stop them.

I know it's not a clear cut situation and I have often watched the news and thought "what on earth does Israel think it's doing!?', but I'm worried by the new liberalism that is gaining more and more ground in the West which is turning people into anti-Israeli bigots, expecting that Israel should not defend itself and failing to understand that Israel has not one friend in the Middle East.

Israel needs to change many of its ways, I know, but trying to wipe Israel off the map - whether by Iranian-led force or limp European liberalism - is not the answer and it certainly isn't right.