MC: In response to #1
In another thread you claim Sharon is responsible for the Sabra/Shatilla killings. In that thread you claim Sharon did not do anything to stop the attacks but here we can say the same about Araft. When the PA was in control of the West Bank/Gaza the jails were little more than revolving doors. In that thread you said that Sharon helped the Phalangists by providing auxilary support, which can be said exactly of Arafat. So why is Sharon responsible but Arafat not?
Skip, Yasser Arafat does not have the ability to stop the suicide bombers anyway (not that I’m saying that he is using his full abilities to prevent them).
I should of rephrased #1, he does bear some responsibilty for them, but he is not the one orchestrating them.
Yasser Arafat does not have the ability to stop the suicide bombers…
Well unfortunately we don’t know that because he’s never really tried.
alenar, I stand corrected. I assumed that the 1985 law you’re referring to defined transferist as racist. Apparently not.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I’m not going to flame you, I’m simply going to reply that
Not that I’m sorry you posted his opinion. Americans are often chastised (and justly so) for not knowing much about the rest of the world. Europeans, on the other hand, pride themselves on being well informed about what goes on in the U.S. It’s good to be reminded that
Europeans don’t know NEARLY as much about American politics as they think they do.
A lot of what they think they “know” is astonishlingly wrong.
Where is the European theory wrong?
First of all, as several posters have noted, New York is NOT crucial to winning Presidential elections. MANY candidates have won the Presidency without winning New York.
Second, the Jewish vote in New York almost always goes overwhelmingly to the Democrats. I bet your boss doesn’t know that. Even when Republican candidates pledge their support to Israel, New York’s Jews vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats. In other words, Republicans do NOT support Israel because it earns them Jewish votes. There’s almost NOTHING a conservative Republican can do to earn Jewish votes in New York.
Sorry, I misread Dexter’s post. I thought he was referring to Arafat’s use of suicide bombers to attack civilian targets, which as we know is a recent phenomenon.
I think we’ve gotten away from the OP’s question, a question which interests me very much. Why does the United States seem to regard Israel as an indispensable ally?
What specific political/military/economic advantages does the US derive from its relationship with Israel, if any? If we don’t gain some important advantage or advantages from our alliance with Israel, why then do we continue what seems to be a unique and peculiar relationship with them? Why do we side with them so consistently even when it seems to be to our own disadvantage?
I’d like to see the discussion address those two points. What advantage do we derive from this alliance? If we ** don’t ** derive any substantial advantages from this relationship, why do we persist in our alliance with Israel even though it seems to impose burdensome costs on us in the arena of world politics?
America doesn’t need to have bases inside Israel. Israel has the weapons that $1.2 billion/year of military aid can buy. That’s the whole point, they are the equivalent of an aircraft carrier so Americans don’t need to be there.
And yet in every military action the US has been involved in the area, they’ve done so without the help or assistance of the Israeli Army/Air Force/Navy. In Gulf War Ver. 1.0 Israel was in fact kept out of the conflict by the US. And of course the fact that the Americans are there (and have been for the past 12 years) contradicts your statement that they are the equivalent of an aircraft carrier so Americans don’t need to be there.
Like I said, it’s proxy colonialism. Americans don’t have to be there killing
arabs and getting blown up because the Israelis are doing it for them.
That still doesn’t answer my question. If Israel is merely a US military proxy then why is the US getting involved directly in the region again (when they could just let Israel do it) and why did they not allow Israel to take part militarily in the first Gulf conflict with Iraq (when Israel was under direct attack and was chomping at the bit to retaliate).
What about the 1948 war? They prevailed against some very long odds there (so long I even started a thread here or in GQ to ask about it) without US help. I think that shows that US aid has not been absolutely necessary for them, but I am sure it’s been helpful.
Boo Boo Foo
A small history lesson. The Arab states, and their Palestinian brothers, refused to recognise the legitimacy of Israel after UN Resolution 181 approved the creation of “Israel, the Jewish State”. Armies from Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt attacked and were beaten back. This attitude is exemplified by the “Three Nos” declaration at the Khartoum Arab Summit in 1967: NO peace with Israel, NO recognition of Israel, and NO negotiations with Israel. Prior to the war, Egypt’s Nasser made the statement :
Vast crowds in the streets of Cairo shouted: “Nasser, Nasser, we are behind you! We will slaughter them! We will destroy them! Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter … !”
“Manic groups” like Hamas are typical, not extraordinary, of Arab policy that has been consistent for 60 years!
Strategicaly Israel does not need to become involved in any of these wars.
It is like having a rook cover an area on the chess board - it is a threat. If it guarantees the queen wont move, then the rook is in a very valuable position, so why risk the rook.
oops - ‘military actions’ not ‘wars’.
Isn’t Iran a democracy? I personally don’t feel that Israel being democratic factors in as much as some suggest.
Citing a loony racist website doesn’t help to advance your argument, if you have one.
Indeed rampisad, indeed. Yes, I was aware of this and with hindsight I should have demonstrated the consistency of the Arab Leaque’s utter despising of both the Jewish people, and the creation of a Jewish State going all the way back as far as 1930 at least. My example quoted above, referring to Hamas, was intended to reflect the ongoing, intransigent, and unrealistic position which seems to me to STILL be phenomonally endemic throughout much of the Arabic world. I don’t think it would be overly unfair to describe much of Arabic World as being “anti-Semitic” to the core, which naturally, makes the Israeli’s even more defensive and fearful.
And bear in mind, I’m not a religious guy at all… I’m just a bloke, like most of us, who is trying to make the most sense out of this mess as possible. Still, that being said, the incredible “Tribalism” at play in the Middle East, singularly, it seems to me, is the greatest impediment to working out a reasonable solution.
Ironically, as much as we “quasi historians” feel comfortable in laying the much of the blame for the mismangement of the Palestine at the feet of the British during the 1930’s - in many respects the British were truly between a rock and a hard place. My understanding is that the religious demographics before 1930 were roughly 10% Jewish and 88% Muslim and about 2% Christian. However, they ALL perceived themselves as being Palestinian and within reason, got along quite peacefully.
Unfortunately, something BEYOND the control of everyone started to influence things, and it’s name was “the Nazi Party”. Apparently, during the 1930’s the influx of Jewish refugees from Europe was already well underway, and unfortunately for the British, the pressure and effective lobbying by the Zionist movement tended to “tie Britain’s hands behind their backs”. The poor Brits - in trying to placate everybody, year after year during the 1930’s they made promises to both the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish refugees which were mututally exclusive and impossible to keep.
In fact, it really started circa August 1929. At that time, the first large scale attacks by Arabs on Jews occurred in Jerusalem. The riots, in which Palestinians killed 133 Jews - and suffered 116 deaths, mostly inflicted by British troops - were sparked by a dispute over shared use of the Wailing Wall (a sacred site to both Jews and Muslims apparently).
Nonetheless, the British tried everything they could in the 1930’s to bring a reasonable solution to the table - countless commissions and reports recommending a variety of solutions acceptable to all parties - and consistenly, one trend manifested itself… the absolute refusal by the Palestinian Arabs to accept ANY semblance whatsoever of a governing voice in any capacity by the Jews, or the recognition of Palestine in any capacity of being some sort of a Jewish homeland. Time after time, the decision by Palestinian Arabs to abstain from any workable solution rendered the best and noblest efforts by the British to the dustbin.
And this, ultimately, is what I was alluding to in my earliest post in this thread on Page One. The Palestinian Arabs all along, just didn’t “get it.” Whether they liked it or not, the influx of Jewish refugees was gonna continue happening during the 1930’s and onwards - regardless of how much they argued “but we were here first!”. And as such, they should have been much, MUCH smarter. They had ample opportunities in the 1930’s to turn the British Mandate into an independant country in which THEY held the demonstrable balance of power - and they squandered it - time and time again.
And today, they live in refugee camps. At a poltical level, regardless of who has the right to the High Moral ground, it was just plain dumb. And worse yet, all of their political decisions since, have been just as dumb it seems to me.
Not really. The Imams and clergy in Iran still wield a helluva lot of power. They can strike down any law, remove any elected official. They are still the final word in Iranian government.
Boo Boo Foo
For an Aussie, you are remarkably tolerant of the Poms. The truth is they reneged on their agreements, first to the Jews, then to the Arabs, and it’s hard to have any sympathy with them since they made the bed and should have learned to lie in it. Instead, they ran away at the critical time, threw the problem into the lap of the new-born UN, and sat back waiting for it all to blow-up in their (the UN’s) face.
It needs an understanding of British politics over the space of 50 years to get a feeling for how successive governments reversed their predecessor’s promises without the slightest regard for the consequences.
By 1945, the Labour government newly in power was thoroughly hostile to the Jews, and their expectation (and their hope) was that the Arabs would swamp Israel in a matter of days. They did everything in their power to make it happen and it is something the British will always carry as a stain on their so-called honour. (you may gather from this that I’m no fan of theirs).
For a good understanding of what went on then, read The Siege by O’Brien