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There's no escaping it. Talk they must - and will!

Hilary Clinton has already said the US won't talk to Hamas. Others, including Israel, maintain the same stance.

Come what may, eventually, there will have to be dialogue, however difficult that might be.

It is refreshing to read that an Israeli writer who lost a son in Lebanon accuses his countrymen of 'cruelty' - as reported in The Independent in "Dialogue with Hamas is only path to peace, urges novelist" - and more particularly exhorts his countrymen to talk to Hamas:

"David Grossman, the renowned Israeli novelist, issued a pained rebuke to his countrymen over the Gaza invasion yesterday and called for the immediate opening of talks with the militant Hamas movement.

Embarking on what he conceded would be a daunting dialogue with Hamas, which refuses Israel's right to exist, "will contribute more to our security than a hundred planes dropping bombs on a city and its inhabitants", the dovish author wrote in a front-page article in the daily Haaretz.

Grossman accused Israelis of using "sophisticated defence mechanisms and self-righteousness" to avoid recognising the scope of the killing and destruction the army has wrought on Gaza. When this subsides, perhaps Israelis will realise there is "something deep and basic in our behaviour in the region, for time immemorial, that is mistaken, immoral and unwise and that time and again fans the flames that are consuming us", he wrote.

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