Israel's military stunned by the failure of its air war

[Boiler 45,553]

My Mother is Welsh, one of the original Britons that was forced out of England by the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans etc etc etc.

So what?

If you look at the history of that area, peoples have moved around continously, the true Arabs were essentially nomadic anyway.

Trying to think of one country on the face of the earth which has not been subject to population shifts, there must be one?

Somewhere?

Anyway the situation is as it is. Now. History is interesting but academic.

I guess the solution is a demilitarised zone, but with access by the H's to longer and longer range weapons, I guess that is going to be tricky.

From a strategic point of view the Israeli problem is that they have no land to trade, as the map on this thread shows, a small island in a big sea.

My guess is that they their current tactics are to produce a end with a credible buffer force in South Lebanon.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel supports the idea of an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, and suggested it should be led by Nato. A Nato official said there had been no discussion so far of any Nato role.

The poltical pressure for Nato to intervene will need to be immense.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I'm taking it for granted that you don't believe that Israel's 1967 "War of Agression" (this would be the 6 day war, right?) was a preemptive attack? Do you think there is any reason Israel might have perceived a threat from it's neighbors that war was immanent?

Yes, this war is often called the Six-Day War, or the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or the June War.

Was it really a pre-emptive action ? Was there an actual threat of attack from Arab countries ?

Let us review what Israeli leaders had to say about it:

"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."

--Menachem Begin

"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."

--Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff

Le Monde, February 28, 1968

[there was] "no threat of destruction" but the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was justified so that Israel could "exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies."

--General Ezer Weitzman, former Commander of the Air Force,

as quoted by Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

Moshe Dayan who gave the order to conquer the Golan Heights, said many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and that the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland... Dayan stated "They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land... We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was... The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us."

-- The New York Times, May 11, 1997

Throughout its history, Israel has used offensive military actions to attempt to expand its territory, while "justifying" its actions to the international community on the pretext that it is fighting enemies who want to destroy it. And it seems a lot of people believe it.

Edited July 24, 2006 by wife_of_mahmoud

[Boiler 45,553]

All a moot point, but if you want to add it up I think the Arabs have the edge on pre-emptive action.

[dalegg 143]

Throughout its history, Israel has used offensive military actions to attempt to expand its territory, while "justifying" its actions to the international community on the pretext that it is fighting enemies who want to destroy it. And it seems a lot of people believe it.

Unfortunately you are citing individual opinions. There are other opinions, including that of the generally accepted version of history that contradict these statements, so I guess it's true- There is just no way to get to the beginning of this concentually, which means it is always going to be a fingerpointing contest and people like me will never really know what really started this unless it's actually about 1948 (which is what I believe)

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Unfortunately you are citing individual opinions. There are other opinions, including that of the generally accepted version of history that contradict these statements, so I guess it's true- There is just no way to get to the beginning of this concentually, which means it is always going to be a fingerpointing contest and people like me will never really know what really started this unless it's actually about 1948 (which is what I believe)

Yes yes yes of course. What in the world would the people who were actually THERE, leading the government and the army, know about their war and the reasons for it.

As they say.... "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

[dalegg 143]

As they say.... "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Maybe he just want's to drink Kool-Aid B)

[Identity 0]

I have a question: Was Palestine actually a legitimate political entity/state pre-1948?

[Risto 0]

This is just my opinion, but I had a grandfather is WWII and was a waist gunner and dropped countless bombs over germany. my other grandfather was code talker both were native americans I have also had Uncles in the Korea war and uncles in the Vietnam war. We can bomb the heck out of the countries we fight but in the end it's always comes down to hand to hand combat. Exception is dropping the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and nagasaki which ended the war with Japan. We are in Afghanistan and Iraq which first started out with massive bombing campaigns in the end we end up with ground troops in both countries. Are we winning the war in those countries? What has it accomplished? Every day american soldiers are dying from car bombs or other unique ways these people are thinking up. To me..these places are just training grounds to see what is effective and what is not. We may have captured Saddam and killed al zarqawi, but nothing else has changed. Israeli has done the bombings in Lebanon now it comes down to ground troops massing at the border of Lebanon and Israel. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Whatever is necessary will be done to stop the rockets from Lebanon to Israel.

[Boiler 45,553]

I have a question: Was Palestine actually a legitimate political entity/state pre-1948?

Basically Jordan and Israel were part of the Palestinian Mandate that came out of the breaking up of the Ottoman Empire.

The British controlled it, the mandate was from the United Nations, previously the League of Nations.

British wanted out, UN had a seperation plan, not acceptable to the Arabs who wanted it all. They attacked and lost.

Simplistic but basically it, loads of info available if you want to read up on it.

[*Robert* 2]