Israel's response to the U.N.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

You are saying basically that Zionist leaders have kept Israel in a state of war intentionally. Even if that were true after 1967(which I'm not saying it is)...how does that settle with the other 20 years when all Israel wanted was to be left alone in its newborn state and kept getting attacked by many Arab countries?

“Just wanted to be left alone” ????? Seems your history teacher left out a few things in class. Here are a couple of little incidents that went on in those first 20 years (aside from the continuing attacks and massacres on Palestinians living in what was now Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza):

* 1949 - Israel attacked Egypt and occupied Umm Rashrash, which it later annexed and re-named Eilat.

* 1950 - Israel attacked and seized al-Uja in Egypt and Baqqara in Syria (both in the de-militarized zone,) expelling the residents and bulldozing their homes

* 1953 - Israel attacked Qibya in Jordan (led by none other than the Butcher Ariel Sharon,) killing 69 people, mostly women and children. This caused the US to suspend aid to Israel (for the first and only time.)

* 1954 - THE LAVON AFFAIR when Israel tried to do a false flag op in Cairo, using spies dressing up as Arabs who tried to plant bombs in American- and British-owned targets to try to sabotage relations between Egypt and Western powers.

* 1956 - Israeli soldiers attacked Kafr Qasim and killed nearly 50 people in cold blood. (Israeli courts even convicted 8 soldiers of murder for that, even though all were released within 2 years.)

* 1956 - Israel attacked Egypt (in a pact with Britain and France) to take over the Sinai and the Suez Canal, and it took the US and Russia to stop it and make Israel withdraw. Israel has attempted this sort of thing over and over - start a war with a weaker neighbor which it thinks it can defeat, then try to seize territory.

* 1960-1962 Israel forces attacked Syrian villages on Lake Tiberias, killing hundreds of civilians

* 1966 - Israeli soldiers raided Sammu in Jordan, killing 18 people

Israel has instigated every single one of its wars except the one in 1973, when Egypt finally hit back.

And if you say the Jews needing their own country is no justification for stealing someone else's land, then where do you suggest that country should be? Cause otherwise you're saying it shouldn't be, which, like I said, its legitimacy should never be in doubt(even Abbas says that - whether he actually means it or not).

Israel could have had all of Palestine, if Zionists would have accepted and assimilated with the native population, treating them as equals, with equal rights and an equal interest in their country. Instead, thye chose to ethnically cleanse them, appropriate their property, and replace them with Jews (and the few Palestinians that remain must accept second-class citizen status without the same rights and privileges that Jewish citizens have.) It's an unbelievably arrogant attitude for a 20th century government - “This land is ours now - you all go live somewhere else.“ That’s what caused the problem, and that’s what continues to be the problem - Israel denies millions of Palestinians any rights of citizenship as Israelis, but also denies them the right to self-determination in their own viable state on their own land, because Israel wants that land, too (without the people on it.)

These are the equations that don’t add up: Israel claims that it wants a 2-state solution, but it continues to build the illegal settlements that make a 2-state solution impossible - and refuses to give them up. Then, if Palestinians say they accept to live in a single state, Israel calls them a demographic threat and says they are trying to destroy Israel because they have too many babies.

True, but their point was that it's not like any Jew can just pack their bags and move to the states. You need a reason...like a spouse for instance. Just like anyone else.

Meanwhile, no Palestinian refugee living in the diaspora - or even Palestinians living in Gaza - can just pack their bags and move to the West Bank. I’m sure you’ll defend that, though.

Also, as for the wall - it was not meant to prevent a Palestinian state. It was merely meant to protect Israel after the enormous amount of terrorist attacks it suffered between 2000-2003. Which is why it was built then, and not 30 years prior. Obviously in the case of an agreement, it will be taken down...But for now, it's doing its job which is to prevent buses and restaurants from blowing up.

Suicide bombings have stopped for one reason and one reason only: because Hamas decided to stop using that tactic in 2006. The Wall does not stop them - people who are determined to get through can do it, as can be seen from the number of Palestinians who cross illegally into Israel to work every single day. Yes, it’s very risky. But a suicide bomber isn’t going to be too worried about getting killed, anyway. The Wall only stops the people who follow the rules and makes life miserable for the civilian population.

What The Wall is actually intended to do is grab more land - to unilaterally annex the illegal settlements - and its obvious from one look at the map. The Wall does not follow the internationally-recognized border of Israel (the so-called “Green Line,”) but snakes into Palestinian areas to encircle the illegal settlements and surrounding areas and bypass roads, biting off chunks of land. If there happen to be Palestinians living or farming on the wrong side of The Wall, too bad. They can only get in or out when Israeli soldiers are around to open the gate - and soldiers may not show up for hours, or even days. In time, those families tend to decide it’s impossible to live that way. And as soon as they are squeezed out, in come the Jewish settlers to take that, too. Piece by piece, Israel hacks off another chunk of the West Bank, and hacks away the chance of a 2-state solution. On purpose.

Edited December 6, 2012 by wife_of_mahmoud

[OriZ 3,157]

I never said Haifa belongs to my grandmother, I was saying to those who say that Jews have no rights on the land and that only the Palestinians do(obviously being I support a two state solution I think both peoples do) that contrary to popular belief there were actually Jews here and that she is one such example. She didn't come from Europe and she doesn't need to go back to Europe, she belongs here and so does her family. That's all. I'm well aware there are plenty of Palestinians born in Haifa as I've lived in Haifa most of my life, and it's probably the city where Arabs and Jews get along most in the Middle East. As I've mentioned before, my Ostheopathic is a Christian Arab and my mom works closely with the Muslims.

I am very well aware that Muslims pray toward Mecca, which is their most holy city. My point was that at times(not always) they have their backs face Jerusalem, depending on where they are whereas Jews would never have their backs facing Jerusalem as they pray.

As for Um Rashrash, that was still part of the war of independence, a war that was forced upon Israel by numerous armies, including the Jordanian legion which is actually who Israel occupied it from.

The attack on Qibya was a response that you forgot to mention to an attack two nights prior, of a group coming out of Jordan that threw a hand grenade into a house in Israel, which killed the mother and two sons. I'm not saying that justifies killing civilians, but had that attack not taken place then neither would the retaliation.

Also keep in mind that from the time the war of independece ended up until 1956 1300 Israel civilians were attacked. After Egypt's deals with Czechoslovakia, which showed aggression towards Israel, and then the Egpytian-Jordanian-Syrian command established in October 1956, and then the closure of the Tiran straits to Israeli vessels by Egypt, which paralyzed the port of Eilat, it was actually the French who pushed Israel into that, besides the fear of an impending attack.

Same thing again with 1960 and 62, Israel attacked in response to in 1960 a Syrian attack on Tel Katzir, and then in response to them shooting at Israeli fishermen...

As for Sammu...

For three years King Hussein of Jordan had been meeting clandestinely with Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, and Prime Minister's deputy, Abba Eban, concerning peace and mutually secure borders. On the night of November 11, an Israeli border patrol vehicle carrying policemen drove over a mine near the Israeli-Jordanian border, killing three and wounding six;[1] the mine was reportedly planted by al-Fatah men.[2] On November 12, King Hussein sent a letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, via the U.S. embassy in Amman. From there it was sent to U.S. ambassador Walworth Barbour at the embassy in Tel-Aviv; instead of forwarding it to the prime minister, he left the letter on his desk - assuming it was not important and there was no rush.[3] According to another version of the story, the letter reached Barbour on the 11th (a Friday), but he delayed passing it on due to the coming Sabbath.[4] Early on the morning of November 13, King Hussein received an unsolicited message from his Israeli contacts stating that Israel had no intention of attacking Jordan.[3] Early the same day also, the Israeli military mobilized 3000-4000 troops, and sent about 600 of these, with 60 half-tracks and 11 tanks, across the border into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank

So no, in many cases Israel did not instigate wars, like 1948, 1973, and even 1967(was due to clear preps for a war by the other armies - Israel had to be the one to hit first if it wanted to survive).

I'm not saying Israel is always a saint...but if you look closely many cases were forced on it. If the war had not happened in 1948, if the war had not happened in 1973, if the war did not need to happen in 1967, if it did not constantly get attacked by terrorists etc etc...then like I said, I believe it is not a situation where it WANTS to stay in a state of war, but rather a situation where it keeps getting attacked. If those attacks didn't happen, maybe things would be different, and maybe it wouldn't fear its neighbors as much.

Take a look at the list of attacks in the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_against_Israeli_civilians_before_1967

Let me surprise you, I think if someone wants to move to Palestinian controlled areas in the west bank, they should have the option to. It's not our business anyway, or shouldn't be.

Edited December 6, 2012 by OriZ

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I never said Haifa belongs to my grandmother, I was saying to those who say that Jews have no rights on the land and that only the Palestinians do(obviously being I support a two state solution I think both peoples do) that contrary to popular belief there were actually Jews here and that she is one such example. She didn't come from Europe and she doesn't need to go back to Europe, she belongs here and so does her family. That's all. I'm well aware there are plenty of Palestinians born in Haifa as I've lived in Haifa most of my life, and it's probably the city where Arabs and Jews get along most in the Middle East. As I've mentioned before, my Ostheopathic is a Christian Arab and my mom works closely with the Muslims.

Actually, you did say that - I quoted you directly in my response. My question to you was: So then does it not also belong to the Palestinians who were born there ? No answer.

I don’t know who you're responding to with the rest of that - no one here has said anything about "only Palestinians should be the ones to have any rights." I’ve said that Palestinians should have rights, which they don’t have now, just as Jewish Israelis have rights. And no one here said anything about "there shouldn’t be any Jews in Palestine," or claimed that they all came from Europe, or that your grandmother or any other Israeli needs to go back to Europe (well, other than when I was joking about Avigdor Lieberman going back to the FSU )

I am very well aware that Muslims pray toward Mecca, which is their most holy city. My point was that at times(not always) they have their backs face Jerusalem, depending on where they are whereas Jews would never have their backs facing Jerusalem as they pray.

I just respond to what you write. If you didn’t mean that and know better, I am glad to hear it. But it still isn't justification to throw people out of their homes and appropriate their property.

As for Um Rashrash, that was still part of the war of independence, a war that was forced upon Israel by numerous armies, including the Jordanian legion which is actually who Israel occupied it from.

The attack on Qibya was a response that you forgot to mention to an attack two nights prior, of a group coming out of Jordan that threw a hand grenade into a house in Israel, which killed the mother and two sons. I'm not saying that justifies killing civilians, but had that attack not taken place then neither would the retaliation.

Israel's war of independence was forced on it - huh ???? Zionist militias were already occupying areas outside the territory designated as the Jewish state months before any Arab army invaded. The Arab states pleaded for help from the international community to protect the Palestinian civilians who were being murdered and expelled. With hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing across the borders, they said something had to be done. But their pleas were ignored. They waited until the British Mandate ended, as to uphold their agreements not to attack British targets. Read their declaration of war. I have gone through specifics on the history of 1947-1949 in previous threads, and I will give you a link so as not to get too off-topic here.

You claimed that Israel “kept getting attacked by Arab countries” in the 20 years before 1967. So I gave you example after example of the Israeli army doing the attacking against its Arab neighbors, targeting innocent civilians in Egypt, Jordan and Syria as well as the West Bank.

Now you say Israeli attacks on civilians were just part of the war (even after the war ended.) So then it's ok if Israel does it. You are indeed trying to justify the murder of civilians, with the words I bolded. Shall I now proclaim that no Israeli civilian would have been killed if the Zionists hadn’t barged into Palestine to try to wrest it from its inhabitants ?

Also keep in mind that from the time the war of independece ended up until 1956 1300 Israel civilians were attacked. After Egypt's deals with Czechoslovakia, which showed aggression towards Israel, and then the Egpytian-Jordanian-Syrian command established in October 1956, and then the closure of the Tiran straits to Israeli vessels by Egypt, which paralyzed the port of Eilat, it was actually the French who pushed Israel into that, besides the fear of an impending attack.

Same thing again with 1960 and 62, Israel attacked in response to in 1960 a Syrian attack on Tel Katzir, and then in response to them shooting at Israeli fishermen...

Keep poking people with a stick, and they will fight back. The ethnic cleansing and expulsions went on for years after the war; in fact, they have never stopped. How much Palestinian land continued to be occupied by Israel after 1948 (outside the area designated by the UN proposal for the Jewish state, and outside the area that Zionist leaders themselves had accepted as their borders in their announcement of statehood and application for membership at the UN.) How many Palestinian villages were bulldozed ? How many refugees were refused the right to return to their property ? And how many Palestinians did the Israeli army and militias kill during this time - most of them unarmed refugees, trying to return to their property to care for their homes or crops (if caught, executed on the spot as an “infiltrator.”)

As for Sammu...

I am not sure what you were quoting, but it seems to be the beginning of a Wikipedia article. You should have read the rest of it. As it explains, the Israeli army instigated the attack on the village of Sammu (near Hebron in the West Bank, then under Jordanian rule) with tanks, artillery and aircraft in 1966 as a deliberate “show of force” - it wanted to demonstrate its military strength and ability without the risk of actually facing the Jordanian army. So it decided to strafe a civilian village. Israeli leaders figured this was a good idea because it would really impress the Arabs not to mess with Israel. And you wonder why they got slightly ticked off…

So no, in many cases Israel did not instigate wars, like 1948, 1973, and even 1967(was due to clear preps for a war by the other armies - Israel had to be the one to hit first if it wanted to survive).

I'm not saying Israel is always a saint...but if you look closely many cases were forced on it. If the war had not happened in 1948, if the war had not happened in 1973, if the war did not need to happen in 1967, if it did not constantly get attacked by terrorists etc etc...then like I said, I believe it is not a situation where it WANTS to stay in a state of war, but rather a situation where it keeps getting attacked. If those attacks didn't happen, maybe things would be different, and maybe it wouldn't fear its neighbors as much.

So how do you think Palestinians feel, after being invaded by a bunch of foreigners who stole their country ?

I’ve already gone through the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 (which I already said was the only war the Arabs initiated) many times on this board, so I am not going to do it again here in this thread - it's derailing the topic. Here are a couple of links in case you want to read my points:

1948 war

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/106685-hamas-shut-off-the-power-to-palestine/page__st__225__p__1572599#entry1572599

1967 war

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/315484-gaza-island/page__st__45__p__4736179#entry4736179

If you want to go through it line by line, you can bump the thread.

Take a look at the list of attacks in the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_against_Israeli_civilians_before_1967

Your Wiki link seems to be a laundry list of murders or rapes committed by individuals or non-military groups inside Israel. This is not the same thing as Israel “being attacked by Arab countries.” I did not list every single instance of a common murder or rape by a Jew involving a Palestinian or other Arab victim, of which there are plenty. We are talking about "attacks" as in acts of war: military actions carried out by states (or quasi-state’s armed groups, such as in the case of the Palestinian resistance groups or Zionist militias) against entire villages and towns. That's the parameter you set; now you try to change it.

Anyway, it's a tangent and getting way off-topic. The excuse of “Well, if they didn’t do that, then none of this would have happened” can take us right back to the beginning of the conflict, and we might as well say: “If the Zionists hadn’t invaded Palestine and attempted to wrest the country from its inhabitants, none of this would have happened.”

But that doesn’t move us into the future. Which is rapidly becoming clear - there will be a one-state solution. So what’ll it be - one bi-national state with equal rights for all ? An Apartheid state with full rights for the ethnic minority, while the ethnic majority is denied their rights? Or will there be another round of mass ethnic cleansing?

Let me surprise you, I think if someone wants to move to Palestinian controlled areas in the west bank, they should have the option to. It's not our business anyway, or shouldn't be.

I’m starting to get the feeling that you don’t want to talk about the topic here. You keep changing the subject every time I indulge one of your tangents. I have already addressed this subject, too - trying to draw a comparison between Israel’s forcible expulsion of Palestinians, and the mass migration of Arab Jews to Israel after 1948 - many times on this board, so you can read some of my opinions on that here, but suffice it to say that not all Arab Jews who moved to Israel were expelled from Arab countries - in fact, not even the majority of them:

Post #180

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/315484-gaza-island/page__st__165

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

The first film footage recorded in Palestine...

"A society much like that of Cairo, Damascus, or Beirut... in an Arab city much like any other. By the end of the 19th century, Palestine has 500,000 inhabitants, of which more than 30,000 live in Jerusalem. A veiled woman, a Sunni Muslim, one of the majority. An Orthodox Jew... he too turns away from the camera. Here we have an Armenian pope. Each of the Christian denominations has its church here in the Holy City. The holy places of the three religions are scattered across a few hundred square meters. The Great Mosque is close to Christ's Tomb. Further along, at the foot of the Wailing Wall, a Jew is reciting a prayer. He is wearing a Turkish tarboosh, and although he prays in Hebrew, his everyday language is Arabic. Jews are half the population of Jerusalem, but in the countryside they make up only 5% of the total. Christians account for 10%, and Muslims, 85%. All of them are subjects of Constantinople...."

[ready4ONE 5,400]

All of them are subjects of Constantinople... Indeed!

The bad actions of Israelis and Palestinians alike do not exist in a vacuum.

[OriZ 3,157]

Obviously you and I are both aware of the demographic issue, so that's not what I was saying. I was referring to the peoples that are here RIGHT NOW. I'm not gonna look at the past - at Jews or Arabs - as almost a million Jews had to either leave or were kicked out of Muslim countries, only 600,000 of them ended up in Israel. If they left because they were zionists, then they wouldn't have gone somewhere else. So that's already 400,000, plus out of the ones who did go to Israel not all of them left willingly. About 700,000 Arabs left Israel, and not all of them were exiled either...many left because they wanted to or because their leaders told them to, while convincing them soon they'll beat the newborn state and be able to return to their homes in Haifa, Acco, etc...a lie some of them still believe today. So lets not look at the past, just as I'm not saying Jews should be able to return to their homes in Arab countries, or even to their homes in the west bank, I'm saying exactly the same with Palestinians, I'm not a hypocrite...what I am saying though is that the people that live on the land already now, today, whether Arabs or Jews, in the green line or outside of it, have the same rights on it. Me saying that wasn't directed specifically at you, but towards people(that unfortunately do actually exist) that think only Palestinians have rights on the land.

Israel accepted the partition plan, and the Arab countries did not...true? In response it was attacked by Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Jordan all at once....if that's not called being forced upon you then I don't know what is. Had they just accepted the plan, and not tried to destroy the new state(which they openly declared is their intent to do) then none of the results of the war, including the attack of Um Rashrash would have happened.

The Jewish leadership accepted the partition plan, without reservation, as "the indispensable minimum," glad to gain international recognition but sorry that they did not receive more.

Arguing that the partition plan was unfair to the Arabs with regard to the population balance at that time, the representatives of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab League firmly opposed the UN action and rejected its authority to involve itself in the entire matter. They upheld "that the rule of Palestine should revert to its inhabitants, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations."

The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine started on 30 November 1947, the date after the UN General Assembly vote on the UN Partition Plan. It finished on 14 May 1948 when the Jewish People's Council approved a proclamation which declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

During this period, the Arab and Jewish communities of Palestine clashed, while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order, organised their own withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis.

Arab Palestinians left, fled or were expelled in large numbers, especially after Jewish forces took the major seaport of Haifa in April 1948.

Benny Morris states that the Yishuv's aims evolved during the war.

Initially, the aim was "simple and modest": to survive the assaults of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states. "The Zionist leaders deeply, genuinely, feared a Middle Eastern reenactment of the Holocaust, which had just ended; the Arabs' public rhetoric reinforced these fears". As the war progressed, the aim of expanding the Jewish state beyond the UN partition borders appeared: first to incorporate clusters of isolated Jewish settlements and later to add more territories to the state and give it defensible borders. A third and further aim that emerged among the political and military leaders after four or five months was to "reduce the size of Israel's prospective large and hostile Arab minority, seen as a potential powerful fifth column, by belligerency and expulsion."

Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in autumn 1947 to spring 1948, which was sent to Haganah units in early March 1948. According to the academic Ilan Pappe, its purpose was to conquer as much of Palestine and to expel as many Palestinians as possible, though according to Benny Morris there was no such intent. In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappé asserts that Plan Dalet was a "blueprint for ethnic cleansing" with the aim of reducing both rural and urban areas of Palestine. The intent of Plan Dalet is subject to much controversy, with historians on the one extreme asserting that it was entirely defensive, and historians on the other extreme asserting that the plan aimed at maximum conquest and expulsion of the Palestinians

So like I said before, neither side is a saint, but to put it all on Israel is historically wrong.

The reason I'm posting out of wikipedia is mainly due to shortage of time, as it is the easiest and quickest to pull in English usually. I do have other links but most are in Hebrew, also I would not post something I don't already know from other sources to be true.

I said it very clearly nothing justifies deliberately attacking civilians, and that's without going into the details as you're probably aware of in that case of whether they knew there were people in those houses or thought they were empty. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt assuming they knew. It was still a response to a prior attack. It doesn't justify it which I'm now saying for the 3rd time, but again had that attack not taken place then neither would the retaliation. As for Samu, I was in a hurry and the pasting didn't come out complete and I didn't have time to change it, had to leave...but anyway here is the rest of it

According to Tom Segev, Israel's goal in the operation was to demolish houses in Palestinian villages located south of Hebron as a show of force to preempt future Palestinian violence. Israel hoped that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame al-Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups. Additionally, Israel aimed to warn Jordan as well as Syria of its military strength and tactics, without actually confronting the Jordanian Armed Forces.

The Israeli rationale for the attack on Samu has often been questioned. For example, Colonel (ret.) Jan Mühren, a Dutch UN observer in the West Bank who patrolled Samu during this period, gave an interview to Dutch current affairs program Nova on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War where he denied the Israeli charges regarding Samu. He said "Had the people from this village anything to do with the attack on Israel - Well no. Not just from this village but also not from the entire West Bank. ... only western officers operated here and we did patrols. The situation was completely calm." That, despite the attack against the Israeli patrol two days earlier.

In a report by the Arab League, it was assumed that the main goal of this attack was to test the efficiency of what was called the United Arab Command, and see if any other Arab country such as Egypt or Syria would come to the aid of Jordan. It also assumes that this battle was in preparation for the Six-Day War.

Israel mobilised a force of around 3,000-4,000 soldiers, backed by tanks and aircraft, in the attack code-named Operation Shredder. The force was divided into a large reserve force, which remained on the Israeli side of the border, and two attack forces, which crossed into the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. Ground troops moved into the village of Rujm al-Madfa located just southwest of Hebron and destroyed its police station. From there, the larger force of eight Centurion tanks followed by 400 paratroopers mounted in 40 open-topped half-tracks and 60 engineers in 10 more half-tracks headed for Samu. Meanwhile, the smaller force of three tanks and 100 paratroopers and engineers in 10 half-tracks headed toward two smaller villages, Khirbet el-Markas and Khirbet Jimba. When the larger force entered Samu, most of the town's residents responded to orders by the IDF to gather in the town square. Sappers from the 35th paratrooper brigades then dynamited numerous buildings within and near the village; reports of the total number of building destroyed range from 40 to 125 (IDF and United Nations estimates, respectively). The UN also reported the destruction of the village medical clinic, a 6-classroom school and a workshop, in addition, one mosque and 28 houses had been damaged.

The 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian Army, commanded by Major Asad Ghanma, encountered the Israeli forces north-west of Samu. Two companies of the Hitteen Infantry Brigade (لواء المشاة حطين) also approached from the north-east; these were composed of roughly 100 men and 20 convoy vehicles, and commanded by Brig. Gen. Bahjat al-Muhaisen (العميد الركن بهجت المحيسن). Apparently, al-Muhaisen was leading his troops to Yattah, another village south of Hebron, but the road there passed though Samu. The Jordanians were subsequently ambushed by Israeli forces.

According to then-Colonel al-Muhaisen, in an interview with the Jordanian Armed Forces' Al Aqsa Magazine, Jordanian intelligence had informed him that the target of the Israeli attack was Samu village. He ordered his troops to move toward Samu from two directions, one through Thaheria Village and the other through Yatta, which he led, in an attempt to reach Samu before the Israelis did. The Israelis reached higher ground first.

Eight Jordanian Hawker Hunter jets scrambled at Mafraq Airbase and attacked Israeli forces to relieve pressure on their own troops, but were met by a force of four Israeli mirage 3 jets. In the air battle that followed, a Jordanian plane was shot down and the pilot was killed, and an Israeli plane was damaged and forced to land.

Another platoon of Jordanians armed with two 106 mm recoilless rifles entered Samu, engaging the IDF. In the ensuing battle fifteen Jordanian soldiers were killed, and fifty-four other soldiers were wounded, including Colonel al-Muhaisen. The commander of the Israeli paratroop battalion, Colonel Yoav Shaham, was killed and ten other Israeli soldiers were wounded.

Three civilians were also killed and 96 wounded during the battle.

In Israel, angered opposition parties demanded to know why Israel attacked Jordan rather than Syria, which was the guerrilla home base. In a special parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Eshkol listed 14 major acts of sabotage carried out from Jordan in the past year, climaxed by the land-mine explosion that killed three Israeli troops on 12 November. Eshkol said: "It is regrettable that this particular act of aggression came from Jordan." But since it did, he had picked Jordan as his target. "No country where the saboteurs find shelter and through whose territory they pass on their way to Israel can be exempt from responsibility." What Eshkol left unsaid was his certainty that, with the so-called Arab unity being what it was, Jordan would find itself with far less Arab support than Syria, which was much closer to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Jordan's Arab partners did wait until the Israelis had withdrawn before making indignant vows of support.

Two days after the attack, in a memo to President Johnson, his Special Assistant Walt Rostow wrote "I'm not suggesting our usual admonition against retaliation. We'll maintain that posture,... but retaliation is not the point in this case. This 3000-man raid with tanks and planes was out of all proportion to the provocation and was aimed at the wrong target. In hitting Jordan so hard, the Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to their own: They've wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation between Hussein and the Israelis... They've undercut Hussein. We've spent $500 million to shore him up as a stabilizing factor on Israel's longest border and vis-à-vis Syria and Iraq. Israel's attack increases the pressure on him to counterattack not only from the more radical Arab governments and from the Palestinians in Jordan but also from the Army, which is his main source of support and may now press for a chance to recoup its Sunday losses... They've set back progress toward a long term accommodation with the Arabs... They may have persuaded the Syrians that Israel didn't dare attack Soviet-protected Syria but could attack US-backed Jordan with impunity. It's important that we strengthen the hand of those within the Israeli Government who feel this is not the proper way to handle the problem. Even members of the Israeli military now doubt that retaliation will stop the cross-border raids, though they see no better solution."

Again, I'm not saying all decisions by Israel were or are always right, there are many stupid decisions made, both internally and foreign, to this day...the point is it was a response, yet again, to previous aggression.

So how do you think Palestinians feel, after being invaded by a bunch of foreigners who stole their country ?

How do I think the Palestinians feel? I'm sure some of them have great fears of Israel or Israelis, which are usually not justified. There are also, however, some of them that know most Israelis want not harm them, and have Israeli friends, or even support Israel. I gave before the example of my little story while guarding, and I think that is a good example, cause I walked away thinking man this guy must be traumatized...

As for the 6 day war:

After the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Sinai to ensure all parties would comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. In the following years, there were numerous minor border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly Syria. On November 4, 1966, the Soviet Union vetoed a six-Power resolution, that invited Syria to prevent incidents that constitute a violation of the General Armistice Agreement.

Soon thereafter, in response to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerilla activity, including a mine attack that killed three Israeli soldiers, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacked the village of as-Samu in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. Jordanian units that engaged the Israelis were quickly beaten back. Between 14 and 21 Jordanian soldiers were killed in the operation and 37 more were wounded. Overall, 18 were killed, 130 wounded, while 125 houses, the school, and the clinic were destroyed in the attack. Israel's attack was deplored by the Security Council, which emphasized to Israel that actions of military reprisal could not be tolerated. King Hussein of Jordan criticized Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser for failing to come to Jordan's aid, and "hiding behind UNEF skirts". The Samu raid shattered the fragile trust between Israel and Jordan, leading the Jordanian leadership to believe Israel's strategic goal was to occupy the West Bank. According to one source, this alleged fear that in the event of a regional war, Israel would invade the West Bank, led to King Hussein's decision to sign a joint defense pact with Egypt. Others however have theorized that Hussein's pact with Egypt was motivated by a desire to placate domestic pressures and preserve his throne. Still others have noted that Hussein closed ranks with Nasser because he had to convince Arabs "that he was not a puppet of the West."

Between 1966 and 1967 Israel’s borders saw repeated Arab terrorist attacks and Syrian military activity. On May 11, UN Secretary General U Thant leveled criticism at Syria for its sponsorship of Palestinian terrorism, denouncing those attacks as "deplorable," "insidious" and "menaces to peace."

During 1965-7, Israel's armed forces staged numerous provocations along the Israeli-Syrian border area. This escalation led the Syrians and the Soviets to believe Israel was planning to overthrow the Syrian regime using military force. On April 7, 1967, a serious incident broke out between Israel and Syria over a cultivation problem within the demilitarized zone. Israel took military action against Syria, and eventually both sides employed artillery, tanks, and mortars. During this clash Israeli airstrikes were launched a few miles from Damascus. Israel bombed both Syrian border villages, and Syrian military targets, and had refused a cease-fire proposal by the Chairman of Mixed Armistice Commission. After several hours the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization managed to arrange a cease-fire. Following this confrontation Arab governments pledged their support to Syria, but also complained that the Jordanian air force had done nothing to help Syrian planes even when they were shot down in Jordanian airspace.

In May 1967, Israeli officials began to publicly threaten military action against Syria if Syria did not stop Palestinian guerrillas from crossing the border into Israel. Following that, Nasser received false intelligence reports from the Soviet Union that an Israeli attack on Syria was imminent. Egyptian intelligence later confirmed that the Soviet reports of Israeli force concentrations were in fact groundless, but Nasser had by then already started his buildup and he feared that since a large portion of his army was already in the Sinai, a sudden callback of those forces would result in humiliation at a time when Nasser could ill afford being humiliated. On May 19, U Thant called statements attributed to Israeli leaders "so threatening as to be particularly inflammatory in the sense that they could only heighten emotions and thereby increase tensions on the other side of the lines". Nasser then misled the Egyptian people by perpetuating the falsehood claiming in an address on the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, that the IDF was concentrating forces "on Syria's doorstep." Israel's threats to invade Syria appeared serious to Arab leaders, however, and foreign observers suspected that an Israeli strike on Syria was imminent. According to Michael Oren, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence and began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19), and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran. According to Moshe Shemesh, as Egypt and Syria shared a mutual defence pact, Nasser responded to the Israeli threats by beginning to concentrate his troops in the Sinai Peninsula according to the "Qahir" (Conqueror) defence plan. He also decided to prepare the feda'iyyun for carrying out the "Fahd 2 (Leopard) Plan" [murderous attacks] inside Israel and to coordinate military operations with Syria.

The Straits of Tiran was regarded by the Western Powers and Israel as an international waterway but its legal status was the subject of international controversy. The Arabs believed that they had the right to regulate passage of ships while Israel, with the support of other major world powers, countered that the Arab claims were legally not supportable. In 1967 Israel reiterated declarations made in 1957 that any closure of the Straits would be considered an act of war, or a justification for war.On May 22 Nasser declared the Straits closed to Israeli shipping. Nasser stated he was open to referring the closure to the International Court of Justice to determine its legality, but this option was rejected by Israel. Egyptian propaganda attacked Israel, and on May 27, Nasser stated "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

On May 30, Jordan and Egypt signed a defense pact. The following day, at Jordan's invitation, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan. They were later reinforced by an Egyptian contingent. On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War.

Most scholarly accounts of the crisis attribute the drift to war to an escalation that was unwanted, however despite a desire to avoid war on all sides, everyone was in the end responsible for making the escalation unavoidable.

On the eve of the war, Egypt massed approximately 100,000 of its 160,000 troops in the Sinai, including all of its seven divisions (four infantry, two armored and one mechanized), four independent infantry brigades and four independent armored brigades. No fewer than a third of them were veterans of Egypt's intervention into the Yemen Civil War and another third were reservists. These forces had 950 tanks, 1,100 APCs and more than 1,000 artillery pieces.

At the same time some Egyptian troops (15,000–20,000) were still fighting in Yemen. Nasser's ambivalence about his goals and objectives was reflected in his orders to the military. The general staff changed the operational plan four times in May 1967, each change requiring the redeployment of troops, with the inevitable toll on both men and vehicles.

Towards the end of May, Nasser finally forbade the general staff from proceeding with the Qahir ("Victory") plan, which called for a light infantry screen in the forward fortifications with the bulk of the forces held back to conduct a massive counterattack against the main Israeli advance when identified, and ordered a forward defense of the Sinai. In the meantime, he continued to take actions intended to increase the level of mobilization of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in order to bring pressure on Israel.

Syria's army had a total strength of 75,000 and amassed them along the Syrian border. Jordan's army had 55,000 troops and 300 tanks along the Jordanian border, 250 of which were U.S. M48 Patton, sizable amounts of M113 APCs, a new battalion of mechanized infantry, and a paratrooper battalion trained in the new U.S.-built school. They also had 12 battalions of artillery and six batteries of 81 mm and 120 mm mortars.

Documents captured by the Israelis from various Jordanian command posts record orders from the end of May for the Hashemite Brigade to capture Ramot Burj Bir Mai'in in a night raid, codenamed "Operation Khaled". The aim was to establish a bridgehead together with positions in Latrun for an armored capture of Lod and Ramle. The "go" codeword was Sa'ek and end was Nasser. The Jordanians planned for the capture of Motza and Sha'alvim in the strategic Jerusalem Corridor. Motza was tasked to Infantry Brigade 27 camped near Ma'ale Adummim: "The reserve brigade will commence a nighttime infiltration onto Motza, will destroy it to the foundation, and won't leave a remnant or refugee from among its 800 residents".

100 Iraqi tanks and an infantry division were readied near the Jordanian border. Two squadrons of fighter-aircraft, Hawker Hunters and MiG 21, were rebased adjacent to the Jordanian border.

On June 2, Jordan called up all reserve officers, and the West Bank commander met with community leaders in Ramallah to request assistance and cooperation for his troops during the war, assuring them that "in three days we'll be in Tel-Aviv".

The Arab air forces were aided by volunteer pilots from the Pakistan Air Force acting in independent capacity, and by some aircraft from Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to make up for the massive losses suffered on the first day of the war.

Before the war, Israeli pilots and ground crews had trained extensively in rapid refitting of aircraft returning from sorties, enabling a single aircraft to sortie up to four times a day (as opposed to the norm in Arab air forces of one or two sorties per day). This enabled the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to send several attack waves against Egyptian airfields on the first day of the war, overwhelming the Egyptian Air Force, and allowed it to knock out other Arab air forces on the same day. This has contributed to the Arab belief that the IAF was helped by foreign air forces (see Controversies relating to the Six-Day War). Pilots were extensively schooled about their targets, and were forced to memorize every single detail, and rehearsed the operation multiple times on dummy runways in total secrecy.

The Egyptians had constructed fortified defenses in the Sinai. These designs were based on the assumption that an attack would come along the few roads leading through the desert, rather than through the difficult desert terrain. The Israelis chose not to risk attacking the Egyptian defenses head-on, and instead surprised them from an unexpected direction.

IDF soldiers had practiced driving vehicles through soft dunes in the Negev, and discovered that vehicles would get greater maneuverability in desert terrain if tires were partially deflated. As a result, they could choose their angle of attack, and advance through areas the Egyptians least expected. In order to keep the performance of Israeli soldiers high in the heat of the Sinai desert, the Israeli army ordered that soldiers be supplied with one liter of water every hour, rather than the previous one liter per day. As a result, soldiers were able to perform better than their Egyptian counterparts.

To prepare for war with Syria, the Mossad (Israeli secret service) had sent agent Eli Cohen to infiltrate the Syrian government, where he exploited his high-ranking position to provide crucial intelligence. Feigning sympathy for Syrian soldiers, he ordered trees planted by every Syrian emplacement to shade them. These trees were later used as targeting markers by the Israelis. Intelligence had revealed where the most difficult terrain was, so a route of attack was chosen that would avoid natural tank traps and surprise the Syrians.

The Mossad also carried out surveillance on Egypt. By the time war broke out, Mossad had either a katsa (field intelligence officer) or Egyptian informant in every Egyptian airbase and military headquarters. Three staff officers at the General High Command Headquarters were Israeli moles. Among the intelligence collected by the informants was embarrassing personal information on Egyptian servicemen. This information was sometimes used as blackmail to gain a new Mossad informant. Mossad also leaked details of many servicemen's private behavior to their families and colleagues by means of anonymous letters and phone calls.

This campaign caused considerable dissention in the Egyptian military, and led to the suicide of a senior officer. By early 1967, the Israeli intelligence network in Egypt had detected Nasser's preparations for war with Israel, and more informants were recruited. By early May 1967, the Mossad was able to inform Israeli commanders the precise time to attack Egyptian airbases.

In a campaign called "Operation Yated", Israel passed false information to the Egyptian via a double agent. In the 1950s, Egyptian intelligence agent Refaat Al-Gammal, posing as an Egyptian Jew named Jacques Bitton, infiltrated Israel. He was soon arrested as a spy by Shin Bet, and elected to become a double agent rather than spend decades in prison. On the eve of the war, Gamal transferred false information to Egypt. He informed his Egyptian handlers that according to Israeli war plans, Israel would open an attack on Egypt with a ground offensive. His intelligence was one of the reasons the Egyptians left their planes in the open on the runways of their airbases, allowing the Israelis to easily destroy them.

The Israeli army had a total strength, including reservists, of 264,000, though this number could not be sustained, as the reservists were vital to civilian life. James Reston, writing in The New York Times on May 23, 1967, noted, "In discipline, training, morale, equipment and general competence his [Nasser's] army and the other Arab forces, without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, are no match for the Israelis.... Even with 50,000 troops and the best of his generals and air force in Yemen, he has not been able to work his way in that small and primitive country, and even his effort to help the Congo rebels was a flop."

On the evening of June 1, Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan called Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Southern Command Brigadier General Yeshayahu Gavish to present plans against Egypt. Rabin had formulated a plan in which Southern Command forces would fight their way to the Gaza Strip and then hold the territory and its people hostage until Egypt agreed to reopen the Straits of Tiran; while Gavish had a more comprehensive plan that called for the destruction of Egyptian forces in the Sinai. Rabin favored Gavish's plan, which was then endorsed by Dayan with the caution that a simultaneous offensive against Syria should be avoided.

Even as plans were made for an offensive operation, Israeli society prepared for an Arab invasion. Israeli civilians dug fortifications and defenses, and preparations were made for evacuating children to Europe. About 14,000 hospital beds were readied. Antidotes for poison gas victims, expected to arrive in waves of some 200, were stockpiled, and Germany donated some 20,000 gas masks. Some 10,000 graves were dug. Diaspora Jews played a key role in the preparations. Volunteers arrived in great numbers, and preference was given to young and skilled bachelors.

There were massive donations and fund drives from both Jews and sympathetic non-Jews. French Jews expressed their willingness to donate blood, house evacuated Israeli children, and sell artwork to raise money. According to Michael Oren's account of the war, there was a sense of an approaching catastrophe in Israel, with talk of widespread bombings of Israeli cities and an entire generation of soldiers being wiped out.

You must have only read the first few lines of the list of attacks, it's much more than rapes and murders, and they happen to happen right before the dates you posted of Israeli attacks...coincidence? Don't think so.

June 7, 1953 - A youngster was killed and three others were wounded, in a shooting attacks on residential areas in southern Jerusalem.

June 9, 1953 - Gunmen attacked a farming community near Lod, and killed one of the residents. The gunmen threw hand grenades and sprayed gunfire in all directions. On the same night, another group of terrorists attacked a house in the town of Hadera. This occurred a day after Israel and Jordan signed an agreement, with UN mediation, in which Jordan undertook to prevent terrorists from crossing into Israel from Jordanian territory.

June 10, 1953 - Attackers infiltrating from Jordan destroyed a house in the farming village of Mishmar Ayalon.

June 11, 1953 - Gunmen attacked a young couple in their home in Kfar Hess, and shot them to death.

Sept 2, 1953 - Attackers infiltrated from Jordan, and reached the neighborhood of Katamon, in the heart of Jerusalem. They threw hand grenades in all directions. No one was hurt.

October 12, 1953 - Yehud attack - A Palestinian Fedayeen squad threw a grenade into a civilian house in Yehud, killing a woman and two of children.

Mar 17, 1954 - Scorpion Pass Massacre - Bandits ambushed a bus traveling from Eilat to Tel Aviv, and opened fire at short range when the bus reached the area of Ma'ale Akrabim (Scorpion Pass) in the northern Negev. In the initial ambush, the bandits killed the driver and wounded most of the passengers. The bandits then boarded the bus, and shot some of the passenger, one by one. Eleven passengers were murdered. Survivors recounted how the murderers spat on the bodies and abused them. The massacre was apparently a reprisal raid conducted by members of a Bedouin tribe expelled from the al-Auja region of the Sinai three and a half years earlier.

Jan 2, 1955 - Gunmen attacked and killed 2 hikers in the Judean Desert.

Mar 24, 1955 - Gunmen threw hand grenades and opened fire on a crowd at a wedding in the farming community of Patish, in the Negev. A young woman was killed, and eighteen people were wounded in the attack.

April 11, 1955 - Shafir shooting attack - Two Palestinian militants whom infiltrated to Israel from Jordan opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafir, killing three children and a youth worker and injuring five, three of them seriously.

August 29, 1955 - Beit Oved attack - a Palestinian Fedayeen squad fired small arms at a group of Israeli laborers, killing four and injuring ten.

Apr 7, 1956 - A resident of Ashkelon was killed in her home, when attackers threw three hand grenades into her house. Two members of kibbutz Givat Haim were killed, when terrorists opened fire on their car, on the road from Plugot Junction to Mishmar HaNegev. There were further hand grenade and shooting attacks on homes and cars, in areas such as Nitzanim and Ketziot. One person was killed and three others wounded.

Apr 11, 1956 - Gunmen opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafir. Three children and a youth worker were killed on the spot, and five were wounded, including three seriously.

Apr 29, 1956 - Egyptians killed Roi Rotenberg, 21 years of age, from Nahal Oz.

August 16, 1956 - Egged bus 391 ambush - a Palestinian Fedayeen squad carries out an attack on an Israeli civilian passenger bus traveling from Tel-Aviv to Eilat. Three Israeli soldiers and a female civilian passenger were shot dead by the attackers who ambushed the bus. In addition, three other civilian passengers were injured in the attack.

Sept 12, 1956 - Ein Ofarim killings - Attackers killed three Druze guards at the Ein Ofarim facility, in the Arabah region.

Sept 23, 1956 - Ramat Rachel shooting attack - Gunmen opened fire from a Jordanian position, killing four archaeologists and wounded sixteen others near kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

Sept 24, 1956 - Attackers killed a girl in the fields of the farming community of Aminadav, near Jerusalem.

Oct 4, 1956 - Negev desert road ambush - A squad of 10 armed Palestinian Arab militants, who infiltrated into Israel from Jordan, ambush and kill five Israeli construction workers in Sdom.

Oct 9, 1956 - Two workers were killed in an orchard of the youth village, Neve Hadassah, in the Sharon region.

[edit]Suez Crisis, October 1956-March 1957

Nov 8, 1956 - Gunmen opened fire on a train, attacked cars and blew up wells, in the North and Center of Israel. Six Israelis were wounded.

Feb 18, 1957 - Two civilians were killed by landmines, next to Nir Yitzhak, on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.

Mar 8, 1957 - A shepherd from kibbutz Beit Guvrin was killed by terrorists in a field near the kibbutz.

Apr 16, 1957 - Terrorists infiltrated from Jordan, and killed two guards at Kibbutz Mesilot.

May 20, 1957 - A gunman opened fire on a truck in the Arava region, killing a worker.

May 29, 1957 - A tractor driver was killed and two others wounded, when the vehicle struck a landmine, next to kibbutz Kissufim.

June 23, 1957 - Israelis were wounded by landmines, close to the Gaza Strip.

Aug 23, 1957 - Two guards of the Israeli Mekorot water company were killed near Kibbutz Beit Govrin.

Dec 21, 1957 - A member of kibbutz Gadot was killed in the Kibbutz fields.

Feb 11, 1958 - Terrorists killed a resident of moshav Yanov who was on his way to Kfar Yona, in the Sharon area.

Apr 5, 1958 - Terrorists lying in an ambush shot and killed two people near Tel Lakhish.

Apr 22, 1958 - Jordanian soldiers shot and killed two fishermen near Aqaba.

May 26, 1958 - Four Israeli police officers were killed in a Jordanian attack on Mount Scopus, in Jerusalem. At 1654 Local time Lieutenant-Colonel Flint of the Mixed Armistice Commission was killed apparently by a single sniper round while trying to evacuate the dead and wounded Israelis from an Israeli police patrol. The Israeli police patrol was on a disputed route past the al-Issawiya village in the Jordanian controlled area of Mount Scopus.

Nov 17, 1958 - Syrian terrorists killed the wife of the British air attaché in Israel, who was staying at the guesthouse of the Italian Convent on the Mt. of the Beatitudes.

Dec 3, 1958- A shepherd was killed at Kibbutz Gonen. In the artillery attack that followed, 31 civilians were wounded.

Jan 23, 1959 - A shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan was killed.

Feb 1, 1959 - Three civilians were killed by a terrorist landmine near Moshav Zavdiel.

Apr 15, 1959 - A guard was killed at kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

Apr 27, 1959 - Two hikers were shot at close range and killed near Massada.

Oct 3, 1959 - A shepherd from kibbutz Heftziba was killed near kibbutz Yad Hana.

Apr 26, 1960 - Terrorists killed a resident of Ashkelon south of the city.

Apr 12, 1962 - Terrorists fired on an Egged bus on the way to Eilat; one passenger was wounded.

Sept 30, 1962 - Two terrorists attacked an Egged bus on the way to Eilat. No one was wounded.

May 31, 1965 - Jordanian Legionnaires fired on the neighborhood of Musrara in Jerusalem, killing two civilians and wounding four.

June 1, 1965 - Terrorists attack a house in Kibbutz Yiftah.

Sept 29, 1965 - A terrorist was killed as he attempted to attack Moshav Amatzia.

Nov 7, 1965 - A Fatah cell that infiltrated from Jordan blew up a house in Moshav Givat Yeshayahu, south of Beit Shemesh. The house was destroyed, but the inhabitants were unhurt.

Apr 25, 1966 - Explosions placed by terrorists wounded two civilians and damaged three houses in moshav Beit Yosef, in the Beit She'an Valley.

May 16, 1966 - Two Israelis were killed when their jeep hit a terrorist landmine, north of the Sea of Galilee and south of Almagor. Tracks led into Syria.

July 14, 1966 - Terrorists attacked a house in Kfar Yuval, in the North.

July 19, 1966 - Terrorists infiltrated into Moshav Margaliot on the northern border and planted nine explosive charges.

Oct 27, 1966 - A civilian was wounded by an explosive charge on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem.

These were all incidents between 48 and 67, doesn't even mention the ones after 67, or the ones before 48, in which hundreds of Jews died(in several attacks between 1920 and 1948).

Also, again, I disagree with you that the future holds a one state solution. I am optimistic about a two state solution.

And, I do believe that the wall, along with operation defensive shield, among other reasons, and not just a tactical decision by Hamas, were among the main reasons that Israel has not suffered many serious terrorist attacks in the past 9 years.

Edited December 7, 2012 by OriZ

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

So what we know is that there isn't going to be any fantasy of going back to pre 1967 borders. It's called war. To the winners go the spoils. You don't see the US giving all the land back to the Indians do you? Also forget the notion of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. That isn't happening. Jerusalem will eventually be restored as the rightful capital of Israel as it should be. The West Bank and Gaza are going to continue to shrink. The next big rocket barrage is going to mark the end of the Hamas terror organization. The two state solution went down the tubes after several wars between Israel and it's Arab neighbors. You can't lose several wars to your opponent and then expect to get every thing back that you lost to said opponent. It doesn't work that way. Israel was nice enough to give the Sinai back to Egypt. That went above and beyond goodwill. They can make the Sinai the new Palestine.

Goooo Israel!!

[OriZ 3,157]

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is commenting on his decision not to run in the upcoming Knesset elections, days after party registration closed. In a special interview with Ynet he explains his personal dilemma regarding entering the race, Israel's isolation in the international arena and Operation Pillar of Defense.

"I saw a (political) arena I didn’t like. Knesset members being auctioned off and in my camp there were other considerations that influenced my decision. I'm not blaming anyone. The general atmosphere was that there was no sense of proportionality, responsibility or an attempt to put state over ego. There was also the personal persecution of the state prosecutor who decided to appeal (the ruling clearing Olmert of corruption charges)."

Did your family's objection not play a role in your decision?

"We never got around to those discussions. There were two considerations: the political landscape and the fact that entering the race would mean dividing my attention to several areas."

Is Tzipi Livni's Hatnua Party good for Israeli politics?

"I can't give an accurate estimation. I hope the centrist bloc will be strong enough to replace the government."

Olmert. 'Israel ruled by far-right leadership' (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

What do you think about the Netanyahu-Lieberman alliance?

"It's the most natural thing in the world. Lieberman and Bibi (Benjamin Netanyahu) have the same opinions. Israel is being ruled by a radical far-right leadership that is getting into a confrontation with the entire international community."

What is your interpretation of the Palestinians' success at the UN?

"The Palestinian move entails possible complications for Israel. It's the first time the UN solidifies the notion of two states – a Palestinian state separate from Israel. I don't think it's a catastrophe.

"Nevertheless, what does Israel look like when 139 states vote against us, 41 European states abstain so as not to embarrass Israel and President Obama uses all of his personal prestige and that of the US to back Israel? What is the Israeli stance exactly? The Palestinians filed their request and we punish them with the construction of thousands of housing units. It's a form of defiance, an attempt to take on the international community.

Netanyahu and Lieberman (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

What are you hearing from the US administration about our government and prime minister?

"I don't want to repeat what I heard. I wouldn't hide it if it were words of praise. As a citizen of Israel, you feel bad hearing these things, and not so long ago the president and the prime minister were the best of friends. How did we get to such a personal lack of trust? We all remember Sarkozy's words and Obama's response."

Are we headed to an explosion with the US?

There were many explosions. America is Israel's friend. It is committed to Israel's security and no government will ruin Obama's commitment. Romney was also a friend of Israel, we should not have interfered in this campaign. We no longer have the critical ability to talk face to face."

Olmert stresses he offers no counsel to any foreign elements.

"It is my impression that Israel is systematically losing any sympathy it may have had in the international community. This was evident in the past few weeks. We declared we would strike in Iran and decide for ourselves. But when we needed a ceasefire – we needed everyone. Everyone came and helped reach a ceasefire with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

"Never has the Egyptian president met with Hamas in his palace. The government failed to create the right leverage, including with Turkey. It's a strategic mistake of the first order. I think we are losing the same layer of support."

'We all remember Sarkozy's words (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

"When Operation Cast Lead ended, when 1,600 Palestinians were killed, I headed a government that constantly fought terror. This government is not doing enough, but talks a lot. When we launched a ground operation, all of Europe's leaders lined up to praise Israel."

Was Operation Pillar of Defense a strategic failure?

"There was justification to kill Jabari. I laud that decision. But the bottom line is that the result was that we did not stop Hamas or the Jihad. They have become stronger having gotten a diplomatic umbrella. In my day Mashaal never dared come near Gaza. Today he appears as a triumphant hero. I don't want to point fingers. Have things improved? They have de facto recognition. It's not a good sign.

Should Israel enter into negotiations with Hamas?

"If Hamas stops terror and accepts the terms I'll sit down with them. The government's position is right and is an extension of mine own and Sharon's positions. You can't say 'we won't talk to Hamas' and then weaken Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) who is fighting terror. He was elected and is the Palestinian people's foremost representative. He is against terror."

But he didn't accept Israel's peace plan

"He made a very serious and unforgivable mistake. He understands that now. He asked for three more months to sign the agreement. Take that and compare it to Hamas' statements and choose who to talk to. This government is not offering any alternative to terror. "

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4317183,00.html

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Obviously you and I are both aware of the demographic issue, so that's not what I was saying. I was referring to the peoples that are here RIGHT NOW. I'm not gonna look at the past - at Jews or Arabs - as almost a million Jews had to either leave or were kicked out of Muslim countries, only 600,000 of them ended up in Israel. If they left because they were zionists, then they wouldn't have gone somewhere else. So that's already 400,000, plus out of the ones who did go to Israel not all of them left willingly. About 700,000 Arabs left Israel, and not all of them were exiled either...many left because they wanted to or because their leaders told them to, while convincing them soon they'll beat the newborn state and be able to return to their homes in Haifa, Acco, etc...a lie some of them still believe today. So lets not look at the past, just as I'm not saying Jews should be able to return to their homes in Arab countries, or even to their homes in the west bank, I'm saying exactly the same with Palestinians, I'm not a hypocrite...what I am saying though is that the people that live on the land already now, today, whether Arabs or Jews, in the green line or outside of it, have the same rights on it. Me saying that wasn't directed specifically at you, but towards people(that unfortunately do actually exist) that think only Palestinians have rights on the land.

It’s simply not true that almost a million Jews either “had to leave or were kicked out of Muslim countries,” and I’ve already addressed that. From my previous post which I linked for you (but now suspect you didn't read):

Yes, many Jews were expelled from many of the Arab countries in 1948, their property seized - and that was outrageous, horrible, legally and morally inexcusable. Some Jews were officially expelled, some were “encouraged to leave“ by the Arab governments (very frightening,) and some simply fled in fear, leaving everything behind.

But this also did not occur in a vacuum - it was a direct response (however wrong it was) to what Israel itself was doing in 1948 - expelling the Palestinians.

The government of Israel officially considers all Jews from Arab countries to be refugees.

However, not all the Sephardim and Mizrahim (“Arab Jews” as Palestinians call them) who ended up in Israel were forced out of Muslim countries - hundreds of thousands who came to the new Jewish State did so of their own choice. Some were (understandably) uneasy about the changing political situation and growing insecurity in their home countries, and decided to make the move for that reason.

But many also had their own yearnings to go. They were strongly urged to do so by the Israeli government - which was willing to provide transport and everything needed. New immigrants were given many financial and other incentives to make it very tempting.

“I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee”

- Ran Cohen, born in Iraq, former member of Knesset

“We are not refugees. [some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations.”

- Yisrael Yeshayahu, born in Yemen, former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party

“I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists.”

- Shlomo Hillel, born in Iraq, former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party

Some Arab countries actually tried to persuade their Jewish citizens to stay. Jews were a significant part of the fabric of society in many Middle Eastern countries, and their sudden mass departure would leave some pretty big gaps in business and commerce.

If you remember the piece I posted here:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/312245-on-the-day-yafas-refugees-return/page__p__4700624__fromsearch__1#entry4700624

...there is a very insightful conversation with a Moroccan Jew (now an Israeli.) Remembering Morocco, he says:

“They’re good people there, no two ways about it. Morocco is a good place. And they welcome us very nicely. And they agree, they keep telling us we belong there.”

So, the government of Israel insists that all Jews from Arab countries are “refugees,” whether or not they decided to emigrate voluntarily, and whether or not those Arab countries prohibit them from returning. Israel has also compiled a long list of lost property and estimated its value. The idea is that Jews who left Arab lands and Palestinian refugees could somehow cancel each other out - that confiscating Palestinian property somehow constitutes "restitution" for claims of Jewish losses in other Arab countries (whose losses occurred afterwards.) This doesn't make any legal sense at all.

As far as the Palestinians who left during the Nakba, many of them were indeed forcibly expelled - such as loaded onto trucks at the point of a gun and dumped across the border in Gaza. But none of the Palestinian refugees left their homes with the intention to emigrate to another country - they were civilians fleeing a war zone, who wished to return to their homes and property once the fighting was over. And they had every expectation of doing so - which is their right under international conventions, same as it's the right of Jewish refugees to return to their homes in Arab lands and to reclaim their property.

I know that stories are repeated about Arab leaders supposedly urging Palestinians to leave their homes, but there is no evidence of that. Erskine Childers did an extensive study of all radio broadcasts during 1948 (the BBC had monitored and transcribed them) and he found that in fact it was Zionist broadcasts that urged Palestinian civilians to flee - Arab leaders were urging civilians to stay in their homes:

There was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put. To select only two examples: on April 4, as the first great wave of flight began, Damascus Radio broadcast an appeal to everyone to stay at their homes and jobs. On April 24, with the exodus now a flood, Palestine Arab leaders warned that:

Certain elements and Jewish agents are spreading defeatist news to create chaos and panic among the peaceful population. Some cowards are deserting their houses, villages or cities. . . Zionist agents and corrupt cowards will be severely punished (Al-Inqaz, the Arab Liberation Radio, at 12.00 hours).

Even Jewish broadcasts (in Hebrew) mentioned such Arab appeals to stay put. Zionist newspapers in Palestine reported the same: none so much as hinted at any Arab evacuation orders.

The fact is that Israel's official charges, which have vitally influenced the last ten years of Western thought about the refugees, are demonstrably and totally hollow. And from this alone, suspicion is justified. Why make such charges at all? On the face of it, this mass exodus might have been entirely the result of "normal" panic and wartime dislocation.

We need not even touch upon Arab evidence that panic was quite deliberately incited. The evidence is there, on the Zionist record. For example, on March 27, four days before the big offensive against Arab centres by the official Zionist (Haganah) forces, the Irgun's radio unit broadcast in Arabic. Irgun, a terrorist organisation like the Stern Gang, was officially disowned by Ben Gurion and the Haganah. Yet just four days before the Haganah offensive Irgun warned "Arabs in urban agglomerations" that typhus, cholera and similar diseases would break out, "heavily" among. them "in April and May."

The effect may be imagined. Two weeks later, it was this same Irgun, apparently so solicitous of Arab welfare, that butchered the people of Deir Yassin. Irgun then called a press conference to announce the deed; paraded other captured Arabs through Jewish quarters of Jerusalem to be spat upon; then released them to tell their kin of the experience. Arthur Koestler called the "bloodbath" of Deir Yassin "the psychologically decisive factor in this spectacular exodus." But this was only Irgun, it may be said. Is there evidence that official Zionist forces-the Haganah under Ben Gurion and the Jewish Agency-were inciting panic? An Israeli Government pamphlet of 1958 states that "the Jews tried, by every means open to them, to stop the Arab evacuation" (this same 1958 pamphlet has diluted Deir Yassin to "the one and only instance of Jewish high-handed (sic) action in this war").

There is one recorded instance of such an appeal. It is beyond dispute even by Arabs, that in Haifa the late gentle Mayor, Shabeitai Levi, with the tears streaming down his face, implored the city's Arabs to stay. But elsewhere in Haifa, Arthur Koestler wrote in his book that Haganah loudspeaker vans and the Haganah radio promised that city's Arabs escort to "Arab territory," and "hinted at terrible consequences if their warning were disregarded." There are many witnesses of this loudspeaker method elsewhere. In Jerusalem the Arabic warning from the vans was, "The road to Jericho is open! Fly from Jerusalem before you are all killed!" (Meyer Levin in Jerusalem Embattled). Bertha Vester, a Christian missionary, reported that another theme was, "Unless you leave your homes, the fate of Deir Yassin will be your fate." The Haganah radio station also broadcast, in Arabic, repeated news of Arabs fleeing "in terror and fear" from named places.

...

This is what Nathan Chofshi, one of the original Jewish pioneers in Palestine, wrote in an ashamed rebuttal of an American Zionist rabbi's charges of evacuation orders:

If Rabbi Kaplan really wanted to know what happened, we old Jewish settlers in Palestine who witnessed the fight could tell him how and in what manner we, Jews, forced the Arabs to leave cities and villages ... some of them were driven out by force of arms; others were made to leave by deceit, lying and false promises. It is enough to cite the cities of Jaffa, Lydda, Ramleh, Beersheba, Acre from among numberless others. (in `Jewish Newsletter,' New York, February 9, 1959).

Were official Zionist troops involved at any of these places? I propose to select, for the sake of brevity, only the Lydda-Ramleh area. It was about the exodus from this area, among others, that the Economist reported. "Jewish troops gave them an hour to quit."

- Erskine Childers, May 12, 1961, The Spectator

Will continue in my next post....

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Israel accepted the partition plan, and the Arab countries did not...true? In response it was attacked by Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Jordan all at once....if that's not called being forced upon you then I don't know what is. Had they just accepted the plan, and not tried to destroy the new state(which they openly declared is their intent to do) then none of the results of the war, including the attack of Um Rashrash would have happened.

I also answered this in the link I gave you, but I don't think you read it either. Let me recap:

UN 181 was a General Assembly (non-binding) recommendation to partition Palestine, and its implementation hinged on it being accepted by both parties (both the Arabs and the Zionists) or by the Security Council. Neither happened. Why should the Arab League be faulted for refusing to accept a defunct resolution that even the Security Council didn't accept ?

When the implementation didn't happen, the Zionists decided to take advantage of the opportunity created by the departing of British troops at the expiration of the Mandate, and unilaterally declared a State of Israel on more than half of historic Palestine (specifically stating its borders were as per the defunct UN Partition Plan.)

On May 15, 1948, the Arab League declared war - the day after the Zionists declared the State of Israel, and after the Zionists had already been attacking and occupying Palestinian villages - outside the area proposed for the Jewish state - for weeks and months, conducting massacres and driving hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into neighboring Arab countries:

For the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion...The attackers 'lined men, women and children up against the walls and shot them,'...The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country.

- Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel"

Before the end of the mandate, and therefore before any possible intervention by Arab states, the Jews, taking advantage of their superior military preparation and organization, had occupied...most of the Arab cities in Palestine before May 15, 1948. Tiberias was occupied on April 19, 1948, Haifa on April 22, Jaffa on April 28, the Arab quarters in the New City of Jerusalem on April 30, Beisan on May 8, Safad on May 10 and Acre on May 14, 1948...

- Henry Cattan, "Palestine, The Arabs and Israel"

All of this BEFORE what Zionists claim was the beginning of the war, and BEFORE the Arabs states got involved.

During that fateful April of 1948, eight out of thirteen major Zionist military attacks on Palestinians occurred in the territory granted to the Arab state.

In contrast, the Palestine Arabs did not seize any of the territories reserved for the Jewish state under the partition resolution.

- Henry Cattan, "Palestine, The Arabs and Israel"

The atrocities, expulsions and dispossessions conducted by Zionists against the Palestinian population (which took place BEFORE May 15, 1948) are what prompted the Arab states to declare war. The Arab League specifically mentions these crimes and the urgent need to protect the indigenous population of Palestine as its reason for declaring war - they had pleaded for the international community to do this, to no avail.

And by the way, it wasn't just Arabs who were unhappy about the UN resolution to partition Palestine. The Zionists didn't like it at all -- they thought they should be given all of Palestine, and their leaders had no intentions of abiding by the UN resolution:

In internal discussion in 1938 [David Ben-Gurion] stated that 'after we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine'...

In 1948, Menachem Begin declared that: 'The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature of institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel, All of it. And forever.

- Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

And that's exactly what the Zionists have done ever since.

Note that there is no UN resolution condemning the Arab countries for their military response to Zionist attacks, but rather scores of resolutions demanding Israel to cease its occupation of Palestinian lands and allow the return of the refugees. There is a reason for this: the Arab countries were acting within the parameters of international law; Israel was not.

Why would a defunct UN resolution that was never implemented by the Security Council be the pertinent legal reference on the establishment of Israel, while the hundreds of UN resolutions actually passed by the Security Council (which demand Israel end its illegal occupation) are somehow irrelevant ?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

So like I said before, neither side is a saint, but to put it all on Israel is historically wrong.

The reason I'm posting out of wikipedia is mainly due to shortage of time, as it is the easiest and quickest to pull in English usually. I do have other links but most are in Hebrew, also I would not post something I don't already know from other sources to be true.

It's ok to cite Wikipedia; just please include links when you quote any source.

Anyway, the point is not whether one side is a saint or a devil - obviously, they are all human beings - but rather: What does international law say about Israel’s occupation and settlements and blockade of Gaza, and are they the major impediment to peace ? As we know, international law says they are illegal, and the international community seems to increasingly agree that they are also the major impediment to peace.

I said it very clearly nothing justifies deliberately attacking civilians, and that's without going into the details as you're probably aware of in that case of whether they knew there were people in those houses or thought they were empty. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt assuming they knew. It was still a response to a prior attack. It doesn't justify it which I'm now saying for the 3rd time, but again had that attack not taken place then neither would the retaliation. As for Samu, I was in a hurry and the pasting didn't come out complete and I didn't have time to change it, had to leave...but anyway here is the rest of it

<<lengthy cut and paste>>

Again, I'm not saying all decisions by Israel were or are always right, there are many stupid decisions made, both internally and foreign, to this day...the point is it was a response, yet again, to previous aggression.

Please do not cut and paste entire Wiki articles - just quote the snips that are pertinent to your specific argument and link the source for further reading. It’s not just a courtesy to the reader, it’s part of the Fair Usage rules on copyrighted material. But what I said about Sammu is confirmed in your link:

According to Tom Segev, Israel's goal in the operation was to demolish houses in Palestinian villages located south of Hebron as a show of force to preempt future Palestinian violence. Israel hoped that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame al-Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups. Additionally, Israel aimed to warn Jordan as well as Syria of its military strength and tactics, without actually confronting the Jordanian Armed Forces.

So the Israelis strafed a civilian village that wasn't involved in any fighting, for no other purpose than to display their weaponry and ruthlessness. Definitely not angel behavior, and also pretty much certain to provoke retaliation.

I have to point out that your perception of the timeline of events seems to always begin with an “Arab” attack, and present any Zionist/Israeli atrocities afterwards as therefore simply “responses” to “Arab provocations.” But history doesn’t begin the day that a Jew is attacked. The Zionist project to get rid of the natives of Palestine and appropriate their land was the initial provocation, and this is what has led to the many acts of violence on both sides - one side supporting that project, and the other side resisting it.

How do I think the Palestinians feel? I'm sure some of them have great fears of Israel or Israelis, which are usually not justified. There are also, however, some of them that know most Israelis want not harm them, and have Israeli friends, or even support Israel. I gave before the example of my little story while guarding, and I think that is a good example, cause I walked away thinking man this guy must be traumatized...

I think your story did open a window for you, but I don’t think you are quite ready to look at the view full on. Just wondering - have you ever watched any interviews with Palestinian children (for instance in Gaza) where they are asked about what their fears are, and what they think Israelis want to do to them ?

As for the 6 day war:

<<lengthy unsourced cut and paste>>

You must have only read the first few lines of the list of attacks, it's much more than rapes and murders, and they happen to happen right before the dates you posted of Israeli attacks...coincidence? Don't think so.

<<lengthy unsourced cut and paste>>

These were all incidents between 48 and 67, doesn't even mention the ones after 67, or the ones before 48, in which hundreds of Jews died(in several attacks between 1920 and 1948).

I read them all and I stand by my analysis - most of these are not examples of “Arab countries attacking Israel” - they are criminal acts, certainly so. But incidents like “a member of a Jordanian armed group raped and murdered an Israeli girl,” or “Gunmen kill two hikers in the Judean desert” are not at all the same thing as “an Arab country attacking Israel.”

And I was only responding to the parameter you had established - the 20 years before 1967 when you claimed “Israel only wanted to be left alone.“ If you want to talk about 1920-1948, we certainly can - there were thousands of Palestinians murdered in various terror attacks carried out by Jewish terrorists, which included bus bombings, market bombings, and more. If you want to talk about 1967 til now, we can do that, too. We can even include lengthy cut-and-paste compilations of incidents. I will warn you though, it’s not going to serve your argument, either, as the list of atrocities against Palestinians is much longer and much more grievous in terms of casualties, not to mention property lost.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Also, again, I disagree with you that the future holds a one state solution. I am optimistic about a two state solution.

And, I do believe that the wall, along with operation defensive shield, among other reasons, and not just a tactical decision by Hamas, were among the main reasons that Israel has not suffered many serious terrorist attacks in the past 9 years.

If it's for Israel's defense, then why isn’t The Wall built along the Green Line ?

Thousands of ordinary Palestinian laborers are able to sneak around/across The Wall into Israel to work illegally - there are 30,000 of them in Israel on any given day. You really think Hamas can’t do the same thing ? The Wall only stops people who follow the rules - it doesn’t stop criminals or people who are determined to get around it. In fact, it is intended to unilaterally annex the illegal settlements, the bypass roads and much of the adjacent territory.

I know that the general idea of a two-state solution continues to get a lot of support in the Israeli public - that it's just the right-wingers who won't negotiate. But in fact, the prospects for any Israeli government willingly moving toward a viable 2-state solution, without external pressure, are very dim - and it's because of the internal politics of Israel. This is why:

Currently, there are just over 650,000 or so illegal settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They make up less than 10% of the total Israeli population. (I am not counting in their supporters who are not settlers themselves.) But due to Israel’s quirky coalition-driven political system, even this small fraction can have significant power to tip an election. This forces political parties to develop platforms that will be palatable to the settlers - as well as Israeli society overall which is tilting further and further to the right.

The settler population is growing about 3 times faster than the rest of the Israeli population - right now, their birthrate is about 7.7 kids per family. This means that settlers are becoming an increasingly larger percentage of the Israeli population, and that growth will continue to snowball.

The Netanyahu government of course is already extremely pro-settler. But future Israeli governments are likely to follow suit, even when they come from the so-called “left” or “center,” especially if current demographics (settler birthrate vs. secular birthrate) and voter trends continue.

This was actually part of the Israeli government’s plan in preventing a Palestinian state. The illegal settlements create not only a physical barrier to a viable contiguous Palestinian state, but they are also a political obstacle. No Israeli government can agree to remove any of them except a very small number of tiny, insignificant outposts without committing political suicide - the settlers are now numerous enough to bring down any coalition that tries to do this.

Israel’s leaders, its settlers, and its religious fanatics want land, not peace. And there is not much that Israelis can do internally to change that power equation.

So that takes us to what’s going on right now, which is a de-facto single state with Israel in control of the entire territory, and where half the population continues to be denied their political rights. I have no doubt that for the immediate future, Israel will continue to defy the international community on the settlement issue and continue to build. It will continue to deny Palestinians their political rights as well, until that time when it faces serious consequences for those actions. Netanyahu seems to be taking several moves that may point to an all-out annexation of the West Bank.

Of course the world rejects this situation - you can already see the various maneuvers going on in the international community which may indeed cause many headaches for the Israeli government. So, Israel will continue to control the land, but be increasingly isolated and pressured, much like South Africa, until its Apartheid system collapses and we end up with a single democratic state.

There is an international effort underway to prevent this - to “save Israel from itself” by trying to force Israel to give up the settlements and save the two-state solution. Unfortunately, it will not be enough to change the internal politics of Israel.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

<< Olmert interview >>

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4317183,00.html

Olmert wants to get back into the Prime Minister's office so badly he can taste it.

However, you're not going to have an easy time convincing me that the guy who launched the 2006 Lebanon massacre as well as the Cast Lead atrocity is such a peaceful guy...

[OriZ 3,157]

I did read everything you posted, however, we can agree to disagree on some stuff. The numbers I know speak of almost a million between 1948 and the early 70's.

Yes, resolution 181 was not binding, just as the current one is not binding(yet I have no problem with it).

When the implementation didn't happen, the Zionists decided to take advantage of the opportunity created by the departing of British troops at the expiration of the Mandate, and unilaterally declared a State of Israel on more than half of historic Palestine (specifically stating its borders were as per the defunct UN Partition Plan.)

This is how states were established all throughout history, actually in much worse manners, based on no decision at all - not even a non binding one - I'm not gonna repeat what some people have said on these forums before along the lines of to the winner goes the spoils because that's neither always humane nor true, and like I said I believe neither side is a saint and both sides are at equal fault to what brought us this far, we can't always agree on history but we can both agree on what needs to be done moving forward. Neither side is going away and both parties need to acknowledge the fact that the other side is here to stay, both peoples have lived with each other for so long that they probably couldn't live without each other now even if it were possible to attempt it.

Yes, I'm aware that there were things done by the Jewish side as well, as per this link for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine

Note that here also, the Arab attacks are "first". But that's not the point. This is not kindergarten and it doesn't matter who "started". We can sit and compare links and massacres all day. The point of the matter is like I've said above and like I've said in previous posts neither side is free of wrongdoing and the region needs peace moving forward which can only be achieved by a two state solution agreed upon by both sides.

I have also shown in what I posted(I guess YOU didn't read THAT huh? ) that indeed some of the Jews thought it was sufficient, and then there were others who thought it was a chance to get more of the land. I don't hide the truth and I don't paste only what "suits" my "side". I posted that black on white and that is also the reason why I posted what I posted about Samu. It's not that I didn't read it. I always try(not just here but with everything in life) to be as objective as I can be.

I have to point out that your perception of the timeline of events seems to always begin with an “Arab” attack, and present any Zionist/Israeli atrocities afterwards as therefore simply “responses” to “Arab provocations.” But history doesn’t begin the day that a Jew is attacked. The Zionist project to get rid of the natives of Palestine and appropriate their land was the initial provocation, and this is what has led to the many acts of violence on both sides - one side supporting that project, and the other side resisting it.

Again, all I was saying about that was in response to the attacks by Jews that you've said happened between 48 and 67...my point was that those attacks followed other attacks on the Jews, which brings me back to what I said in the first place to which you replied that. Had they just been left alone, they would have seen no need to retaliate. Maybe they still would have...maybe. I'll assume they wouldn't. But we'll never know.

I think your story did open a window for you, but I don’t think you are quite ready to look at the view full on. Just wondering - have you ever watched any interviews with Palestinian children (for instance in Gaza) where they are asked about what their fears are, and what they think Israelis want to do to them ?

Most of what I've seen Palestinian kids say(as they're dressed up like a martyr) is that their dream is to grow up, fight the Jews, kick the Jews off of their land and be martyrs so their people can return to Haifa, Nazareth, Jerusalem etc. No matter how much you think you've been wronged, teaching your child literally since breastfeeding that "resistance" is the only way and that killing as many Jews as possible will get you your land back is wrong.

Currently, there are just over 650,000 or so illegal settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They make up less than 10% of the total Israeli population. (I am not counting in their supporters who are not settlers themselves.) But due to Israel’s quirky coalition-driven political system, even this small fraction can have significant power to tip an election. This forces political parties to develop platforms that will be palatable to the settlers - as well as Israeli society overall which is tilting further and further to the right.

I happen to be one of a growing number of people who really think the system should be changed, and there are going to be attempts in the coming years, whether successful or not, to change it. Right now it is ridiculous, not just because of the settlers but also the Orthodox Jews. You can't have a coalition without appeasing all those small parties, which creates a bloated government, and government spending not in the right places. Here's to hoping it'll be changed soon.

Again I have to disagree with you though, I think a center-left government will seriously seek peace based on a two state solution, and will not cave into the same demographics that Netanyahu has to cave in to.

Olmert wants to get back into the Prime Minister's office so badly he can taste it.

However, you're not going to have an easy time convincing me that the guy who launched the 2006 Lebanon massacre as well as the Cast Lead atrocity is such a peaceful guy...

We will have to again agree to disagree on the point of wars. Just because someone wages a war does not necessarily mean they do not want peace and vice versa. Just like we disagreed 2-3 weeks ago about pillar of defense, we are bound to disagree on this too. And that's ok - it doesn't mean neither of us wants peace any less than the other. Olmert waged the war on Hezbollah due to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers...Israel already pulled out of Lebanon and yet they kidnapped 3, and then another 2. The second time "broke the camel's back" so to speak. There are atrocities that happen in war but again - Israel does not deliberately target civilians, at least that is my belief. I actually know from second hand stories from people who served whether in Lebanon, or Gaza, of operations that were cancelled once it was found that there are many civilians nearby, or assasinations of someone long sought after that were called off for the same reason. So to call a defensive war a massacre I completely disagree with, which brings me back to what I said a few days ago...I don't agree with everything Israel does. Internal or foreign. Socially, economically, politically. I have issues with more things than you can imagine. But when it comes to Israel's right to defend itself - I defend it. And to me that's all Olmert was trying to do. That does not make him want peace any less than you or me.

[Karee 4,190]

I did read everything you posted, however, we can agree to disagree on some stuff. The numbers I know speak of almost a million between 1948 and the early 70's.

Yes, resolution 181 was not binding, just as the current one is not binding(yet I have no problem with it).

This is how states were established all throughout history, actually in much worse manners, based on no decision at all - not even a non binding one - I'm not gonna repeat what some people have said on these forums before along the lines of to the winner goes the spoils because that's neither always humane nor true, and like I said I believe neither side is a saint and both sides are at equal fault to what brought us this far, we can't always agree on history but we can both agree on what needs to be done moving forward. Neither side is going away and both parties need to acknowledge the fact that the other side is here to stay, both peoples have lived with each other for so long that they probably couldn't live without each other now even if it were possible to attempt it.

Yes, I'm aware that there were things done by the Jewish side as well, as per this link for instance: http://en.wikipedia....atory_Palestine

Note that here also, the Arab attacks are "first". But that's not the point. This is not kindergarten and it doesn't matter who "started". We can sit and compare links and massacres all day. The point of the matter is like I've said above and like I've said in previous posts neither side is free of wrongdoing and the region needs peace moving forward which can only be achieved by a two state solution agreed upon by both sides.

I have also shown in what I posted(I guess YOU didn't read THAT huh? ) that indeed some of the Jews thought it was sufficient, and then there were others who thought it was a chance to get more of the land. I don't hide the truth and I don't paste only what "suits" my "side". I posted that black on white and that is also the reason why I posted what I posted about Samu. It's not that I didn't read it. I always try(not just here but with everything in life) to be as objective as I can be.

Again, all I was saying about that was in response to the attacks by Jews that you've said happened between 48 and 67...my point was that those attacks followed other attacks on the Jews, which brings me back to what I said in the first place to which you replied that. Had they just been left alone, they would have seen no need to retaliate. Maybe they still would have...maybe. I'll assume they wouldn't. But we'll never know.

Most of what I've seen Palestinian kids say(as they're dressed up like a martyr) is that their dream is to grow up, fight the Jews, kick the Jews off of their land and be martyrs so their people can return to Haifa, Nazareth, Jerusalem etc. No matter how much you think you've been wronged, teaching your child literally since breastfeeding that "resistance" is the only way and that killing as many Jews as possible will get you your land back is wrong.

I happen to be one of a growing number of people who really think the system should be changed, and there are going to be attempts in the coming years, whether successful or not, to change it. Right now it is ridiculous, not just because of the settlers but also the Orthodox Jews. You can't have a coalition without appeasing all those small parties, which creates a bloated government, and government spending not in the right places. Here's to hoping it'll be changed soon.

Again I have to disagree with you though, I think a center-left government will seriously seek peace based on a two state solution, and will not cave into the same demographics that Netanyahu has to cave in to.

We will have to again agree to disagree on the point of wars. Just because someone wages a war does not necessarily mean they do not want peace and vice versa. Just like we disagreed 2-3 weeks ago about pillar of defense, we are bound to disagree on this too. And that's ok - it doesn't mean neither of us wants peace any less than the other. Olmert waged the war on Hezbollah due to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers...Israel already pulled out of Lebanon and yet they kidnapped 3, and then another 2. The second time "broke the camel's back" so to speak. There are atrocities that happen in war but again - Israel does not deliberately target civilians, at least that is my belief. I actually know from second hand stories from people who served whether in Lebanon, or Gaza, of operations that were cancelled once it was found that there are many civilians nearby, or assasinations of someone long sought after that were called off for the same reason. So to call a defensive war a massacre I completely disagree with, which brings me back to what I said a few days ago...I don't agree with everything Israel does. Internal or foreign. Socially, economically, politically. I have issues with more things than you can imagine. But when it comes to Israel's right to defend itself - I defend it. And to me that's all Olmert was trying to do. That does not make him want peace any less than you or me.

It's a shame two reasonable people can disagree on a message board, but still seem to find some common ground. Doesn't seem to be the case with the people that matter though.