The Israel/Palestine Conflict Mk. IV

"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" - Menachem Begin

"Nasser did not want war." - Abba Eban, then Israeli foreign minister

"The whole story about threat of extermination was totally contrived, and then elaborated upon a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories." - Mordechai Bentov, then Israeli cabinet minister

"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it." - Yitzhak Rabin, then Chief of Staff

"I am convinved that our General Staff never told the government that there was any substance to the Egyptian military threat to Israel... All those stories about the huge danger we were facing because of our small territorial size, an argument expounded once the war was over, had never been considered in our calculations prior to the unleashing of hostilities. While we proceeded toward the full mobilization of our forced, no-one in his right mind could believe that all this force was necessary for our 'defence' against the Egyptian threat...To pretend that the Egyptian force concentrated on our border were capable of threatening Israel's existence not only insults the intelligence of any person capable of analyzing this kind of situation, but is primarily an insult to the Zahal [the Israeli Army]." - Mattityahu Peled, then Chief of Logistics for the Armed Forces

Is what it says in wiki. Having read the whole speech, I don't see much to support such a claim. The next passage of the speech, for example, is:

"This was a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term. The government of national unity then established decided unanimously: We will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation."

Admittedly, Begin was a hawk, but his logic here is the "Iron Wall" logic that has shaped Israel's foreign policy from its creation; that Israel must always be in a position of secure military strength and advantage vis-a-vis the surrounding states, especially for negotiations. Inevitably this ends up as an aggressive war policy.



I didn't 'omit' it. Begin's quotes appear in places other than wiki, you know?

You are of no use in this debate if you cannot figure out the difference between an election where several democratic parties participate, regularly, have to campaign hard for votes and may well lose power in a couple of years at the next election, and a sham "election" where totalitarians win (thus voiding the concept of democracy), who will never call another election and who will instead set up a totalitarian state. Indeed, you seem to fail to recognise just what totalitarianism is, so you are at best unhelpful, at worst dangerous. Supporting a majority's "right" to elect totalitarians to power is simply supporting a majority's "right" to oppress minorities, which is immoral in my opinion (though maybe not yours).

I don't claim that Israel is perfect. I don't support everything its government has done or continues to do. I oppose a lot of what it does in the West Bank (though not all - I don't oppose the anti-jihad wall for instance). I just think the absolute core of the debate should be around who wants to set up a genuinely free society. I don't believe in setting up states unless they will be liberal democracies (by the way, social democracy is perfectly compatible with liberal democracy, unless you mean Communism or something - "democracy" being a sham in that case). Much of Africa shows that independence for its own sake is not always a good thing.

My news thread has been moved here? This is a wonderful way to essentially hide all the news about Israel, place it onto one thread and limit the exposure. I do believe the intentions of the moderator were to de-clutter the forum due to the number of threads, but i do believe for a non-debate and news-reporting thread, it should have been given more exposure time.

Rest assured, the latest and almost game changing news of a Top White House official giving the most explicit condemnation of Israel will, when i get time, be spread to every human on this planet regardless of whatever means taken to censor it.

A fairly convincing argument, but I can do the same with the other side of the conflict, please read up to " As Nasser and Heikal correctly observed, in such a situation Israel either had to surrender or attack. On the morning of June 5, Israel attacked.":
http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/southernfront.asp

palestinian terrorists fire rocket into Israel from Gaza.

x

Do you support the State of Palestine by any chance?

All that happened after WWII is that Israel was legitimised by the united nations partly as reparations for the holocaust.

So do you think that the British should have recognised the modern state of Israel or branded it a dangerous ideological state that disrupted the Middle East?