In war there can be no just party. All hands get dirty somehow. Therefore I do not wholly blame the Israelis for the current crisis in the middle east. It is true that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation with no reservations about sending child suicide bombers to their deaths – an act abhorrent.

Yet Israel acts by firing a scud missile at the ant that bit it, killing many innocent people in the process. Now, Israel is a fact; I isn’t going anywhere. As I see all religious books being equally silly, it has just as much right to that tract of land as anyone. It also has a right to defend itself. Yet, by and large, I see the current state of affairs as being largely Israel’s fault: it has occupied and repressed the Palestinian people to the point where they want to blow themselves up.

The Americans are no better in their blind support of Israel. Together they seem to be keeping the Arabic peoples of the peninsula divided, for were they to join forces, Israel would have no chance. Thus they are acting as if they are an empire repressing a colony..

Of course, tell this to an American, and they accuse you of communism; tell this to an Israeli, and they accuse you of anti-Semitism. As a person with a good understanding of Marx and a good few Jewish friends, I assure you I am neither, but try telling that to those who believe that Islam is a religion of hate and should be wiped from the map.

It is they who are the root problem.They refuse to realise that, given the relationship between sign and signified is arbitrary, all texts, religious or otherwise, are open to interpretation. They blame Islam but Islam is not the problem. If the Koran teaches hate, so do the torah and bible. By no means do I acquit terrorists of blame after all they have choice; rather, I am saying that, as the dominant power, we in the west should first look to ourselves before denouncing others. No party is blameless.