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Ozoned

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2004
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Common Courtesy, in somewhat of an attempt to portray the Israeli bully tactics as a just response states that, "Israel punishes the militant organizations and those that they hide behind when those organizations choose to attack Israel."

Which does not exactly square with the Israel response regarding Lebanon in 2005. Granted, Hezbollah, had stockpiled short range missiles in Southern Lebanon that were being used against Israel. While at the same time the semi stable civilian Government of Lebanon was weak.

A just and measured Israel response would have been limited to the extreme current range of the stockpiled missiles, namely 60 miles. Yet Israeli aircraft strafed and bombed
all of Lebanon up to the Syrian border, as all sorts of civilian and not military infrastructure was needlessly destroyed. Far Far beyond the 60 miles range of these missiles. And even the Lebanese Christian faction, nominally pro-Israeli, received far more than its share of needless Israeli retaliation.

In short, Common Courtesy, the Israeli rape of Lebanon should be regarded as a illegal collective punishment and as such, be defined as the war crime that its was.

But oh no, what Hezbollah did to provoke Israel is also a war crime also, just one more example of tit for tat violence legacy in the mid-east that has no beginning and will have no end, at least until some just peace can be achieved.

The Israeli myth is that Israeli can use military might to persuade the world that only their version of justice is correct, but the larger lesson to learn is that the problem has never gone away in the entire 62 years existence of the Israeli State, and now yet another Israeli neighbor has all the more reason to hate Israel even more than they did before.


Your opinion has no credibility, given your lack of knowledge about the actual facts
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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Is the overall document a UN document? Yes/No.
Yes, but your claim that "[t]he UN documented that Jordan shelled West Jerusalem" is utter bullshit. In reality, the UN simply documented Israel's claim that Jordan attacked first which omitted the fact that they previously bombed the piss out of Jordan's airforce. Even Viruses isn't disputing that fact, only attempting to make excuses for it.

Your opinion has no credibility, given your lack of knowledge about the actual facts
Again, what you quoted in your linked post is bullshit.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
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Ozoned manages to be a total idiot by saying, "Your opinion has no credibility, given your lack of knowledge about the actual facts. "

What Ozoned says is not facts either, and when its all said and done, all we have is a mid-east cluster fuck that is leading to a bad end. I really want to support the Israeli right to exist, but in the end, given the odds and existing Israeli arrogance, its just difficult to believe that the hatreds Israel is now harvesting can lead anywhere other than having every Israeli Jew being driven into the sea. That is just where its heading long term, 275 million to 5 million is very long odds.

Bottom lines, we cannot build a just Israeli state based on the victimization of Palestinians and Arabs, and we cannot build a just mid-east without a just State of Israel, the problem now, is that we cannot recognize that both better possibilities are possible, and that somehow, the holy land of Israel, sacred to three religions must be shared rather than pigged by any religion. Been there, done that, it has not worked for 4000 years on the pig it all principle.
 
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woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
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Yes, but your claim that "[t]he UN documented that Jordan shelled West Jerusalem" is utter bullshit. In reality, the UN simply documented Israel's claim that Jordan attacked first which omitted the fact that they previously bombed the piss out of Jordan's airforce. Even Viruses isn't disputing that fact, only attempting to make excuses for it.


Again, what you quoted in your linked post is bullshit.

It seems to me that who attacked whom and when should be subject to factual verification.

I'll skip the actual wiki text and go right to its sourcing (3 footnotes):

On June 5, Israel sent a message to Hussein urging him not to open fire. Despite shelling into western Jerusalem, Netanya, and the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel did nothing." The Six Day War and Its Enduring Legacy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 2, 2002.

^ "Israel promised Jordan that if they did not attack Israel first, Israel would not touch Jordanian positions. After asking for 24 hours to think about it, Jordanian troops opened a heavy-artillery barrage on western Jerusalem, as well as targeting the center of the country. In addition, Jordanian troops seized government houses and the headquarters of the U.N. in Jerusalem." 1967-Six Day War, HistoryCentral.com. URL accessed May 14, 2006.

^ a b c "In May-June 1967 Eshkol's government did everything in its power to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front. Eshkol and his colleagues took into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front. But they wanted to avoid having a clash with Jordan and the inevitable complications of having to deal with the predominantly Palestinian population of the West Bank. The fighting on the eastern front was initiated by Jordan, not by Israel. King Hussein got carried along by a powerful current of Arab nationalism. On 30 May he flew to Cairo and signed a defense pact with Nasser. On 5 June, Jordan started shelling the Israeli side in Jerusalem. This could have been interpreted either as a salvo to uphold Jordanian honor or as a declaration of war. Eshkol decided to give King Hussein the benefit of the doubt. Through General Odd Bull, the Norwegian commander of UNTSO, he sent the following message the morning of 5 June: 'We shall not initiate any action whatsoever against Jordan. However, should Jordan open hostilities, we shall react with all our might, and the king will have to bear the full responsibility of the consequences.' King Hussein told General Bull that it was too late; the die was cast." Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04816-0, pp. 243–244.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#cite_note-Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy_2002-21

It looks like what actually happened was that the shelling occured, which Israel chose to ignore, *then* it asked Jordan to stay out of it, then Jordan told Israel that the die is cast, then Israel hit Jordan's airforce. So it wasn't a direct response to the shelling, but of being verbally told that Jordan would not stay out of it. It had, after all, signed a military pact with Egypt which obligated it to enter the war.

- wolf
 
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Noobtastic

Banned
Jul 9, 2005
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It seems to me that who attacked whom and when should be subject to factual verification.

I'll skip the actual wiki text and go right to its sourcing (3 footnotes):



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#cite_note-Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy_2002-21

- wolf

Even assuming the most extreme interpretation, all of Israel's wars are far more morally and legally defensible than its critics. Israel is facing existential threats on all corners.

It could not depend on any foreign benefactor for assistance, and because the USA didn't want to compromise oil interests, Israel was largely left to fend for itself while its enemies had unconditional support from the Soviets.

The USA sabotaged Israel's relationship with Egypt and Britain during the suez crisis. USA condemned Israel frequently in the UN and allowed B.S resolutions sponsored by Arab tribes to be passed.

It wasn't until after the Six Day War did the USA accept the reality that Israel will never be defeated conventionally.

Arab states are not victim to Israel's "aggression." They are victim to their own insanity and bigotry.

You do know when the Arab states weren't fighting Israel, they were fighthing each other?

But Chomsky is quiet over Egypt's vietnam-styled invasion of Yemen in 1962, which killed 140,000+. Egypt gassed over 2,000 civilians.

Yet no UN resolution. No condemnation.

What about Jordan's wholesale massacre of the Palestinians during black september? What about Syria's ruthless response to muslim brotherhood terror during the hama massacre?

It seems the Left accuses Israel of "aggression" yet it is the Arab tribes who continue to war with each other over the stupidest reasons.

They have themselves to blame for picking fights with Israel. And they have themselves to blame for being lousy fighters.

If we can fight "terror" in Afghanistan, I don't see why Israel shouldn't be allowed to go after terror groups on its borders that cannot be pacified through diplomacy.

If we can kill 4,000 people a year in Afghanistan, why can't Israel? If we can conduct 3 Gaza War-like operations a month, why can't Israel? Why should it be expected to behave in a way none of its critics never have?

Because it's loaded with Jews?

I'd like to know.
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
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Even assuming the most extreme interpretation, all of Israel's wars are far more morally and legally defensible than its critics. Israel is facing existential threats on all corners.

My limited purpose here was to address the more narrow factual question that Kyle had raised. You'll note that last wiki footnote I supplied, which states that the shelling of West Jerusalem did occur, that Israel wanted to keep Jordan and Syria out of the war, that Israel asked Jordan to stand down, and that Jordan refused, is from a book by Avi Schlaim. Schlaim is well known as a strong critic of Israel and has been accused of anti-Israel bias in his writings. Accordingly, I tend to think that Schlaim would not have written this point in favor of Israel without very good sourcing to back it up. I actually have his book at home and I'll check his sourcing tonight. I suspect the letter being discussed previously is not the only source to substantiate that this shelling occurred, and that Kyle is just flat out wrong on this point.

- wolf
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
9,396
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I'm not disputing the fact that the shelling occurred, just the claim that it came before Israel's air strikes. As for the citations on Wiki you quoted, the first two sources are laughably biased towards Israel, and while Avi Schlaim isn't, his account conflicts with every other I've seen aside from those from the most ardent Zionists. Please do post what source he cites though, Google has the book in limited preview, but the part with the footnotes isn't viewable.
 

Noobtastic

Banned
Jul 9, 2005
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My limited purpose here was to address the more narrow factual question that Kyle had raised. You'll note that last wiki footnote I supplied, which states that the shelling of West Jerusalem did occur, that Israel wanted to keep Jordan and Syria out of the war, that Israel asked Jordan to stand down, and that Jordan refused, is from a book by Avi Schlaim. Schlaim is well known as a strong critic of Israel and has been accused of anti-Israel bias in his writings. Accordingly, I tend to think that Schlaim would not have written this point in favor of Israel without very good sourcing to back it up. I actually have his book at home and I'll check his sourcing tonight. I suspect the letter being discussed previously is not the only source to substantiate that this shelling occurred, and that Kyle is just flat out wrong on this point.

- wolf

Revisionist writing became trendy many decades after the Six Day War. For awhile no one questioned Arab belligerence. The world was well aware of the Arab's saber-rattling and constant threats of aggression. Controlled-cease fires, terror attacks, threats of destruction (i.e, liberate Jerusalem, push Israel into the sea, kill all the Jews blah blah).

Cartoons published before the conflict:


Arab foreign policy is indefensible. The "new historians" don't spend a lot of time defending the Arab states. In fact, Chomsky and Fickelstein don't even mention them.

Instead, they vilify Israel and rely on intense hyperbole buzzwords to elicit an emotional reaction.

This is why trolls here continue to spout blatant lies because it has been written into their brain. Emotion trumps reason and logic every time.

you have any idea the billions Saudi Arabia has spent buying out the universities and rewriting history? I doubt 30 years ago any person would actually say in 2010 the history books would tell how Israel forced the Arabs into a war, and how the Arabs are a victim to Israel's existence.

Why is the Left so obsessed with such an irrelevant war? Really? No rapes, no massacres. Not heavy casualties. No genocides or total-war scenarios. This isn't iran-iraq, vietnam, chechnya, sudan, congo.

So why does everyone here act like this is WWIII?

six day war happened more than 3 decades ago. Assuming the arab interpretation, so what? Who cares? Really? It's a war, people died. Countries lost some land. Boohoo. That's life.

Are we going to hold America's legitimacy hostage because we exterminated 2,000,000 civilians in carpet bombing campaigns during the vietnam war? how about the 350 vietnamese the die every year because of mines the US military left in the country? Yeah, 2009, 400 vietnam died.

We should be more concerned about our own business rather than Israel's.

moz-screenshot-2.png
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
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I'm not disputing the fact that the shelling occurred, just the claim that it came before Israel's air strikes. As for the citations on Wiki you quoted, the first two sources are laughably biased towards Israel, and while Avi Schlaim isn't, his account conflicts with every other I've seen aside from those from the most ardent Zionists. Please do post what source he cites though, Google has the book in limited preview, but the part with the footnotes isn't viewable.

I'll check the Schlaim footnotes tonight as that particular footnote is not in your link. Schlaim's view of the entire war was that it was a defensive war from the standpoint of Israel. I recall that quite clearly from reading his book several years back. This is in contrast to a very different view he takes of a number of other events.

You'll have to show me your sources which contradict Schlaim on when this shelling occurred. Your NPR timeline is pretty sketchy and and doesn't cover a lot of events in that war. Your other source uses the word "pre-emptive" but that statement could simply be incorrect, or a disagreement over the meaning of the word "pre-emptive" in this context, as the Jordanian shelling was really more a salvo that even Israel wasn't certain whether or not to interpret as an act of war. The real provocation, actually, appears to have been King Hussein's rebuffing the Israeli overture for it to stay out of the war.

- wolf
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
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Oh Jesus Christ on a crutch Woolfe, shall we decide on the basis of a few trivial viewpoints on who is right? We have a long dead Begin, a long dead King Hussein of Jordan, lots and lots of other wrong idiots on all sides to cite, and while we are at it, why not drag in Pontius Pilot and King Hardrian. What have any of those idiots done to promote a just peace in the mid-east?

You are simply trying to do the impossible while pissing into the wind. We cannot create one simple justice while we are all stuck trying to create a single right out of a huge dunghill of past wrongs on all sides.

Its long past time to discard all past worthless baggage, and ask, what is fair to all sides now? New Palestinian and Israeli children are born everyday, shall we blame them for the sins of their elders? Or assert that these young children, born without hate, cannot get along to the mutual profit of all?

Trying to build justification out of a garbage dump of past injustices is a fools game.

But as I read this thread, it sure keeps a pile of fools busy.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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Schlaim's view of the entire war was that it was a defensive war from the standpoint of Israel.
Surely he doesn't claim Egypt attacked before the Israeli airstrikes too?

Regardless, here is a couple conflicting comments from notable Israeli leaders of the time, including Menahem Begin:

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.

Granted, he goes on to call "a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term", but that's just political double talk attempting to justify clinging to the Palestinian territories. Anyway, Rabin said much the same thing:

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.

As for the sources I provided, both recount significant events, and again who first attacked who is of particular significance to the recounting of any war, with both NPR and Ynet's accounts mirroring many other credible sources I've seen before.
 

Noobtastic

Banned
Jul 9, 2005
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Surely he doesn't claim Egypt attacked before the Israeli airstrikes too?

Like many critics, they tend to avoid the opinions and statements of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. A simple review would reveal just how much they wanted war.

Egypt's closure of the Straits of Tiran was a Casus Belli according to President Johnson. It was Israel's ONLY supply route with Israel and cut of Israel's primary source of oil - Iran.


The day following the Blockade, Nasser said:
The Jews threaten to make war. I reply: Welcome! We are ready for war.
In the following days he made more threatening comments:

Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight. We will not accept any...coexistence with Israel...Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel....The war with Israel is in effect since 1948
Pretty honest right?

On May 30 - 5 days before the War, Jordan and Egypt signed a defense pact, and Nasser declared:
The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations
Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq said:
The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear -- to wipe Israel off the map
This simply wasn't Iranian-styled saber-rattling. Egypt mobilized 500,000+ troops, 300 tanks, and 800 jets.

Israel's economy and military could not support an indefinite state of belligerence. Had Israel awaited for an Arab invasion, it would not have survived. The Arab states could depend on Soviet support, but the French placed an embargo on Israel's military and USA sold more weapons to the arabs than to israel by that time.

Your accusation that Israel wanted to hold unto the WB and Gaza is not supported by facts. Also, at that point the land was not considered "Palestinian territory" by neither the UN or the Arabs.

If Israel wanted the land, it could have simply expelled the Palestinians and annexed it - but instead implemented what was supposed to be a brief military occupation pending territorial swaps with the Arab states as part of UN242 which called for a negotiated peace.

Israel figured such a humiliating defeat would force the Arab's to re-think their belligerence towards Israel.

Arabs of course outright rejected UN242 and passed the Khartoum Resolution followed by an oil embargo. Israel couldn't very well give up land it had just captured for nothing.

Israel did annex Jerusalem and the Golan for strategic purposes, but it had nothing to gain from holding on to the WB and Gaza indefinitely. The Arabs would never accept Israeli citizenship and Israel already treated their current Arab population as a "hostile entity."

Ultimately Israel did return 94% of all land captured in the war for peace with Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians. It offered the Golan to Syria and asked for the remains of an executed POW as a "good-faith" gesture. Syrian's told Israel to go fuck itself.

You tell me who wanted peace? Israel or the Arabs?

No one intelligent sees Israel as entirely blameless, but there is zero evidence that supports the accusation that the Arab's were victim to Israel's aggression, and it was Israel, not the Arabs, that rejected peace.

And for those who don't know, Israel's military losses during those 6 days is roughly equivalent to America's losses in Iraq since 2003 (Over 1.2 million have served in Iraq, while ~200,000 israelis fought in the six day war).

If Israel wanted to eliminate the Arab states it could do so in 5 seconds. The Arab world invaded Israel with full knowledge of its nuclear capabilities. they knew the Jews would never use the bomb....even if their country was on the bring of collapse, they knew Israel did not have the stomach to kill millions of Arabs.

Clearly the Arabs had the stomach to kill millions of Jews, as demonstrated by their Nazi-styled expulsion of 900,000+ Jews and calls for its eliminated every other week. Only the blind cannot see such obvious aggression. Is the Left so blind with hate and rage?