# Israel in conflict for 65 years. How will it end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2013, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342 "2013-02-25T13:27:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/181 "2013-03-01T18:36:03Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > [Democracy peace theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory) seems naive. Either the conflict between the states is redefined not to be war (as when they use proxy states), or one of the states is redefined as a non-democracy by the No True Scotsman argument. > > Here’s one [ranking of democracies](http://www.democracyranking.org/downloads/2012/Scores_of_the_Democracy-Ranking-2012.htm). What is the highest ranked “second” country to be involved in a war? (e.g., a 12-18 is higher than a 3-28) > > The US (15) attacked Panama (38), but Panama was likely much lower on the list then. Likewise, Argentina (40) attacked the UK (13), but again, that Argentina was a dictatorship. Serbia (45) was the enfant terrible of the Balkans, but perhaps they were lower then. I think that is starting to get into real territory, though. > > I do not think there is in principle any reason why one democracy wouldn’t attack another. Democracies sell their wars as moral crusades, but it is easy to propagandize a population into demonizing another country, and if anything the popular will might make wars far more total and horrifying. Regardless of one’s opinion of Bush’s invasion of Panama, it certainly wasn’t a democracy under Noriega. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/182 "2013-03-01T19:24:39Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > […]I think Jews stand out? Would you care to state, specifically, how can you tell someone’s a Jew? Would you care to put your powers of observation to the test? I could select two out of 100 photos of Jewish people, as per the random mix in American demographics. You get two guesses, say, $100.00 to me for each wrong one and $100.00 to you for each correct guess. Up for it? > [@YogSosoth](#): > > these people are foreigners if they are foreign-ish beliefs and customs. Tautology aside, you still have not explained how keeping Jews, and only Jews, as a perpetual Other is not anti-semitic, while people from all over have been accepted into French society over time. No, “they don’t like foreigners in general” does not explain how people whose families been part of French society since before France was democratic, are still “foreign” due to being Jews. Care to address the issue? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/183 "2013-03-01T19:30:18Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Are you mad for some reason that I think Jews stand out? That’s the only way I can read your reaction, like you’re afraid that if I say it, it’ll come true or something, and then ghost Hitler will come swooping in picking out all the Jews he can see. > > So what if I think they stand out? Get over it I guarantee that if you could come into the office in which I work, you would not be able to spot those who are Jewish and those who are not with any degree of accuracy. Nor would reviewing names necessarily help - I myself have an “Anglo” sounding name. Not even looking at us naked would do the trick - I’m circumcised, but then, so are most men my age, Jewish or not. Objectively speaking, it is I think silly to argue that Jews “stand out”, particularly contrasted with other minority groups which are termed “visible minorities” because they typically have phenotypes different from the majority in NA. It is the very fact that Jews can quite easily “pass” for non-Jews that makes Jew hatred the more virulent among haters: Jews have the ability to be the ‘enemy within’. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/184 "2013-03-01T19:30:30Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > I do not think there is in principle any reason why one democracy wouldn’t attack another. I agree, particularly given the experience with Hamas which was democratically elected. One can play semantic games and claim that Gaza doesn’t count as a democracy because it is not recognized as a state by anyone, but come on, if the UN Security Council recognized Gaza as a state tomorrow, would Hamas abandon its militant stance towards Israel? Of course not. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/185 "2013-03-01T19:32:21Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > From that great bastion of accuracy and truth, Wikipedia, a [list of democracies that have gone to war](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_democracies). Tricky. The list includes the American Revolutionary War, which occurred largely because Great Britain denied the rights of a democracy to the colonists. It was in order to attain the status of a democracy that the colonists seceded. I won’t say that this is a wrong example, but it is one that can be questioned. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/186 "2013-03-01T19:39:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Tricky. The list includes the American Revolutionary War, which occurred largely because Great Britain denied the rights of a democracy to the colonists. It was in order to attain the status of a democracy that the colonists seceded. I won’t say that this is a wrong example, but it is one that can be questioned. Well, that’s a little like saying the US coup in Iran in 1953 is not a war between democracies because the US was denying the right of democracy to the Iranians. 😛 I don’t think it washes. The point is, democracy is an attribute of internal governance. It has nothing to do with the way a state behaves on the world stage. In theory the people are a circuit breaker on aggression by their own government, but in practice people “rally round the family, pocket full of shells,” whether they’re from Kansas or Kandahar. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/187 "2013-03-01T19:43:57Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Are you mad for some reason that I think Jews stand out? That’s the only way I can read your reaction, like you’re afraid that if I say it, it’ll come true or something, and then ghost Hitler will come swooping in picking out all the Jews he can see. > > […] > > I’m trying to be supportive of you here, I don’t want you to bust an artery and die. Through luck or just thousands and thousands of coincidences, the Jewish people have somehow survived the last 5000 years. But if you’re gone, who will defend the Jewish people then?? How can they survive the next 5000 years, or even the next 5000 minutes, without you there, constantly standing up to anyone who thinks they are both paradoxically oppressed but the best people evolution has ever wrought?! So I’ll do you a favor and agree with you even though you’re wrong, because the Jewish people cannot go without such a defender and we must keep you alive until Hasidic Jesus comes back on his unicorn and erects a wall around Israel. Or you can just say that Jews aren’t so persecuted in France after all, whatever **YogSosoth** , I already gave you a mod-note for a comment that was less snarky and obnoxious than this one. Since that seems to be all you are contributing to this discussion, I am instructing you to stop posting in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/188 "2013-03-01T19:45:49Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > In theory the people are a circuit breaker on aggression by their own government Yes . . . of course another theory is that the government can be a circuit breaker on aggression by its own people. Consider Jordan, for example. If Jordan were to have democratic elections would it be more likely or less likely to start trouble with Israel? Also consider Hamas versus Fatah. Hamas is democratically more popular than Fatah and yet more militant and hostile towards Israel. Probably if Abbas stopped postponing elections and allowed his people to vote, Hamas would take power in the WB. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/189 "2013-03-05T09:49:33Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > History very strongly suggests democracies do not go to war against each other - the event never having happened. > > Thus it is far more probable the fact of a Palestinian State would just require Israel to compromise. Well why do you assume that a Palestinian State would fall within your secret definition of “democracy”? ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/190 "2013-03-05T12:31:04Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Otherwise, provide proof that the French poll similarly when talking about the loyalty of Catholics. I’m astonished no-one has picked up on this particular piece of nonsense yet. France is a Catholic country, to a slightly greater extent than Israel is a Jewish one (81% of French people are Catholic versus 80% of Israelis being Jewish). It makes, literally, no sense to suggest that Catholicism is in any way foreign in France, unlike Jewishness, where they deliberately keep their culture separate. If they didn’t value their Judaism higher that their Frenchness, they’d be Catholic. This is not the case in the UK, where anti-Catholicism is still enshrined in law, as no Catholic can be part of the Royal family, or be Prime Minister. The UK, of course, hasn’t been Catholic for longer that most other countries have existed. As for the question of whether Catholics are more loyal to the church than the state, that may vary, but the responses to the paedophile priest scandal at all levels, from the bishops at the top to the victims and those that knew them who did not report the crimes, suggest that many consider the church supreme. As for Israel, it will survive exactly as long as the US is willing and able to ensure it’s safety. When that ends, the wolves will descend, and the response from the rest of the world will vary between “meh” and outright pleasure that this outright abomination of a racist failed state has been destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/191 "2013-03-05T14:43:15Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > This is not the case in the UK, where anti-Catholicism is still enshrined in law, as no Catholic can be part of the Royal family, or be Prime Minister. I wish people would stop repeating this. There is no legal bar on a catholic becoming PM in the UK. It would just be awkward given the PM’s role as rubber-stamp for Church of England appointments and an alternative system of appointments bodged together. No catholic or jew can advise the monarch on eccelisatical matters, that’s the nearest there is to a law according to The Roman Catholic Relief Act. > [@](#): > > It shall not be lawful for any person professing the Roman Catholic religion directly or indirectly to advise his Majesty, or any person or persons holding or exercising the office of guardians of the United Kingdom, or of regent of the United Kingdom, under whatever name, style, or title such office may be constituted, [F1or the lord lieutenant of Ireland], touching or concerning the appointment to or disposal of any office or preferment in the [F2Church of England], or in the Church of Scotland; and if any such person shall offend in the premises he shall, being thereof convicted by due course of law, be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and disabled for ever from holding any office, civil or military, under the Crown. This does not prevent a Catholic from becoming PM. Our unwritten constitution can fudge this sort of trivial stuff with its eyes closed. In fact it would probably just mean the PM delegating that authority to a minister or the privy council. It’s not an important role and generally all the PM and Queen are doing is rubber-stamping Church decisions. There is a legal bar on **the monarch or an heir to the throne** marrying a catholic. They can however, renounce their place in the line of succession and marry. The real impediment to a Catholic PM is that we don’t like to mix religion and politics. We’re fine with C of E as they are barely one notch up from atheists and insofar as anyone professes they are ‘C of E’ it’s a cultural thing. But anyone who takes religion seriously? We just look across the Irish Sea and then further on across the Atlantic and say: Nuh-uh. I can’t over emphasise how suspiciously we view religion in politics. It’s one of the big reasons we look askance at US politics where it is to all intents and purposes compulsory to at least fake fervent belief for high offices. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/192 "2013-03-05T15:00:09Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > I’m astonished no-one has picked up on this particular piece of nonsense yet. France is a Catholic country, to a slightly greater extent than Israel is a Jewish one (81% of French people are Catholic versus 80% of Israelis being Jewish). > > It makes, literally, no sense to suggest that Catholicism is in any way foreign in France, unlike Jewishness, where they deliberately keep their culture separate. If they didn’t value their Judaism higher that their Frenchness, they’d be Catholic. :eek: Someone not of the majority religion in their nation = not really of that nation? Huh? I thought that sort of thing was history in Europe, like the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. > [@](#): > > As for Israel, it will survive exactly as long as the US is willing and able to ensure it’s safety. When that ends, the wolves will descend, and the response from the rest of the world will vary between “meh” and outright pleasure that this outright abomination of a racist failed state has been destroyed. :dubious: Like Israel was ‘destroyed’ in the period 1946-1967, when the US _wasn’t_ supporting it, and Israel fought 3 major wars with more of less all of its neighbours - then armed by the Soviet Union (which no longer exists)? How exactly are Israel’s neighbours better situated now to do the destroying? Egypt is in political turmoil, Syria is busy self-destructing, Lebanon is disunited, Iraq is more or less a US client state and Iran is far away- and none of these nations has a freindly Soviet Union to hand them tanks and fighter planes. I say nothing of your “outright abomination of a racist failed state”, which sort of speaks for itself. Merely point out that your evident hatred of this nation leads you into making predictions which, on their face and on the historical facts, make no sense. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/193 "2013-03-05T15:19:51Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > There is a legal bar on **the monarch or an heir to the throne** marrying a catholic. They can however, renounce their place in the line of succession and marry. Isn’t Camilla Catholic? How does that affect Charles being the Heir? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/194 "2013-03-05T15:25:34Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > :eek: > > Iraq is more or less a US client state More or less an Iranian client state more like. In no way is Iraq a US client state. It’s one of the tragedies of the Iraq war is that the outcome is an immense strengthening of Iran. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/195 "2013-03-05T15:28:06Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Isn’t Camilla Catholic? How does that affect Charles being the Heir? She became Anglican. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/196 "2013-03-05T15:48:29Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > More or less an Iranian client state more like. In no way is Iraq a US client state. > > It’s one of the tragedies of the Iraq war is that the outcome is an immense strengthening of Iran. Can’t see Iraq openly going to war in defiance of the US in the foreseeable future, considering its near total reliance on the US and its recent occupation by that country and consequent destruction of its armed forces - particularly in a foreign adventure like invading Israel. Can you? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/197 "2013-03-05T16:12:31Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Can’t see Iraq openly going to war in defiance of the US in the foreseeable future, considering its near total reliance on the US and its recent occupation by that country and consequent destruction of its armed forces - particularly in a foreign adventure like invading Israel. Can you? It isn’t reliant on US aid and it has formed an alliance with Iran in opec. But no-one is invading a nuclear Israel. It’s Israeli paranoia and Arab wishful thinking. The Arab states have repeatedly demonstrated they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. EDITED to add: and there are no circumstances in which the USA or Europe would let the existence of Israel be threatened. We might disagree on which borders it should be within but the existence of Israel as a state is non-negotiable. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/198 "2013-03-05T16:13:44Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > I’m astonished no-one has picked up on this particular piece of nonsense yet. France is a Catholic country, to a slightly greater extent than Israel is a Jewish one (81% of French people are Catholic versus 80% of Israelis being Jewish) That is an utterly asinine comment which most Frenchmen would find extremely offensive. As a matter of law, Israel is a Jewish state. France is an officially secular country with a strict bar of religion in public life to the point where they often make it difficult to document discrimination in jobs, housing, or when it comes to the court system because they refuse to record people’s religion. The French have always insisted that one’s religion is not part of being “French” and go to a lot of trouble to demonstrate it. > [@](#): > > It makes, literally, no sense to suggest that Catholicism is in any way foreign in France, unlike Jewishness, Aw yes, of course there’s nothing remotely anti-Semitic about claiming that French Jews who’ve lived there for centuries prior to the discovery of the printing press are “foreign”. > [@](#): > > unlike Jewishness, where they deliberately keep their culture separate. How exactly do Jews “keep their culture separate” in ways that Catholics don’t? > [@](#): > > If they didn’t value their Judaism higher that their Frenchness, they’d be Catholic. Ah yes, that has to be the ultimate anti-Semitic tautology. Jews aren’t loyal to France. How do we know this? Why, because they’re Jews! Were they loyal Frenchmen they’d have converted to Catholicism. Now, Steophan, since you claim that if French Jews were valued their “Frenchness” higher than being Jewish they’d convert to Catholicism, how does that apply to British, Canadian and American Jews. All three countries are overwhelmingly Christian and in the case of the UK and Canada, they have official state religions. So, then are you saying that British, Canadian and American Jews who don’t convert to Christianity value being Jewish more than being British, Canadian, or American? Do you think that British Jews are more loyal to the State of Israel than they are to the UK? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/199 "2013-03-05T16:24:44Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > As for Israel, it will survive exactly as long as the US is willing and able to ensure it’s safety. When that ends, the wolves will descend, and the response from the rest of the world will vary between “meh” and outright pleasure that this outright abomination of a racist failed state has been destroyed. Oh please. Israel wasn’t destroyed between 1948-1967 when they were substantially weaker, the Arab states were substantially more unified and stronger, and they lacked nuclear weapons. Beyond that, who are the “wolves” who would invade and destroy Israel? The Jordanians, who have a vastly weaker military than the Israelis, as well as a peace treaty? The Lebanese army, which can’t even deal with the private armies within it’s own borders? The Syrians, who at this point can’t even function as a country? The Egyptians? Please, of all of Israel’s neighbors they have the best military and they’d be smashed to ribbons. And that is ignoring the fact that everyone in the region knows that if worst came to worst Israel would initiate the Samson Option. As already mentioned, the idea that Israel has to worry about being invaded and the Jews being “pushed into the sea” is simply Israeli paranoia and Arab bluster. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342/200 "2013-03-05T16:31:05Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > She became Anglican. Ah. I missed that bit of news completely. Thank you! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-in-conflict-for-65-years-how-will-it-end/651342.md?page=11)