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Tuesday 4 March 2008

Proportionate response

Radio 5Live's Nicky Campbell is interviewing Alvaro DiSotto a former UN diplomat to the Middle East and starts with the proportionate response point. How do they (Israel) stop the rocket attacks? The answer is negotiation. Nicky Campbell asks if Hamas can be a partner in peace when their charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Apparently they don't refer to the treaty and they did win an election so the charter must be in abeyance. A unified government to negotiate with is the answer. Nicky Campbell asks if Hamas is changing. The diplomat says they were but now they may be changing back. Nicky Campbell tries to see it from the Israeli position, he even points out that Israel is much smaller than its neighbours and that there will always be people who will want to blow people in pizza parlours up. Apparently the root cause is illegal occupation by Israel of land and that must be addressed first. Poor Nicky Campbell had to keep prefixing questions with "some might say" type remarks to show that he personally has no truck with such questions but has to ask otherwise people might think the BBC was totally biased against Israel.

The 9 o'clock phone-in with the true Labour Victoria Derbyshire is on Gordon Brown's idea to ban Zimbabwean athletes from competing in the UK. At what time will the first caller call for the ban to be extended to Israeli athletes?


UPDATE: 09:32 is the answer to my question.

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