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The difference between Israel and say Iraq is that Israel is a very close ally of the United States. The U.S. has considerbaly more influence over Israel than it does Iran or Iraq under Saddam when he invaded Kuwait. In fact during the first Iraq War the Americans put pressure on Israel not to retaliate when they were targeted by Iraqi missiles.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-04-24 18:58 ]
I think you'll find that it's Israel that has considerable influence over the US (especially their foreign policies in the middleast).
Just in case anyone forgot, here's some information that you might find useful:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Actually this is more connected to my post:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/lrblobby.html
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www.prisonplanet.com[ This Message was edited by: soulframe on 2006-04-24 19:23 ]
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Posted: 2006-04-24 20:21:53
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On 2006-04-24 20:16:50, absinthebri wrote:
Some history...
The Jews committed massive atrocities. Indeed, according to the former director of the Israeli army archives, "in almost every village occupied by us during the War of Independence, acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murders, massacres, and rapes'... Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli military historian of the 1948 war, goes one step further, maintaining that every skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs."
One very famous example among many.
"For the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion...The attackers lined men, women and children up against the walls and shot them,... The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country."
Whilst those incidents are awful what exactly do they prove beyond the fact that man can be cruel? The Arabs committed atrocities against the Jews too. In the 1930s for example, Jewish farms were destroyed and Jews killed. Such attacks led to the formation of Jewish militias and also to the British White Paper of 1939, which can be seen as having pushed some sections of the Jewish community to extremes. During WWII the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem collaborated with the Nazis against Jews.
Both sides have done terrible things to the other so I see little point in debating who is right or wrong in such matters. The bottom line is that both sides could not peacefully coexist with one another at that time.
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And 1967...
"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68
The re-militariztion of the Sinai was not the only factor I mentioned. Israel at that time was surrounded by hostile countries, which had formed a military alliance. Then there is also the closure of the Strraits of Tirana to Israeli shipping. A blockade can be considered an act of war.
It is also worth considering the speech Nasser made on 30th May 1967, in which he said "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world." Algeria, Kuwait, Iraq and Sudan were also mobilising their armies. The threat therefore was not simply an Egyptian threat, but a pan-Arabic force.
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The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman stated that there was "no threat of destruction" but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could "exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies." Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make: "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." New York Times, August 21, 1982 and Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
Interestingly Nasser made a speech in 1967, in which he said "If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle will be a general one... and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." It is important to note that he says if Israel attacks, but equally important is the objective he sets out. He does not say that the goal will be to defeat Israel and contain it, rather he says that the goal will be the destruction of Israel. Clearly the political will for Israel's destruction was there.
Syria had also been operating raids into Israeli territory prior to the war and Israel had been shelling Syrian border villages so tensions were obviously high there.
The decision to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian airforce made perfect sense in military terms since it was the most powerful of the Arab airforces and the most able to present a threat to the Israeli airforce in the looming war.
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Moshe Dayan (the Defense Minister in 1967) who gave the order to conquer the Golan Heights, said many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and that the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland... Dayan stated "They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land... We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was... The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us." The New York Times, May 11, 1997
The Israeli government voted unanimously to return both the Sinai and the Golan Heights to Egypt and Syria respectively. However, the U.S. apparently did not pass on this offer and the evidence suggest neither nation received it. The fact that there was a unanimous vote to return the Golan Heights would seem to suggets that the Israeli government wasn't necessarily committed to siezing and holding land at any cost, but rather looked to use such acquisitions as bargaining chips.
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"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-04-24 20:55 ]
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Posted: 2006-04-24 20:52:56
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On 2006-04-24 20:21:53, soulframe wrote:
I think you'll find that it's Israel that has considerable influence over the US (especially their foreign policies in the middleast).
Just in case anyone forgot, here's some information that you might find useful:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Actually this is more connected to my post:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/lrblobby.html
The bottom line is that Israel would likely not be in existence today were it not for American support. Israel received a great deal of aid, especially military support, from the U.S., which has ensured that Israel remains the most powerful nation in the region.
This gives the U.S. considerable influence over Israel as Israel effictively relies upon the U.S. for its survival. Israel and the U.S. essentially want the same things in the Middle East although perhaps for different reasons.
As I said before the U.S. would no doubt like to see a peaceful and stable Middle East to protect their economic interests and the global economy. It also wants to see its allies dominating in the region. Israel no doubt wants the same things, but because they want security.
If the Middle East were to run out of oil tomorrow then I can almost guarantee you that the U.S. position on the region would change overnight. The U.S. is interested in supporting Israel because it is a powerful and friendly face in the region that can act as a block to unfriendly regimes like Syria. It could be argued that Israel is important to the U.S. because the Middle East is important to the U.S. not the other way around.
_________________
"I may be drunk my dear woman, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." WSC
[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2006-04-24 20:07 ]
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Posted: 2006-04-24 20:59:37
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