A parsonal responce to" WTF is going on in Israel today???"...(pleaes read!)

[U2Bama]

Originally posted by DrTeeth:
What were their conclusions?

Nothing yet, that I know of; as I stated, it is just "monitoring" at this point. If nothing else, the two groups probably have common sympathies over the whole "Zionist" paranoia - the rednecks fear a "Zionist" takeover of the world (and the U.S.) and some of the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists ar fighting "Zionist" occupation of and expansion into Palestinian lands.

~U2Alabama

 

[Vorsprung]

Originally posted by STING2:
The Palestinians were given a State in 1947 and they regected it

Well. 50 years later it's easy to say they were much better off if they accepted that, but at that time it meant giving up about 50% of their land. OK, before that they didn't havbe any state, but that doesn't matter. That's like saying to any once occupied state that they should be glad to have their own state instead of saying that the former occupation of their land was wrong.



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Vorsprung durch Technik

 

[STING2]

Dr. Teeth,
Looks like we need to clear some things up about the 1956 war and the 1967 war.
First the war in 1956. During the mid-1950s, Egypt raided Israel from the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian occupied part of Palestine back then. Israel was begining to develop a port at Elat on the Gulf of Aqaba. Egypt had been preventing Israeli ships from using the Suez Canal by stopping them in Egyptian waters. As a result, the Gulf of Aqaba was Israel's only southern outlet to the sea. But Egyptian guns at the entrance to the gulf also stopped Israeli ships there. In July 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal from its British and French owners.
Any of the above three actions by Egypt are easily grounds for war and Israel was clearly justified in launching its attack to prevent raids from Gaza against its people and to open shipping lanes for Israely trade with others. Israel did nothing to Justify a blockade on its ships anywhere nor a blockade on one of its ports. Nor did Israel do anything to justify Egyptian raids from Gaza. What Egypt did clearly threatened Israels security, and the actions Israel took were clearly in self defense.

 

[STING2]

Dr. Teeth,
Now for the 1967 war. After the 1956 war UN troops were put on the Israeli-Egyptian border to prevent raids. This was not the case though with Syria and Jordan. For years Syrian Artillery would pound Israely towns from the Golan Heights with Israel unable to do much about it given the entrenched and defensable terrain of the Heights. In addition to the raids, the Israely's suffered many Civilian deaths from from Syrian artillery from the Golan.
In May of 1967, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt mobilized their armies. Many in Israel thought this was just a scare tactic and did not take it seriously until Egypt forced out the UN observers from the border. The Egyptians then again closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli ships.
Faced witht the possiblity of a 3 front war, being heavily outnumbered, some points along the then Jordanian-Israely border being only 10 miles from the sea making it possible for Arab forces to easily cut the country in half, artillery bombardment on Israely citizens from Golan and raids from both Syria and Jordan, Israel on June 5, 1967 launched a daring pre-emptive airstrike that was successful in destroying the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian Airforces. Israel was thin able to concentrate its forces more on Egypt and Jordan while leaving only a small defensive force to block Syria. This allowed the defeat the Egyptians and Jordanians and then concentrate on Syria.
Attacking the Golan Heights was a difficult task for Israely forces, but they were successful and it has to this day prevented Syrian Artillery from pounding Israely towns.
If Israel had not taken these actions it could have very easily been wipped from the face of the earth. First Arab forces greatly outnumbered those of Israel. Second the quality of equipment used was roughly the same. Israel was still using M4-Sherman tanks in 1967! A tank that was at best of average quality during World War II. The Arabs were armed with Soviet made T-54 tanks and older Soviet T-34 tanks. Both were either a match or superior to anything the Israelies had. 3rd, Jordanian and Syrian forces were fighting from higher ground, always an advantage in war. Cutting of and encircling Israely forces would be easier than falling off a log, given the geographic situation for Israel vs its neighbors.
What saved the day was Israel pre-emptive strike, plus Israely brains vs. how should I say, some really bad and uncoordinated moves by the Arab political/military forces. Clearly the Arabs could have destroyed Israel without swift action by its forces.

 

[STING2]

Dr. Teeth,
Any military historian or tactician would tell you that it would be naive to assume that Israel will "Always" be able to kick anyones "Ass" no matter what the circumstances are. The odds were very great in the 48', 56', 67' and 73' wars that Israel could have lost everything given proper Arab mobilization and coordination and an Israely mistake or two(like not launching a pre-emptive strike).
The situation today is different in that Israely forces are much better equipped with US weapons and other technology because of the large leap ahead over Soviet military technology that happened to US forces in the 1980s. But even this is complicated now that Egyptian and Saudi Arabian forces have been recieving some of the most high tech equipment that US forces have.
No one has a crystal ball to predict what the military balance will be in the future. But no matter what it will be, land and terrain will continue to be a critical factor in Israel security. No other country on the face of the Earth faces the same security nightmare that Israel does.

 

[STING2]

Dr. Teeth,
Another thing, people in Palestine have a far superior standard of living to most people in Sub Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, many parts of India, china and South East Asia. So this idea that they don't have anything to lose is totally false. Palestinians have cars, hotels, supermarkets and other modern things that over a billion people have never heard of or can only dream about owning. Yet, you don't see them strapping themselves with bombs to kill innocent people because they "have nothing left to lose".
About the picture you have that you claim is a war crime by the IDF. A man shot in the head. First, Who was the man? If he was a terrorist or resistence fighter, his death was not a war crime, unless he was shot at point blank range execution style.
You have to be able to prove that the IDF understood the man was not a terrorist or resistence fighter and shot him any way. Or if the man had already been subdued or captured, regardless of occupation, and then was shot by IDF troops.
The pictures would have to show IDF troops doing one of two things: targeting and killing the man that they knew for a fact was not involved in terror or the shooting of anyone after they had captured them and subdued them. IDF troops have to be in the picture performing the act for it to be proof.
A picture of a man with a bullet hole in his head is not proof of anything. It could have been an accident coming from an IDF soldier or a Palestinian terrorist or resistence fighter.
But if the picture does have the above things that would prove it to be what you claim it to be, then you should send it to multiple media organizations as well as citing the source of your photograph. Every Arab news media or source should be showing this across the world. Western media would definitely take this and show it as well.
Also, the picture needs to clearly show the IDF soldier or soldiers to prove its not a fraud. The US military photographed Iraqi soldiers blowing up their own Mosque in an attempt to claim the US did it during the Gulf War.

 

[STING2]

Vorsprung,
I have the map of the UN partition plan in front of me from 1947. You have to remember that in 1947, there were 600,000 Jews living there already out of a total population of 1,800,000 Muslims, Jews and Christians. Over half the land given to the Jews was mainly uninhabited desert south of the West bank and Gaza. For the most part this is still lightly populated today. The rest of the land given to the Jews was land they were already living on! The Muslims were given the land they were living on! How is that unfair? Its a common sense approach for peace, but the Arabs had no interest in peace and decided they wanted to destroy Israel.