US given one-month deadline to rescue Mid-East talks.
Arab League ministers, that reasonable, even-handed body of sages has spoken. They must have carefully weighed up all the pros and cons, deliberated, cogitated and anguished over their decision before arriving at the conclusion that Abbas should stand firm and walk out of the peace talks. More time must be given and more pressure applied to Israel by Obama. The world shall greet this announcement with joy, wonderment and feigned surprise.
Name one factor in this farcical chess game of manipulation that would favour the Arab League advising Abbas to return to the table and overlook the end of the freeze on settlement building? Can’t think of one? Nor can I.
Consider.
The world has swallowed, hook line and sinker, the theory that settlements are the obstacle to peace.
The world has swallowed, h l & s the contention that the occupied territories are illegal under international law.
The world has swallowed the contention that all settlement building amounts to Jews stealing Palestinian land.
The world unquestioningly accepts the Arab demands for ‘preconditions.’
So the long awaited decision by the Arab league was a bit of what they call a no-brainer. A bit of a foregone conclusion.
So now Obama has to demand that Israel brushes aside the Palestinians’ refusal to renounce violence, recognise Israel’s right to exist, budge on the right of return and all the rest of it, because the whole wide world and your BBC has conspired to delegitimise Israel, and instil the notion that Arab intransigence and pride are quaint traits of their culture. Innit.
We know that Abbas and Fatah deliberately demanded a settlement freeze in order for them to negotiate in the first place, they then refused to actually negotiate until the deadline was about to run out and then demanded yet another settlement freeze before actual negotiations could continue.
So far so good, what game are they playing and why the grubby tricks and sneaky devices? It looks to me like the Palestinians do not want to negotiate at all, the Arab league was always going to do exactly what Abbas wanted anyway.
Was this series of tricks aimed at making Israel look intransigent to a Western MSM only too willing to overlook Palestinian tricks and devides and do they want the conflict to keep on bubbling away for years? With a two state agreement it means the state of Israel exists as a matter of fact and the Arab aggressors lose their excuses for conflict.
If the Arabs really wanted peace they could have it yet they choose freely to prolong the conflict, I have a feeling that the very last thing the Arabs actually desire is a peace deal where Israel and a Palestinian state exists side by side. I suspect that in reality the only peace that will satisfy the Arabs is the extermination of Israel.
If Israel were smart they would build as fast as they can in the so called occupied territories and say plainly to Abbas, anytime you want peace come and talk, until then then building continues so the sooner the better eh?
The only thing Abbas and his Arab allies understand is overwhelming strength and confidence.
While I firmly believe that Jews should be allowed to live wherever they want, the settlement movement is doing it all wrong. Not building for another month or two isn’t going to hurt anyone. The one guy in East Jerusalem driving into a couple of teenagers throwing rocks didn’t help.
Having said that, I keep waiting for the BBC – or any of their friends at a JournoList-infested US media outlet – to have someone on to point out that every single concession Israel has ever given was utterly pointless, and achieved no peace.
It’s the same sad argument I used to have with Left-Coast US Jews who were demanding a Palestinain state in the early 1980s. I said it would go this way even then. The BBC’s failure to balance out the overwhelming criticism of and blame on Israel with a single voice not named Mark Regev saying that this is a ridiculous cycle of demand and renege demonstrates the point of view entrenched in editorial meetings, and in the minds of their correspondents.
Every demand is treated as the one big gesture that will finally convince the Palestinains that the Israelis aren’t hell-bent on genocide and conquest, and every time Israel gives in, the goal posts move again. Yet the BBC has never allows that discussion to happen, unless Mark Regev is trying to get a word in edgewise.
Any event, such as the stone throwing and coflict with the ideologically inspired settler fringe is instumentalised to complicate the talks.
Israel has far more justification in reacting to the continuing terror operations and demanding a 12 month period without a single terror related incident from the Arab league/’Palestinian side.
If the talks seem to be moving towards a perception of agreement ie if Abbas has given ‘too much’, you can bet that an incident will take place to sabotage the perceived ‘rapprochement’.
Be it a bomb or even a mosque violation (staged, off course).
The incident could be initiated in Teheran via Hezbollah or by Hamas to score points off Fatah…or by other shadowy groups to camouflage accountability.
David P,
while running over a kid doesn’t look good, have you seen this film, and this article.
Whether Israel should consider what the world will say before it considers its own survival strategy is open to debate. It looks as though “peace” under the present circumstances would leave both parties in a worse position than they are in already. Maybe the status quo is the best option until the world digests the reality of Islamic extremism.
Reminds me of the game of consequences. At the end you had to add “ and the World said…………..”
In this game you’d just have to add “It’s all Israel’s fault.”
They’re still going to call this “disproportionate”.
The Muslim Brotherhood English Ikhwan take on the event. Look at the video again after reading this:.
‘OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Three Palestinian children were wounded Friday in the Silwan suburb of Jerusalem when a Jewish settler deliberately ran then over.
Local sources in Jerusalem told PIC that the so called leader of settlers in the Silwan suburb ran the children over as they came out of the mosque after performing their Friday prayers, adding that three of them were suffered medium injuries as a result.’
How’s that for disingenuousness!
Looks like the driver had tried to brake and swerve but the boy kept coming. I’m not surprised the driver was driving quite fast in an area like that, and it was obvious someone would get hit if they lined across the road like that. The adults responsible for organisin that “protest” should be arrested.
David,
Settlement freezes are neither here nor there simply because Israel has shown in the past that it will DISMANTLE settlements in the search for peace. The focus on settlements, as Casandra has already noted, is nothing but a convenient get out for Abbas and co.
As I have said repeatedly, peace could be achieved tomorrow if the Arab would would accept Israels right to exist, accept Israel as a Jewish state and be prepared to live in peace with Israel.
Mailman
Mailman, I can’t argue with that.
Israel remains the prize of Islamic irredentism….the ideology is underpinned on the Arab street (and from Algeria to Indonesia) upon the Islamic concept of Waqf (once Islamic land, always Islamic land). Furthermore, the existance of Israel is the referred focus of the deep psychological and political disaster zone that is the Umma.
The ’cause’ of Israel is vital for corrupt elites in Islamia to distract from their inner deficits and focus the hate on the ‘Goldstein’ of Israel.
As far as Saud, Gaddafi, Assad, Ahmadinejad et the rest of the bunch scumbags is concerned, let it roll. Abbas knows that and is the willing and very rich cat’s paw. His retirement account is sitting nice and warm in a Swiss Acct somwehere.
The whole thing is a game.
Good luck, Israel
The question is then, why negotiate away advantage to enemies who will take that advantage and press for more and more concessions while never intending to commit to real and lasting peace?
Why does the Western media so misrepresent the real issues and hide the real intent of the Palestinian side? Its obvious that the Palestinians do not want peace, they desire advantage only and the hamas gangsters would make any peace deal worthless anyway because even if fatah made some sort of peace then all hamas has to do is to provoke another caset lead and any deal is shattered. Maybe that is the point of it all, one part makes noises of peace while the other is there to smash any attempt made and the double act forces Israel to go further in the hope of peace than is strategically sensible.
Even if Israel does trade advantge/land for peace how long will that peace last before more demands are issued and more violence orchestrated? I believe the long term aim is to weaken Israel to the point where the Arabs can smash and destroy her.
Barry Rubin sets out a possible post “peace” scenario here.
This really struck me:
In the Middle East, the peace agreement brings little change. True, in some countries hatred toward Israel diminishes a bit. But Syria is still uninterested in peace. Moreover, growing fear of a nuclear Iran, Syria, and revolutionary Islamist groups intimidates other Arab states from making peace with Israel. After all, they say, now that there’s a state of Palestine they don’t need to do so.
I think that’s a very likely scenario after a “peace” deal.
Why does the western media misrepresent the real issue?
That is the $64,000 question.
It certainly has evolved since 1967 when Israel’s defence against loud-mouth communist ally, Nasser, Syria, Jordan and even Iraq was widely sympathised with (except in the Foreign Office Camel Corps)
I think at least two things are feeding into the changed nature of the discourse.
One is clearly post-colonial guilt. The current under 50s have no personal memory of Empire and have been taught that it was somehow a bad thing. ((I feeling I do not share).
This psycho-cultural filter was not present in my father’s generation who lived through the horrors of WW2 and emerged with a fatalistic and unromantic view of the world.
The second is the dominant narrative of ‘racism’ connected with the meme of Third World poverty and chaos projected through TV and Media and NGO publicity. The true reasons are highly complex but the simple view is that there must by an ‘actor’ behind this desperation. The candidate is racism and colonialism
The falsified history of South Africa and its current romanticisation is the perfect case in point. Before the mid 1850’s there were no real Bantu peoples south of the Zambezi. The Voortrekkers moving north over the desolate Karroo met invading tribes coming South, happily killing off the Bushmen en route. There had been so few ‘Blacks within 500 miles of Cape Town that labour was imported from Asia. Only from 1910 did Blacks start to form townships in areas where whites had been for 230 years. The myth of blacks having been indigenous and disposessed is just that, a myth.. But this myth is so entrenched that it is not questioned as the dominant narrative cannot permit it.
I think that sub-conciously for many in the media, they see in Israel a parallel. They have bought into the ‘indigenous’ theme for all peoples OUTSIDE the West and see Israel as
1. Racist (which it, of course, isn’t)
2. Colonialist as, somehow or other, having taking someone’s land.
The Communist threat posed by the USSR has gone, as has the threat of MAD.
What’s left?
The Stockholm syndrome. Islamic terrorism is so powerful in the Western mind that, given the dominant narratives of racism and colonialism, there is a ‘forcing’ towards a bias that perhaps the terrorists have a point. Hence, the opposition to Afghanistan. If we go, goes the thinking, perhaps the terror stress will go away. (Exactly, what the terrorist wants us to think)
The simplified ‘filter’ has pushed Israel into the ‘bad’ camp not because of what is Israel is, but how it fits into the dominant narrative.
This is a Zeitgeist issue. The default reflex is that Israel with tanks and jets is some police state out to expand into the Arab lands (laughable with 6/7 millions) and that it seeks to expel the Arabs. (forgetting the 20% bArab population of Israel).
The Palestinians are the ‘victims’. In a way they are, as they are being cynically used to further the darker cause of Islamic irredentism.
Just thoughts.
So now Obama has to demand that Israel brushes aside the Palestinians’ refusal to renounce violence, recognise Israel’s right to exist, budge on the right of return and all the rest of it…
To do that he’ll have to directly contradict what he said in a recent speech to the UN:
After thousands of years, Jews and Arabs are not strangers in a strange land. And after sixty years in the community of nations, Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate. Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States. And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people – the slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance, it is injustice. Make no mistake: the courage of a man like President Abbas – who stands up for his people in front of the world – is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/President-Barack-Obamas-Address-to-the-UNGA-103623234.html But it shouldn’t be too hard for Obama to go into reverse mode. After all, he’s a politician and he’s had plenty of practice. In its “reporting” on Obama’s speech, the BBC omitted that passage in its entirety, even though it was most newsworthy because of its relevance to the Palestinian obstacle to peace, and concentrated only on the settlements, of course. The BBC simply cannot bring itself to report on Palestinian obligations in these talks, even when mentioned by their idol Obama. Or perhaps especially when mentioned by him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11402251 The BBC is in its most vile, untrustworthy and propagandist mode when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
If the President really used any political capital (if He has any left) to help Israel, he’d never be able to set foot in a black church again.
Or at least not in the reverend Wright’s church.
Or any black church I’ve ever been to, of any demonination (not just those steeped in “black theology”). Back when Wright was making the news, we were told that anyone who objects to his rants just doesn’t understand black church talk.
Bonus: Revealing quote from then-Candidate Obamessiah, when He threw Wright under the bus.
“I don’t think he showed much concern for me or what we are trying to do with this campaign or for the American people.”
…concern for Me….
Interesting, the “me” bit.
There must be at least a few black American Christians who support Israel, though I dunno if they would be consolidated in black church congregations.
Manufactured Palestinian outrage incident: kid runs at a car throwing rocks and gets knocked over. Look how many camera people just happened to be there on the spot.
What is really needed is a modern day Attaturk in the Arab world, someone who is willing to destroy old prejudices and modernise his country and more importantly, to adopt Western standards for his people.
Mailman
What they really need is a reformation, our own church was subjested to the reformation and it changed the relationship between the church and the people.
After this point in our histroy we thrived as never before in the arts and sciences and human progress.
The fact is that religious dogma and universal and political power is like poison to human progress and enlightenment.
There is a role for religion as servant and advisor to the people but never as the all powerful rulers of the people.
The sooner islam has its reformation the better for humanity, my guess is that this reformation will be bathed in the blood of millions and will only come when islam has been utterly smashed in battle.
Very sad but history teaches that despite the best intentions and how any sane, moral person would wish it were otherwise, that order must impose itself upon chaos and barbarism to survive. A culture which condones and theologises about suicide murder….be it the Iranians against Saddam, the Al Qaede perversion etc, has issues which are highly immoral but self referenced as a desirable,as ‘shahada’.
Sacrificing Israel isn’t going to satisfy this movement.
Israel is the canary in the coal-mine.
Good points. But I guess it’s fair to say that if the Dutch were in the Cape before the Xhosa, then the Zulu were in Natal and elsewhere before the advancing Voortrekkers and English. Certainly the Bushmen were treated abominally by the blacks. I get the Internet equivalent of a dumbfounded stare when I point out to brainwashed lefties that South Africa should be returned to the Bushmen, who were there long before both black and white. For some reason they find this idea difficult to take.
I agree totally with your take on how Israel has been put in the position of somehow deserving of the world’s scorn but I would add that anti-Semitism, the most enduring of hatreds, has played a major role in the process. Just as so many were and are comfortable with or indifferent to the oppressed and hounded Jew, so they are distinctly uncomfortable with the tough, self-reliant Jew, capable of waging wars against his enemies and winning them.
Amazing how things change. Thursday’s Witness, one of the few BBC radio programmes worth anything, had an eye-witness account of the 1936 clash between the anti-Semitic Mosley and his Blackshirts and the tens of thousands of people who poured out onto the streets to stop his march into the mostly-Jewish area of East London.
Can’t see the people of today’s London aligning themselves with the Jews to fight the Islamic fascists and their far-left friends.
Just exploring a few more thoughts re the role of anti-semitism and the 1936 Blackshirts.
In my excursion into the world of 20’s and 30’s Britain, I feel that the East End reaction to a deliberate anti-Jewish provaction by the BUP was a rather unique event. The British Establishment, was in think widely anti-semitic….swathes of the lower aristocracy (inc Lloyd George’s newly ‘enobled’ while not rabid were disdainful of Jews (and Jewish success) in general. Mosley came from this milieu. There was also the sympathy with aspects of the ‘must renew society’ in the eugenics movement and the visceral hatred of communism with which Jews were associated eg Trotsky and Marx. The approval of ‘caesarism’, that a strong man must get a grip on society was widespread. Literature as, for example, GBS and Lloyd George himself shows the fascistic bent. Exceptions were the Zionist inclined Christians eg Balfour.
The East End was strongly Jewish as a result of the immigration consequent upon the pogroms and left wing views naturally attractive given the role of the perceived role of the left as a force against the pogroms and Eastern European, Russian anti-semitism.
Mosley was regarded as a ‘toff’ and the East End was solidly against the establishment ‘fascist’ on political grounds and sided with the Jews. I’m not sure that the appeasers who would have been supported massively in the opinion polls saw the Jews as anything other than the ‘other’ who were complicating the attempt to do the right thing to avoid war and were prepared to concede that perhaps Hitler had a point vis a vis Versailles.
France, to was widely anti-semitic, more so than Britain. Hitler’s successful invasion created Vichy, I’m not sure that a British Petain would not have emerged if similar success had been had in 1940 in Britain.
Sad to say, Britain did not go to war for the Jews, but against a power that was an existential threat.
I certainly experienced (I am not Jewish) an anti-semitic tone in Britain in the 60s and 70s in popular schoolboy culture (do schoolboys exist anymore? which I see as an echo of British establishment anti-jewish snobbery.
But all the elements about hidden agendas and world capitalist jewry are still out there. The old cliches which, as Shakespeare said, are infinitely dangerous because they are so deeply rooted and banal.
I’m ploughing my way through Anthony Julius’s book “Trials of the Diaspora”.
See this review. (If you think the review is lengthy, wait till you see the actual book.)
there is a new holocaust for the Jews coming,and it will be worse than the last
the BBC needs to be held firmly to account for the part they have played and continue to play in stoking up anti semitic hate
they are lower than whale dung
the best wank is not “occupied territory”
it is disputed land
look up the real international law concerning what happens when a country invades another and loses
ie Jordan invaded Israel and got the butts kicked,and the price they paid was they lost some of the Israeli territory they were occupying which had been handed to Jordan on a plate
glad to be of help 😉
and regarding a hamas “ceasfire”,that would mean nothing
real progress would be when they accept the legitimacy of Israel to exist in the first place,followed by an end to the brainwashing of their children in the islamic suicide cult of “the only good jew is a dead jew
ah yes-the UN
that bastion of all things even handed when it comes to Israel
The Palestinian people does not [sic] exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.”
PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein to a Dutch newspaper in 1977
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.
“From the end of the Jewish State in antiquity to the beginning of the British rule, the area now designated by the name of Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries.”
Bernard Lewis, Professor of History, Princeton University
“The Arabs learned their disinformation tactic from the Nazis: if you lie long enough, and loud enough, people will actually believe you. As a result, most people now believe there is something called “palestinian” people, a total fabrication, complete with a phony history and a phony culture. There is only one truth here, that are 1.75 million people, a hodgepodge of Arabs and Turks, intentionally or maybe unwittingly, masquerading as a “people”, and made into “people” by the PLO and many in the world community who relished attacking the Jews in yet another novel way”
Researcher Roger Carasso and the “palestinian” revisionism
“It should be remembered that in 1918, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France were handed 5,000,000 square miles to divvy up and 99+% was given to the Arabs to create countries that did not exist previously. 1% was given as a Mandate for the re-establishment of a state for the Jews on both banks of the Jordan River. In 1921, to once again appease the Arabs, another three quarters of that 1% was given to a fictitious state called Trans-Jordan.”
Jack Berger, May 31, 2004
“The Palestine Mandate was not created on land taken from the Syrians or the Arabs. It was taken from the Turks. It was not taken from the Turks by the Jews, but by the British and the French. They took it because Turkey sided with Germany in the First World War and, of course, lost. The Turkish empire had ruled the entire region including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan for four hundred years before Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan were artificially created by the English and the French. Jordan — a state whose majority is Palestinian — occupies 80% of the Palestine Mandate. So it is a preposterous lie to say that the Palestinians had their own land and that it was occupied by the Jews.”
David Horowitz, Front Page Magazine, December 14, 2006
What led to the Six Day War in 1967?
From early 1965 to the Six-Day War in June 1967, the PLO through Fatah pursued a consistent policy of border attacks, particularly along the Jordanian and Lebanese borders. Criticism of these activities by the Arab governments and by local public opinion persuaded Fatah leaders to adopt a new approach known as “the entanglement theory.” This involved using sabotage to force Israel to adopt an offensive position, which in turn would force the Arabs to step up their military preparedness. This cycle of action-retaliation-reaction would lead to a gradual escalation of tension on the borders, and eventually to the Six Day War in 1967.
In 1965, 35 terrorist raids were conducted against Israel. In 1966, the number increased to 41. In just the first four months of 1967, 37 attacks were launched.
The number of dangerous incidents on the Syrian border increased following Israel’s activation of the National Water Carrier from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev in 1964. Syria and the other Arab countries opposed the National Water Carrier project and tried to destroy it by diverting the tributaries of the Jordan river located in their territories; Israel bombed the diversion works in response. This tension came against the backdrop of the on-going border clashes along the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, as Syria resisted Israel’s attempts to increase use of the DMZ for Israeli agriculture. (The DMZ was the result of the terms of the Israel-Syria armistice signed on July 20, 1949.) Syria launched attacks on Israeli farmers cultivating land in the demilitarized zone and on Israeli fishing boats and other craft in the Sea of Galilee, shelling from the commanding Golan Heights that rise dramatically to the east of the border areas.
Military Provocation By Arab Countries and Soviet Disinformation
While Israel consistently expressed a desire to negotiate a peace with its neighbors, there was no matching sentiment on the Arab side. In an address to the UN General Assembly on October 10, 1960, Foreign Minister Golda Meir challenged Arab leaders to meet with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to negotiate a peace settlement. Nasser (Egypt) answered on October 15, saying that Israel was trying to deceive world opinion, and reiterating that his country would never recognize the Jewish State. Nasser’s rhetoric became increasingly bellicose; on March 8, 1965 he said:
We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand. We shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood.
A few months later, Nasser expressed the Arabs’ goal to be:
… the full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people. In other words, we aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel.
Other Arab leaders from Syria, Jordan, and Iraq joined in the rhetoric and preparations for war, increasing pressure on Egypt’s President Gamal Nasser, perceived as the leader of the Arab world. Syria’s attacks along the DMZ grew more frequent in 1965 and 1966. Syria’s attacks on Israeli kibbutzim from the Golan Heights provoked a retaliatory strike on April 7, 1967, during which Israeli planes shot down six Syrian MiGs. Israel followed up by re-introducing military forces to the DMZ.
At the same time, and unknown to the Israelis, the Soviet Union mounted a disinformation campaign pushing Egypt to join Syria against Israel. At that time, the Soviets were providing military and economic aid to both Syria and Egypt. On May 13, 1967 a Soviet parliamentary delegation visited Cairo and informed the Egyptian leaders that Israel had concentrated eleven to thirteen brigades along the Syrian border in preparation for an assault within a few days, with the intention of overthrowing the revolutionary Syrian Government. This was a complete fabrication designed by the Soviets to destabilize the Middle East. Similar false information may have been given to Egypt by the Soviets as early as May 2.
The build up and aggressive intent were denied by Israel. UN Secretary General U Thant reported that UNTSO observers on the Syrian border:
… have verified the absence of troop concentrations and absence of noteworthy military movements on both sides of the [Syrian] line.
Nasser probably correctly interpreted the Soviet information as an indication to him that the time was ripe for an attack on Israel and that he had their backing. With the United States deeply distracted by the War in Vietnam, the Soviets had reason to think there would be no US intervention. Nassar then abandoned his former cautious policy and took the lead for new aggression against Israel. Syria and Iraq eagerly joined Egypt’s preparations, increasing the momentum toward war.
On May 15, Israel’s 19th Independence Day, Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai and massing near the Israeli border. By May 18, Syrian troops were prepared for battle along the Golan Heights.
On May 16, Nassar requested the withdrawal of the UN Emergency Force, stationed in the Sinai since 1956. Egyptian forces moved up to the UNEF lines and began to harrass the UN positions. Without bringing the matter to the attention of the General Assembly, as his predecessor had promised, Secretary-General U Thant complied with the demand. This was a direct violation of the conditions under which Israel had returned control of the Sinai to Egypt after the Sinai Campaign. The UN force was supposed to safeguard Israel from Egypt again closing the Straits of Tiran or launching terrorist attacks from that quarter.
In 1956, the United States gave Israel assurances that it recognized the Jewish State’s right of access to the Straits of Tiran. In 1957, at the UN, 17 maritime powers declared that Israel had a right to transit the Strait. Moreover, any blockade violated the Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, which was adopted by the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea on April 27, 1958. Nonetheless, on on the night of May 22-23, 1967 Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping and all ships bound for Eilat. This blockade cut off Israel’s only supply route with Asia and stopped the flow of oil from its main supplier, Iran.
Nasser was fully aware of the pressure he was exerting to force Israel’s hand. The day after the blockade was set up, he said defiantly:
The Jews threaten to make war. I reply: Welcome! We are ready for war.Final Blows Lead to War
There is evidence that Egypt was warned by the US and the Soviet Union in late May 1967 that war should be avoided, but by then the momentum to war was unstoppable.
King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt on May 30, 1967, under which Jordan joined the Egyptian-Syrian military alliance of 1966 and placed its army on both sides of the Jordan river under Egyptian command. He had little choice since Jordan housed 700,000 Palestinian Arabs whose rioting in November 1966 almost brought down Hussein’s government. On June 4, Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq added these words to the mountain of provocation:
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.
Armed forces in the Arab countries were mobilized. Israel was confronted by an Arab force of some 465,000 troops, over 2,880 tanks and 810 aircraft. The armies of Kuwait, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were contributing troops and arms to the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian fronts.
Israeli forces had been on high alert during the three weeks of tension which began on May 15, 1967 when it became known that Egypt had concentrated large-scale forces in the Sinai peninsula, an alert status Israel could not maintain indefinitely. The country could not accept interdiction of its sea lane through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel had no choice but preemptive action. To do this successfully, Israel had to achieve surprise, not wait for an Arab invasion, a potential catastrophic situation. On June 4, the Cabinet authorized the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence to decide on appropriate steps to defend the State of Israel.
interesting what you find when you google
seems you don’t like pro Israeli websites-no wonder!!
http://sluggerotoole.com/2010/01/03/walls-never-work-in-the-middle-east-or-in-ireland/
quote
“Funny that Alias, but any Palestinian I ever met was overjoyed that they had support from foreigners. The welcome they extended to myself and some friends last November in the West Bank would kinda suggest you wrote that last post more out of a desire to stick the boot into people you dislike as opposed to having any actual knowledge regarding the attitude of Palestinians.”
and here are some of your wonderful palestinian friends using a kids tv programme to encourage them to blow themselves up so that they can kill jews
nice friends you got there!
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/05/hamas-bear-urges-children-to-become-mart/index.shtml
Following are excerpts from a Hamas children’s show, “The Pioneers of Tomorrow,” which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on April 2, 2010:
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visithttp://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2468.htm.
To view the MERMI TV page for Al-Aqsa, visithttp://www.memritv.org/content/en/tv_channel_indiv.htm?id=175.
Nassur the Teddy Bear: “Dear children, when we grow up, we will become martyrs, God willing. […]
“Yes, Saraa, the pioneers of tomorrow will liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The children, the pioneers of tomorrow, and not only in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but all over the world, my dear Saraa and dear children.” […]
“Go ahead, the audience is waiting…”
Caller: “I’m from Holland.”
Nassur: “From Holland. Wow!”
Child host Saraa: “Welcome. ”
Nassur: “Where in Holland, my dear?”
Saraa: “Greetings to our people in Holland. […]
“What would you like to sing for us?”
Caller: “When We Become Martyrs.”
Nassur: “Go ahead. Come on, cheer her on. Clap your hands.”
Saraa: “Come on.”
Nassur: “Come on.”
Caller (singing): “When we get martyred we will go to Paradise.
“When we get martyred we will go to Paradise.
“No, don’t say we are too small. This life has made us grown-ups.
“Without Palestine our childhood means nothing.
“Without Palestine our childhood means nothing.
“Even if they gave us all the money in the world, it won’t make us forget.
“I am willing to sacrifice my blood for my country.
“Without Palestine our childhood means nothing.
“Without Palestine our childhood means nothing.”
Saraa: “Thank you very much.”
Nassur: “Warm applause.”
In other words, Israel is wrong for defending itself on any level. What would the alternative have been, I wonder?
Republican Stones. “its pretty obvious its Pro-Israel in editorial slant.”
Why don’t you release yourself from the iron grip of Israel-hatred, and enjoy these good news stories from a newsletter about Israel. What’s not to like?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks mainly to early detection, cancer deaths among Israelis fell in past decade by 10-15%.
http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/Health/Article.aspx?id=190074
As new superbugs become dangerously resistant to antibiotics, Israeli researchers have found a way to use the bugs’ mechanics to knock them dead.
http://israel21c.org/201010038383/health/scientists-develop-technique-to-knock-out-superbugs
Israeli scientists have developed a revolutionary new nanostructure – derived fully from very simple organic elements, yet strong as steel.
http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/Health/Article.aspx?id=189972
Discovery by Hebrew University team of connection between bone density and fatty acids has led them to begin developing a drug they hope will better treat and even prevent osteoporosis.
http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/Health/Article.aspx?id=190220
IVF Nobel prize-winner Robert Edwards was an anti-Zionist British soldier in 1947 Palestine. He later became pro-Zionist and produced the embryo for Israel’s first test-tube baby in 1981.
http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/Health/Article.aspx?id=190202
Israel Aerospace Industries is set to unveil a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with ground-breaking technology. The Panther UAV combines the flight capabilities of an airplane with helicopter-like hovering, which enable a runway-free takeoff and landing on an unprepared area.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=190219
cont/
Good news from Israel pt 2:
Israeli Broadband wireless systems developer Alvarion has signed a deal estimated at over $75m to help build Canada’s first nationwide 4G network.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000592358&fid=1725
Israeli solar power company BrightSource Energy this week received an unexpected endorsement from US President, Barack Obama. “It will turn sunlight into the energy that will power up to 140,000 homes – the largest such plant in the world. Not in China. Not in India. But in California,” he said.
http://israel21c.org/201010068420/environment/us-homes-look-forward-to-solar-energy-video
In its fifth acquisition in Israel, US Internet giant AOL is buying Israeli start-up 5min Media for an estimated $65 million. It’s a platform for instructional videos in a variety of fields that enables people to share their knowledge by uploading videos lasting up to five minutes.
http://www.israel21c.org/201009298411/briefs/aol-buys-its-fifth-israeli-start-up
Surpassing his award last week by Global Finance magazine, Bank of Israel Governor Prof Stanley Fischer was this week named as Banker of the Year by the International Monitory Fund during the annual IMF convention.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3966841,00.html
In contrast to the current political dispute, Israel is sending a ship to Turkey with a cargo of zebras, lemurs, three elephants and a hippo. This shipment is part of a decades-long struggle to save Asian varieties of these animals from extinction.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=190086
Two scientists, one from Israel and one from Nablus in the Palestinian Authority are working together to improve water purification for the region and beyond.
http://israel21c.org/201010038340/environment/israeli-palestinian-team-to-develop-clean-water-solutions
Israeli Jews join Arabs to celebrate annual Oktoberfest beer festival in the Christian enclave of the Palestinian Arab village of Taybeh.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=190050
Muslim, Jewish, Arab, Israeli and now an IDF soldier. If you want to read a story about someone going through an identity crisis, then this is the one!
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/Up_Close/10/09/0101.htm
I think you mean Judea and Samaria….and it wouldn’t be in support of anyone who wants to blow up jews using kids with suicide bombs
complete and utter bollocks
and while you’re “laughing your ass off”,which of the lefty pro islamic nutter sites did you “copy and paste” all those quotes from?
huffingtonpost?the guardian?radio palestine?
or maybe boycottisraeltoday.wordpress.com
I think everyone on this site had the makings of you from your initial post
let me give you a little tip……
you’re backing the losing team 😉
get over it
and yourself
my turn to”LMAO”
you and your ilk referring to historical Israel using an invented name the romans gave to it to try to expunge the last vestiges of jewry from the land after 70 AD-so Palestine and Hibernia do indeed have something in common
you’re such a gift
echo chamber?
I think it’s an oxygen chamber that you need
can you include the full context of the quotes and the rst of what was said
or would that possibly reveal a little more than would make you comfortable
keep referring to your books
maybe someday you’ll get them all coloured in
Actually, RepublicanStones, I can read very well. I can also read in between the lines. Even if Israel wasn’t defending itself against imminent destruction, it was defending itself on several other levels. This is obviously unacceptable to you, as you seem to imply that the only justification for any military action is to defend against immenent complete annihilation, as opposed to, say, loss of some territory and control of access.
Perhaps you’d care to explain what the alternative might have been? Or why the “occupied territories” were never handed back to Jordan and Egypt and Syria?
I wonder what republicanstones is doing on a website publicising his views,when one of his twats on titter states
quote
David Vance is a bigot who referred to Islam as ‘a grotesque pathology’ on his own website. He should not be given airtime.11:22 AM Aug 15th via Twitter for iPhone
Is this another reason why INBBC is politically soft on Ahmadinejad?:
“Abbas Blames Iran in Fatah-Hamas Fight ”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139995
(Of course, division between the Islamic jihadists happens to be desirable.)
No doubt to be INBBC approved:
“New, ‘Improved’ Flotilla Heading Here”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/195511
I think you need to send your alter-ego over to A Tangled Web to have a little chat with me about the bigot. I thought about suing the BBC but lack Binyam Mohammed’s resources and on balance, BBC trolls mean little to me.
So Republican Stones has more in common with Palestinian Arabs than Israeli Jews.
I have little doubt that he believes the drivel he spouts, and visiting the region dutifully as a useful idiot shows real committment.
To assert that the six day war wasn’t defensive is plain stupid. 1967 is not such a long time ago. Plenty of honest eyewitnesses exist, as well as the fantasists and professional victims he prefers to listen to.
Only he reads the right books. End of, as they say.
We all know that if tiresome people like Republican Stones repeat something often enough it’s adopted as reality by halfwits who make up their minds on a whim and a myth.
Come on brave warrior Republican Stones, be honest and admit that you wish Hitler had finished the job, then kindly sod off and take your pompous Islamic apologia with.
RS, you already explained what they got out of it in your explanation of what they were up to before it all started, and all those quotes about it afterwards.
No, I’m neither going to explain nor expalin anything to you. Sorry to hear you’re all ears, must be a disadvantage.
Wherever did you get the notion that an honest analysis of history makes one a Nazi? You’re one, are you not, without any acquaintance whatsoever with honest analyses of history.
You’re irritating, that’s for sure, but not irritating enough to waste more time with, so I’m out. Time for bed and don’t forget to take your machine gun thing with you.
Jews were expelled from Jerusalem after the Bar Kochba revolt in 135, and not allowed to worship there. The closest they’re allowed these days is at the base of the remainder of the western retaining wall of the compound (stupid impotent Jewish Lobby). They were mostly pushed out the area altogether, maintaining a presence in the north. Throughout Judea, they seem to have been forced to live in underground caves. Actual Roman writers are cited here.
After the first revolt in 70, which was, as you say, partly due to anger against the ruling elite Jews who collected taxes for the Romans, tens of thousands of Jews were taken to Rome and enslaved to build the Colliseum (among other things), and to die in the arena.
This is not unkown to archaeologists or historians. They haven’t ignored it, either.
Sue You are arguing with a right one there.
“Zionism has systematically cleansed the majority of palestinians from their own land. Do you have to be suffering a holocaust to have the moral right to resist?”
http://sluggerotoole.com/2010/06/02/ireland-israel-tensions-rise/
I think “RepublicStones” is not excatly concerned with the bias at the BBC.
“Mary Richards says:
RepublicanStones is a pro-IRA Irish Nationalist! Seen him before.
Also he is very boring! Go away RS”
http://www.oyvagoy.com/2010/01/04/ross-kemp-on-gaza/
You may want to follow him on Twitter .
Tweets by RepStones
He is the kind of “полезный идиот” who infected the west during the Cold War era.
Sue/John
Republican Stones is a troll. He has been banned from ATW and he will now be vacating B-BBC. He can spend his time following the BBC
But he’s arguing in a reasonable tone, no insults, no sarcasm instead of actual debate, and no dancing around. We may not agree with his interpretation of history, but this is hardly trolling, as compared to the usual defenders of the indefensible we get.
I agree. One thing I noticed and that I found commendable about Republican Stones is how he didn’t rise to the bait of personal insult but merely resumed his argument and carried it on in the same manner as before.
INBBC has no criticism of Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon, only a big photo of him:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11495533
Here’s some critical analysis to learn from, INBBC:
“Ahmadinejad’s Target Audience”
(by Caroline Glick)
http://bigpeace.com/cglick/2010/10/10/ahmadinejads-target-audience/#more-36417
Wikipedia? I’ve sited actual sources which show that the Jews were kicked out of Jerusalem and forced underground throughout Judea. If that’s not exile, I don’t know what is.
I tend to agree with David Preiser. Republican Stones was not trolling and I don’t believe he should be banned purely on what he posted here.
Still, his anti-Israel file is in poor shape. He could not provide one link for all those quotes of his
TT,
He’s been here before. He always expresses, dogmatically, the IRA’s well known infatuation and identification with the Palestinians, which is fair enough. However his inability to engage with any sort of argument makes him ridiculous, very tiresome, and a waste of time. So, virtually a troll.
I think that banning people should be, and is, a very last resort.
Remember when people said “please don’t feed the troll”? That was all well and good, until they started saying it every time a dissenting voice raised its head.
I like a debate, but you don’t get that with Republican Stones, so in the end I guess he was bound to be banned.
(But I didn’t realise it had been done retrospectively.) I don’t approve of that. For one thing it makes nonsense of this thread.