The point I was trying to make is that the Israeli people have paid a heavy price for a political gamble that was all about avoiding coming to terms with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to share the land and to have their self-determination. We can’t turn the clock back and have to make the best of the present but I suspect that in the future Israeli historians won’t look that kindly on this gamble and its consequences.

I’m not cheering these guys, I’m just making the point that these kind of actions are compatible with a liberal society. There are other aspects to a free society than rule of the majority. Sometimes the belief of the majority, the expression of their will through their elected representatives or simply the will of their elected representatives may not be compatible with or properly reflect these aspects.

There are many occasions where this has happened through history and protest and direct action have been necessary. I suspect you may be seeing more of it over the next couple of years, though possibly regarding more important matters like the collapse of the economy and mass unemployment.

as far as I know in Britain people are free to protest without having to resort to atitudes like this one, which in fact is a challenge to the legitimate power.

in normal free societies it doesn’t make sense to engage in such atitudes. these are extreme measures that protesters use when the normal channels for the expression of their legitimate demands are non-existent.

so attitudes like this actually mean that the legitimacy of your democracy is being denied by the protesters and apparently people like you cheer it.

if those people actually cared for democracy and/or had the knowledge that allowed them to understand what it is to live under non-democratic regimes they wouldn’t be so irresponsible.

I’m not going to waste my time speaking about what the expressions rule by consent and rule by law mean…

“LSE authorities seem to have a clear case of pre-emptive Stockholm syndrome.”

Oliver Kamm says it perfectly:

“The LSE’s conduct is cowardly and unconscionable. A university is a place for the untrammelled discussion of ideas. The LSE has curtailed the ability of one invited guest to contribute to a discussion – as chairman of a debate and not even as a speaker – because of a presumed threat of violence arising from the offence he might thereby cause. I’ve seen the LSE’s internal correspondence on this. It refers to complaints made about Douglas’s views on Islam. It seems that Douglas has been disinvited because of the effect on the sensibilities of students – or on “campus relations”, as one particularly arch piece of misdirection has it – at a time of Middle East conflict.”