[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sammi79

You both ignore the second option I proposed, that Israel could simply claim all the occupied lands, even take the entire land of Palestine and redraw its own borders, and in doing so grant all the inhabitants their civil and human rights, which are being denied to them now, for generations since 1967, and it seems if Israel has its way, for all future generations. It is significant that no other nations accept the legitimacy of this occupation, and it is my main bone of contention regarding Israel. Like I said, the UN would have stepped in several times without the US veto. I don't think Israel could complain that the UN would allow a land invasion through its forces either.

First, the main body and general assembly of the UN is extremely islamophile so their support for causes against Israel is not a convincing argument, but shows the bias as much as the vetos in the security council do. I personally have stopped to see the UN as a a variable I care for anymore several years ago. IMO it has no reasonable legitimation, it certainly has no potence that goes beyond bribery, and the level of corruption makes it implausible to rely on the UN as a trustworthy authority, no matter what issue you look at. A solid ammount of naivety and incompetence does not help to improve that impression it. I think we should save the costs to run it, and install direct hot wires between interested governments instead.

On Israel and letting all Palestinians in, you comfortably ignore the conseqeunces, and a Palestinian claim there is: The Palestinians claim that ALL Palestinians claiming to have a cause in that Israeli territory shall have the right to return. Which would mean that the Israeli Jews would become an endangered minority inside their own state. Also, as I explained, the legitimacy of most Palestinians' claim for property in former Palestine is questionable, to put it mildy - most of the people being there now, moved there AFTER Israel was founded. So what claim basing on the conditions before the Israeli foundation do they have to make? Finally, Islam is inherently strongly racist and anti-semitic from all beginning on, it goes back to the time of ol' Muhammad himself. Mind you, the Jewish pharisees who already under the Romans were known for their nervekilling, hair-splitting philosophic arguments, demonstrated him his inferiority in understanding in the "theologic" disputes he asked them for. This was such an offense to his big ego that he reacted not by preparing himself better (what would be the proper way to react, I assume), but launching war against the three tribes at Medina, driving away two and finally annihilated the third tribe in what effectively was genocide by modern legal understanding of the term - all males of that tribe, no matter their age, were executed on the Mednaiese market place, all girls and women were led into slavery or got distributed under Muhammad's closest commanders and supporters. Islam IS antisemitic, and always was, and the Quran clearly states the inferiority of the people fo the book to Islam as well. To expect that Jews and Muslims will live peacefully side by side in one state run by a Jewish minority and on territories Islam claims for itself and Palestinians/Arabs claim to be their own, is hopelessly illusory. If you want to solve the conflict there once and for all - destroy Jerusalem and devastate all of Palestine alltogether and make it inhabitable.

I finally have an issue with your timeframe aregument, you earlier said that no matter how long ago the events around the founding of Israel are, the Palestinians nevertheless had the inborn right to call it theirs. If timeframe and prgamaticism plays nor role then, you must go back much longer. Before that, Palestine was a British protectorate where Jews and Arabs lived and both called themselves "Palestinians". More centuries back, the place was officially Chhristzian (by Roman state relgion), and inhabited by Jews mostly. What now, if timefreame plays no role? Make the whole place Jewish again? Christian? Or Italian? We then need Italian divisions guarding the Hadrian wall in Britain too, I assume!?

You see the problem I have there. Thus my time criterion. I would sympathise with your thinking on the issue if Israel were founded just 3 or 5 years ago. But it is in place now for almost one man-year. Millions live, have lived and have died inside of it, and for it. I am not willing to ignore that. Call it pragmatism, or Realpolitik, or whatever. The place is fought over, with different reigns, since not centuries, but millenia. Ask yourself why this is so.

Finally you ignore that the Palestinian question is not really what drives the coflicts in the Muslim world. Said conflicts truly base on the civil war within that Muslim world, the conflict between Sunni and Shia. These two sides both use the place and the people as a proxy, and namely Saudi arabia and Iran will not stop fighting just because Israelis and Palestinians suddenly shake hands - becasue the latter conflict is not really the important key issue, although many people in the West think it is. But it isn't. For the same reason - and for the reason of seeking regional dominance - any nuclear armament of Iran necessarily will be the starting shot for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey entering a nuclear arms race as well. And that is a historic path I do not trust the world would survive. The cold war we had was harmless, compared to that possibility now. and I mean the cold war that saw things like the false missile alarm of I think 1983, and the Cuba crisis.

If the real intention is to stop Iran achieving its own nuclear deterrent, the only way to succeed would be to invade and occupy, full scale.

You cannot invade and occpy a country the size of Iran. I was there for quite a moplkignber time, I also have an idea of the topograpohy therefore. Forget it, but learn from Afghanistan. the mountains. And hiuge areas of heavily rugged terrain. And the population i giot an impression of in the mid 90s of being extremely proud and patriotic. Even the opposition of the mullahs and their theocracy will rally around the nation'S flag and unite to resist to any invader.

You may remember that my conclusion alsways has been - since years - that if one seriously wants to destroy the program, a campaign of assassinations of their technical elite as well as the use of small nukes on certain key targets harbouring key installations of the weapon production, seems to be the only realistic chance. Cyberattacks only caused a small delay. Minor level of assassinations only caused delays. Economic sanction so far did nothing. Some air raids with conventional bombs so far appear to me as being able to only cause some delays, and probably can no longer reach certain installations anymore anway.

I personally think that we probably should have started to frequently bomb them while the installations were still in the phase of being build and constructed 15 years ago, and still were not readied inside of mountains.

Sure, that would not be nice. I never said that it would be. What I said is that I am so pissed by the situation with Pakistan and the high global danger it poses that I would will to do anything to prevent the establishing of a second Pakistan. Better a regional mess, than a global one.

The fact that the CIA and IAEA U-turned on their warnings could indicate a cynical reverse psychology - the people are sure we are lying, so we will tell them the truth (we have no evidence), and they will follow the lie again. YeeeeHAAAAH! that actually makes me laugh thinking about it. Tony Blair would be proud. Smoke and Mirrors.

To make that one thing clear - the CIA and the IAEA are not saying the same, but say opposite claims now.