These guys are getting ready to go to war!

[geetrue]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126842

Originally Posted by Israel inn.com

Arab reports indicate that Hizbullah is preparing to arm its rockets with chemical warheads and to build extensive fortifications. Defense Minister Ehud Barak blames the Syrians, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asks the United Nations to do something.

I’m not saying there is going to be a war, but if there was a war they’re getting ready.

Where’s Avon lady when you need her?

[Letum]

Interesting graphic halfway down that report.

An an interesting link with it to. Speaks for its self:

Our land is not Arab land

Four decades ago, “Entrance forbidden to dogs and Arabs” was a common sight in Germany. Xenophobia was sublimated from Jews onto Arabs. Every nation has a right to live as it wishes, including the right to live without strangers. Had the Germans evicted Jews in 1939 to Switzerland or even to Palestine, that won’t be a crime comparable to Holocaust. Even the impractical UN law differentiates between genocide and ethnic cleansing, the last being a much lesser crime of forcible resettlement. Xenophobia is a powerful evolutionary feature which stabilizes societies. Racism is often rooted in the very real considerations: Jews have a good reason to resist Arabs in Israel, the people whose malicious intent was demonstrated on myriad occasions.
Racism is insulting. No one likes being despised. The objects of racism can question whether the core population has more rights than they have. But our lives are full of minute insults and injustices. Some are born rich, other – poor; some – smart, other – silly; some – beautiful, other – ugly. The world doesn’t offer absolute justice, but rather statistical: a person deficient in some respects sometimes excel in other respects; sort of the blonde correlation between nice look and nice brains. The same statistical approach applies to racism. Should the entire world turn on the Arabs, as it turns on Jews, that would be absolutely unjust and worth fighting against. But here we’re talking of a country which took 0.01% of Islamic lands exercising anti-Arab racism. What if one in a ten thousand clubs in Germany exclude Arabs? That’s surely not a meaningful offense. There are clubs for women, not for men; for 30-year-plus, not for teens. Such establishments are technically illegally exclusivist (sexist, for example), but only substantial crimes are punished. In practical terms, women clubs do not substantially violate male rights because males can enjoy other clubs. The similar logic applies to Israeli Arabs. Islam bans Jews from the entire Saudi Arabia and practically excluded Jews from most Arab countries. Almost the entire Middle East is a Muslim-only club.
Jews are entitled to the club of our own.

Really building some bridges there, huh.




*edit* Yeesh, it even goes on with some good old 1930s social Darwinism. Link
Talk about irony!

Thats a hell of a link Geetrue

[geetrue]

My first thoughts on this article about Olmert asking for UN help is that his job is on the line from the cash pay off's to sexual abuse reports still being investigated.

They already know he is gulity of taking bribes ... they just don't know what to do about it.

Now he comes over to see President Bush last month and after he returns home he says that Israel has a yellow light to go after Iran. Now he's asking the UN for help.

Polictically he is saying don't worry about what I have done wrong, worry about our neighbors that want to wipe us off the map.

But reports of putting chemical warheads on their missiles did cause me some concern due Israel intelligence being one of the best in the world.

Basically they're saying; "you bomb our nuclear plants making weapons grade material and you will pay dearly for it".

[Skybird]

"Four decades ago, “Entrance forbidden to dogs and Arabs” was a common sight in Germany."

Ach, was it...?

Arab reports indicate that Hizbullah is preparing (...) to build extensive fortifications.

That'S no news - they started with that days after the end of the war 2006. theyx also started to ream with even more and more modern ATGMs just days after the war 2006 ended. They moved north of the Litani to force the Israelis to reach further out and expose their vulnerabilites that way - and then turning Lebanon into an killing ground that should serve as a grave for the IDF.

Say about these bastards what you want, but they are neither stupid, nor do they have any scruples. They prepare hard to maximize losses amongst Lebanese population, delivering Israel another PR blow that way.

Iran/Hezbollah also buys soil in Lebanon, and massively, since two years. Their supply in money is frightening. Civilian structures again will become Hezbollah'S preferred sites for ammu storage, communication and control. Clever tactic - just very brutal to the civilians.

[peterloo]

I don't think either Israel or Iran wants to start wars...

If Israel starts war, maybe she can advance rapidly, but don't forget the Iran knows how to fight guerrilla asymmetrical warfare. Furthermore, Iran does process some nice weapons, like RPG-29, or copy of TOW missile, or the best torpedo in the world, and these stuff can definitely deal a heavy punishment to Israel despite her aerial advantage.

Don't forget the ballistic missiles as well~

[geetrue]

If the Israel's enemies are so smart ... how did they lose the 6 day war?

Yahweh God intercedes for Israel on a regular schedule ... He takes Sunday off.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by geetrue

If the Israel's enemies are so smart ... how did they lose the 6 day war?

That is over a generation ago...!

Thirty years ago, electronic calculators were rare. the TI-30 that my grandfather ordered - cost 700 D-Marks! And today? Every teenager can afford to have his own gloal communication gadget, a mobile tricorder and a computer with incredible calculation capacity that 30 years ago would have costed hundreds of thousands - and even then it was not available for many institutions.

So it is with modern weapons as welol, and communication tools, especially ATGMs and shopulder-launched SAMs. These factors even can counter the modenr tanks and air force of Israel, in combination with guerilla tactics.

And have you ever realised HOW CLOSE that war was, and how threatening high Israeli losses and how low their supplies in the end were...? They won, but do not dare to think it did not cost them.

The wars of '67 and '73 mean nothing today anymore. Even tactics have chnaged, due to Israel'S enemy no longer being a regular army, but a terror-guerilla.

And the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon - don'T make me laugh. It just illustrated the UN's adamant determination to fail again. OF COURSE they did not stop weapon supplies reaching Hezbollah - what have people thought it else would do? Stopping them and fight Hezbollah...? Did they really think they would smuggle weapons via sea lanes now because a nice parade of Western frigates and patrol boats ships up and down the Lebanese coast now? The UNIFIL was naive, like so many missions of the UN. The UN should be forbidden to raise mandates for sending troops and forces. It simply is too incompetent with this matter.

[geetrue]

The only thing you have to ask yourself is simply this:

Would I cry or laugh if Israel got wiped off the map?

[Jimbuna]

I don't think another war in the region would be helpful to anyone.

One thing I do recall however is Israels traditional enemies history at starting such conflicts....and Israels uncanny knack of finishing said conflicts.

I should imagine that if Israel is attacked with dirty/nuclear weapons, even America would be unable to prevent her from doling out swift retrobution.

Survival and hatred are great motivators.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by geetrue

The only thing you have to ask yourself is simply this:

Would I cry or laugh if Israel got wiped off the map?

I don't like the idea of any country or people suffering utter destruction. I agree that some of Israel's recent policies could be considered questionable, but anyone who would laugh at that prospect has some serious problems with their own humanity.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by geetrue

The only thing you have to ask yourself is simply this:

Would I cry or laugh if Israel got wiped off the map?

An interesting "what if" history question is: what if there was no Balfour Declaration in 1917 (and the subsequent actions). How would the Middle East be today?


Getting back to your post:

But no I have no desire for Israel to be physically destroyed. It would be nice if it could live in peace with its neighbours and for its neighbours to live in peace with Israel (gots to have both).

The Palestine people deserve a "home of their own" whether it is within a unified Israel or in a separate state.

However, my natural pessimism does not lead me to believe this will ever be possible. There are too many disjointed entities each with agendas.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Platapus

The Palestine people deserve a "home of their own" whether it is within a unified Israel or in a separate state.

I won't argue with that, but there doesn't seem to have been much demand for that back when Jordan owned the West Bank. Israel took it fair and square under the accepted rules of war prizes, and to protect themselves since the Arabs used it as a launching point in the 1967 war. The demand for autonomy only began after Israel took possession.

[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I won't argue with that, but there doesn't seem to have been much demand for that back when Jordan owned the West Bank. Israel took it fair and square under the accepted rules of war prizes, and to protect themselves since the Arabs used it as a launching point in the 1967 war. The demand for autonomy only began after Israel took possession.

But did Jordan build illegal settlements where ever it pleased?

I don't think its just the fact that Israel occupies the West bank but the fact that it has continued to force out palestinians and build on land which is legally held by paletinians since it gained control of the West bank.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

Yeah, building cities in a foreign country and protecting these cities with the army could eventually maybe be considered questionnable, perhaps, but you would have to eventually question it very nicely
I'm loving these threads

And I love it if the same questio0nable "argument" gets presented time and again. Israel'S existence is a fact since TWO GENERATIONS, and it could only be reversed at the price of committing an equal if not greater injustice again. Twop generations have been born and in parts killed in and for Israel now. are you willing to expel all them together, even if it has not been their fault that Israel was founded the way it was? Blame the British and the americans after WWII for the folly. In some years, no muslim alive has any claim to make for Palestine anymore, for he was not alive when Israel was founded, and so he lost nothing. In a few years, only Israelis not being alive at the time the state was founded will live in Israel anymore - and so they are not responisble for what has happened at the time before their birth. nobody alive then will have any claim to make for the place, it belongs to the people being alive in the present, and not to the dead. The dead you owe no cliams about this, none at all. That is empty pathos only.

Best thing would be if both Jews and Palestinians would live peacefully side by side, but the world is not like this. there are always those a$$holes yelling about pride and history and generation'S guilt and religious duty to overcome the other. As long as you allow these sock minds to exist and interfere, there will be no such thing like the idea of "peace" and "freedom".

I am realist. There is nothing that specially links me with the fate of Israel, nor is there anything that separates me from it. I am not Jewish. I have neither sympathy nor antipathy for it. I support it in it's claim to have the right to exist because of just the reasons above. If we would, live two or three years after the founding of Israel, I would see it different. But it is sixty years, a man's lifetime. It is there. It is real. It survived. I am not happy with the strategic problems that exposed location created. But nevertheless these are the facts of live. Live with them. Maybe in the end the experiment will fail, due to the vulnerable strategic context. But nevertheless I cannot see how we could have another moral chance than to accept Israel'S roght to exist and defend itself, now, sixty years after it was born.

If it was clever to form the state the way it was done, is of no real importance anymore today. Nor is the story of one people arriving and taking land from another tribe any new in world history. The facts of the present remain unaffected from all this.

P.S. The Golan were taken as a prize of war by Israel, during a conflict it had not started, and was attacked by surprise. Syria was one of the agressors, and lost. It payed a price for that aggression: the Golan. that they demand it back is like if Germany today would demand back the former eastern Prussian territories that today belong to Poland. I wonder how people would react if Germany would start to make such demands. We all know the reaction: Germans would get accused to become Nazis again. It would be an appropriate gesture for syria to leave the golan where it is: with Israel. Nobody asked Syria to attack israel, they took a gmable, and lost. They payed the price. And of story. - Well, not in that crazy part of the world. Imagine european nartions and people starting to claim their historic lands again! Would lead to WWIII, directly.

[Skybird]

Louder!