Facts about the war in Israel


Off-Topic Discussions

351 to 400 of 668 << first < prev | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | next > last >>

Yakman wrote:

My point was that the situation is insanely complex - and putting four maps next to each other which are poorly described (at best) - and saying that serious information can be gleaned from them is misleading.

There's no demographic data there, no mention of Jordanian or Egyptian administration of territories, no mention of mandates, British or otherwise... What we get are two colors.

What you get is a story. What you can clearly see is that israel is larger than originally intended (and if you think there's legitimacy in a UN sanction, originally sanctioned) and that not only is the Palestinian section MUCH smaller than was intended, not only is it smaller than is sustainable, but its also broken up by areas of Isreali control. Those tiny areas are even less sustainable than even the small area would be in aggregate.


Another interesting article.
5 Lies the Media Keeps Repeating About Gaza


Yakman wrote:

My point was that the situation is insanely complex - and putting four maps next to each other which are poorly described (at best) - and saying that serious information can be gleaned from them is misleading.

There's no demographic data there, no mention of Jordanian or Egyptian administration of territories, no mention of mandates, British or otherwise... What we get are two colors.

Of course it's a complex situation. That doesn't, however, detract from the fact that the graphic shows a very clear picture of expanding Israeli territory, as BigNorseWolf has already pointed out.

You can find this graphic (or similar ones) on many sites where they do in-depth analysis of the issue, politically and historically (I just chose this particular one because it was the largest and clearest I could find with a quick search).

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
BigNorseWolf wrote:
What you get is a story. What you can clearly see is that israel is larger than originally intended (and if you think there's legitimacy in a UN sanction, originally sanctioned) and that not only is the Palestinian section MUCH smaller than was intended, not only is it smaller than is sustainable, but its also broken up by areas of Isreali control. Those tiny areas are even less sustainable than even the small area would be in aggregate.

But what is it a story of?

Without seeing things like population centers, or demographic data, all I'm seeing is a relentless expansion of one color over another...

The reality is that the Jewish population was concentrated in certain areas, and the Palestinian population wasn't uniform across that Green that we see in 1947. We don't see how many people were where, or who they were, we don't see critical things like the fact that the Negev desert to the south is incredibly inhospitable, or the population concentrations on the coast and near Jerusalem. We don't see where water is, or the fact that half-a-million or more additional Jews are going to flood the new state of Israel within a few years of 1947, we don't see arable land, and on and on and on and on and on.

Nope. Just two colors.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Yakman wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
What you get is a story. What you can clearly see is that israel is larger than originally intended (and if you think there's legitimacy in a UN sanction, originally sanctioned) and that not only is the Palestinian section MUCH smaller than was intended, not only is it smaller than is sustainable, but its also broken up by areas of Isreali control. Those tiny areas are even less sustainable than even the small area would be in aggregate.

But what is it a story of?

Without seeing things like population centers, or demographic data, all I'm seeing is a relentless expansion of one color over another...

The reality is that the Jewish population was concentrated in certain areas, and the Palestinian population wasn't uniform across that Green that we see in 1947. We don't see how many people were where, or who they were, we don't see critical things like the fact that the Negev desert to the south is incredibly inhospitable, or the population concentrations on the coast and near Jerusalem. We don't see where water is, or the fact that half-a-million or more additional Jews are going to flood the new state of Israel within a few years of 1947, we don't see arable land, and on and on and on and on and on.

Nope. Just two colors.

So all of that justifies the expansion of said territory?


Good news, the "war" (punitive expedition??) ended.

According to the news 240 Palestinians and 5 Israeli died, with a little bit of irony I'll say HAMAS is much better than IDF at surgical strikes...
At the same time IDF is improving as last time they killed 1400 people!

But who can believe Israel is safer now?
It seems there was a bombing in a bus today in Tel-Aviv. No direct link but it's the proof (if any is needed) that bombs from either side are not the solution.

Most probably not enough of Palestinian nor Israeli blood was shed to avoid a next "war", that's sad, very sad!!

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
GentleGiant wrote:
So all of that justifies the expansion of said territory?

No. But it does outline the problems with simple maps. For starters just showing colors of a Partition Map ignores the story behind that map, which is pretty important if you are going to talk about what happens during/after its promulgation (there was a giant war brewing/going on), and why that map was thrown into the dustbin of history like so many other silly things.

If you don't show where the populations or resources are... well... zones of control can be imposed. By this I mean that "Palestinian Land" on the map might actually have a majority of Jews in certain areas, while the converse can be true as well (mostly discussing the 1947 map and the Partition Map). Moreover, the UN gave support for the creation of a State of Israel - certainly it intended for a state to be self-defensible and self-governing, which the allotted territories were not, and moreover, were not drawn with much regard for the people on the ground in any case, but as I have mentioned, were drawn to give the British cover to leave the Mandate.

The story is ridiculously complex; which is why people have been shooting at each other over the "Palestine Question" since the 1920s and there is no end in sight - a 2-color map places an unwanted degree of reductionism on the dilemma.


The debate over UN legitimacy is an interesting one - especially as it cuts both ways. If Israel wants to rely on UN mandated legitimacy, then it also has to sanction UN mandated legitimacy of a Palestinian state.

The original partition plan was seen to legally support this

More recently - UN Resolution 1397 explicitly calls for a two state solution.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

What do any of your additional factors change?

If the argument is that israel has a right to exist from the UN or british, clearly that doesn't hold water once israel goes beyond the boundaries set by those organizations.

If the argument is that israel is unsustainable because of a lack of size / water/ too much crowding then why doesn't that argument apply to the palastinians?

You can't just handwave that there is some measure of complexity that people are missing, you have to argue what it changes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You know. Morally, I don't support either side. They both have their 'points'. I don't agree Hamas is a 'terrorist army'. It's irrelevant if hamas fights with fatah, that would be like saying Obama isn't president because the republicans want to secede.

I have always (or at least for the last 20 years) said, the best way to settle this, is to move every last Jew to the United States, there is plenty of the room in the middle of our deserts for them (since they seem to like the desert so much) we can bring every last brick of the wailing wall and anything else they want with them.

With the money that has been spent to blow each other up in the last several decades we could easily have afforded to move everyone, and we can use honest, hard working, religious citizens who believe in sacrificing for the greater good, their communities and their beliefs.

Just move to the US already.

Edit: Plus I like Dreidels


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I find it interesting to watch this situation unfold from a country farther removed from either side than I am used to (as an American living in mainland China). I just saw some coverage of this on Chinese television and I think that it might be the most balanced coverage of anything that I have seen on the news in the 18 months that I have lived here in China (which might not necessarily be saying much since this is CCTV and Xinhua news we are talking about here. Certainly it is more balanced than the rather pro-Israeli American news and it is far less anti-Israeli than the news I would expect in many other countries (for example in Europe).

I found it interesting that the most balanced coverage that I have seen of the Israel-Palestinian conflict comes from the state news organ of communist China.


Could you go a little more in-depth on the observations of Chinese media? I'm rather curious about their news.


Icyshadow wrote:
Could you go a little more in-depth on the observations of Chinese media? I'm rather curious about their news.

I don;t know if I can give you a great analysis, since my Chinese is not quite good enough to 100% follow what I hear or see on TV. I'll try to give some context based on what I know though.

A few things that I noticed right away though: First they did not qualify the Gaza Strip as "Israeli-occupied", which jumped out at me, realitve to a lot of the articles likned to, especially in this thread.

Second, the CCTV camera crews were clearly there on the ground in Gaza as well as in Inrael. For example, they intercut footage of civilian infrastructure destruction in Gaza with Israeli emergency services responding to a rocket hitting with footage of an IDF strike on some Hamas leader's car. Again, I didn't quite understand the nuance of the reporter's copy, but it as far as I could tell it was relatively sympathetic to both sides. They also showed an Israeli government press conference without very much editing or commentary (beyond translation) and also briefly interviewed a Hamas fighter for example, which I would not expect to see on most western TV, although I had a little trouble following the Chinese dubbing.

I also know as background that China is kind of pulled both ways in this conflict. Historically, Mao said some very supportive things of the Palestinians in the 60's, but then backed off of that when the US and China normalized relations. China also still tries to have pull with the non-aligned movement in the UN, so that pulls them in a pro-Palestinian direction. Also at the moment, the Chinese feel that they need to take a very dim view of terrorism since they are trying to convince the rest of the world that the Uyghur independence advocates in Xinjiang are just another bunch of Islamist terrorists (which is pretty much complete BS). At the same time, they buy all sorts of military equipment from the Israelis that the US and Europe won't sell them since 1989. The Chinese also do a huge amount of high-tech business in the Arab world, and I know from experience that on many college campuses in China the majority of the foreign engineering students are Middle-Eastern. So from what I can tell it comes down to China trying to walk a very fine line when talking about the whole conflict, stuck as they are with their interests between the US, Israel and the Middle-East. The official line from the government is that they are "committed to a firm peace within a two-state framework", as you would expect from a state without very much ideological skin in the game who needs its economic ties to both sides in the conflict.

Keep in mind though that this is really not a huge story in China. It was given equal time on the news with the whole Diaoyu/Senkoku islands thing between Japan and China, and that story was as biased as I would expect from communist Chinese television.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
BigNorseWolf wrote:

What do any of your additional factors change?

If the argument is that israel has a right to exist from the UN or british, clearly that doesn't hold water once israel goes beyond the boundaries set by those organizations.

If the argument is that israel is unsustainable because of a lack of size / water/ too much crowding then why doesn't that argument apply to the palastinians?

You can't just handwave that there is some measure of complexity that people are missing, you have to argue what it changes.

I didn't. I said that the Partition Plan was cover for the British to leave. Which it was. There was never any effort to create a Palestinian state - in fact, we can deduce from the actions of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, there was little, if any interest on the Arab side for such a thing to exist.

The UN gave the creation of the State of Israel it's blessing, then gave them borders that were not going to work and no protection when ALL OF THEIR NEIGHBORS INVADED, not to secure the rights of the Palestinians, but to take land for themselves.

The Israelis responded by going to war until those invaders were forced to come to the table - that's the 1949 - 1967 border. The UN said basically, "Israel, you have the right to exist under this Partition Plan, but you have to fight for it!!"

It was a bogus bargain. The Palestinians weren't consulted in any of this - in fact, who was there to consult? They had no government and no official representatives. Their top guy had been pro-Hitler and the Brits had ignored them after the war, except when it was necessary to pit them against the Jews so that managing the territory was simpler. The Jews couldn't have been expected to keep borders that weren't defensible in a hostile neighborhood.

So, you have the 1967 War. The UN had come to recognize that the State of Israel had its border from its war of independence from 1949... but it had left the Palestinians in a legal limbo. Neither Egypt nor Jordan's claims on their occupied territories were recognized, although Jordan had formally annexed the West Bank and given the Palestinians there Jordanian citizenship, while Egpyt's "management" of Gaza was just cover for Nasser to spew pan-Arabism and plot to expand his UAR.

Again, we have TWO COLORS to tell this story.

So the war happens, and the Israelis take over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Their argument remains that these territories have been in legal limbo since the beginning, and to some extent they are right - there was no corresponding Palestinian state to match the Jewish one in 1947, there was no Gazan state organized by the Egyptians, and while the West Bank WAS part of Jordan, Jordan no longer claims that territory. So whose territory is it? There is no internationally recognized Palestinian gov't - at least not until before the Oslo accords... and now that gov't can't even make a show of claiming that it manages the Gaza Strip. Add to that fact that Israeli immigration into the West Bank means that some areas adjacent to Israel are almost entirely Jewish and BEHIND A 25 FOOT HIGH WALL! And on the Palestinian side, showing their communities divided doesn't really capture the full horrors of the occupation, because it doesn't show the enormous economic and social burden that goes along with having trigger-happy and extremely nervous men who are more than willing to shoot conducting at-will searches and looking the other way while your neighbor's house or olive grove is bulldozed.

Again, two colors.

Here's an easier scenario: Bosnia.

When the Bosnian War ended, the Serbs occupied about 2/3 of the country and had to settle for 49% of it. Now, you might say, well... you only constitute about 1/3 of the population, so you are making out on top.

Right?

Wrong.

The Serbs were THE FARMERS. The Bosnian Muslims lived in the cities. The reason the Serbs had "conquered" 2/3 of the country is that they occupied more space to begin with. So yeah, it's going to take a massive NATO air campaign to get them to agree to giving up control of land that they live on.

You draw a simple map, you give a simple population number (which, btw, is not given here), and you lose REALLY IMPORTANT DETAILS. And details like "where do people actually live" and "how many of them are there" and "what are the patterns of settlement" are at the heart of the matter.

But, let's go to the TWO COLOR SOLUTION!


WOW. Thanks for sharing, this is VERY VERY interesting. It's important to get views from without.

Saint Caleth wrote:
Icyshadow wrote:
Could you go a little more in-depth on the observations of Chinese media? I'm rather curious about their news.

I don;t know if I can give you a great analysis, since my Chinese is not quite good enough to 100% follow what I hear or see on TV. I'll try to give some context based on what I know though.

A few things that I noticed right away though: First they did not qualify the Gaza Strip as "Israeli-occupied", which jumped out at me, realitve to a lot of the articles likned to, especially in this thread.

Second, the CCTV camera crews were clearly there on the ground in Gaza as well as in Inrael. For example, they intercut footage of civilian infrastructure destruction in Gaza with Israeli emergency services responding to a rocket hitting with footage of an IDF strike on some Hamas leader's car. Again, I didn't quite understand the nuance of the reporter's copy, but it as far as I could tell it was relatively sympathetic to both sides. They also showed an Israeli government press conference without very much editing or commentary (beyond translation) and also briefly interviewed a Hamas fighter for example, which I would not expect to see on most western TV, although I had a little trouble following the Chinese dubbing.

I also know as background that China is kind of pulled both ways in this conflict. Historically, Mao said some very supportive things of the Palestinians in the 60's, but then backed off of that when the US and China normalized relations. China also still tries to have pull with the non-aligned movement in the UN, so that pulls them in a pro-Palestinian direction. Also at the moment, the Chinese feel that they need to take a very dim view of terrorism since they are trying to convince the rest of the world that the Uyghur independence advocates in Xinjiang are just another bunch of Islamist terrorists (which is pretty much complete BS). At the same time, they buy all sorts of military equipment from the Israelis that the US and Europe won't sell...


There was a glorious time, after 1972, when Maoist China, Zionist Israel and apartheid South Africa were the main quartermasters and stooges of American imperialism.

As the ancient Chinese proverb goes, "Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are."

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

ah, things that are not true, yet they are said.


I don't know. It was pretty apropos when I was hanging out with juvenile delinquents in middle school.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

true. but it has little to do with the particularly less-than-factual geopolitical arrangement from the early 1970s that you have described.


1972, of course, was the year of the Mao-Nixon rapprochement. The US-China-Israel-South Africa relationship took a little longer to come to fruition.

Israel, Nicaragua and the Contras

Israel and China: Military Relations

Israeli Relations with South Africa

Israel-South Africa-U.S.-Jonas Savimbi

Chinese Invasion of Vietnam

etc., etc.


Yakman wrote:
true. but it has little to do with the particularly less-than-factual geopolitical arrangement from the early 1970s that you have described.

Doodlebug's description was only one sentence, so yes, there's not much nuance there, but please tell me how it's "particularly less-than-factual."

Ninja'd by the goblin himself.


Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

1972, of course, was the year of the Mao-Nixon rapprochement. The US-China-Israel-South Africa relationship took a little longer to come to fruition.

Israel, Nicaragua and the Contras

Israel and China: Military Relations

Israeli Relations with South Africa

Israel-South Africa-U.S.-Jonas Savimbi

Chinese Invasion of Vietnam

etc., etc.

Indeed, I know there was some hubbub over Israel supporting apartheid, but I was a young tyke at the time, and so did not know much about this.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

China didn't invade Vietnam because the US wanted them to. They invaded Vietnam to teach them a lesson and punish them for overthrowing the pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. We were long gone from Vietnam by 1979 anyway, and China in 1972 was the national equivalent of an epileptic seizure and incapable of doing much more than writhing on the international scene while its neurons misfired.

The US/Israel relationship has a long-standing history of ups-and-downs and whatnot. Their clandestine partnership with South Africa that resulted in the two creating nuclear weapons... that was one of the downs. They are an independent country which acts independently, secure in the knowledge that no matter what they do, the USA will support them in the end. So, Israel does all kinds of things that the US doesn't like and merrily skips away.

As far as Israel/China goes, there's pretty important reasons for that connection that have little to do with "American Imperialism"

Did the US support South Africa's invasion of Angola? Yeah... but in the same way that we supported Iraq invading Iran. We thought it was a good thing, but didn't really do anything substantive about it. The South Africans, btw, supported UNITA, which was actively shooting at both of the other Angolan factions, one sponsored by the USSR and the other by the PRC. The pro-USSR/Cuban faction won the war and we didn't like that - but South Africa was 1,000x more involved than we were. A few CIA agents here and there does not make a foreign policy. If the PRC-backed faction hadn't collapsed, I'm sure we would have helped them out too.

Far more important "quartermasters and stooges" of the early 1970s would be the military juntas of Latin America and the royal families of the Middle East.


Yes, "stooges" implies that they were puppets. They weren't--they each were their own independent partners in American imperialism's anti-Soviet alliance.

China and Vietnam--Link

I have no idea who this Frederic A. Motiz guy is, but:

Amid doubt that China would invade, Deng Xiaoping travelled to Washington to brief President Carter on China's attack plans. Carter approved the Chinese invasion, "protected" China from Soviet counterattack and pushed China for restraint. The "worst possible case" of a nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union was averted.

National Review (Buckley's mag, right?) discussing Marxist historian Perry Anderson on China and Vietnam

South Africa in Angola--Yes, South Africa was more involved than the U.S. That's what happens in a proxy war.

Latin American quartermasters--You mean like Anastazio Somoza?

Spoiler:
"With few qualms and minimal outside criticism, Israel came to the rescue of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle and, from September 19 7 8 to July 19 7 9, helped him stave off history. Later it would be thrown up to Israel that when Washington and just about every other government in the world was boycotting Somoza, Israel had been willing to provide him with weapons. ,
***
Somoza had been introduced to Israeli weapons in 1974 at a special showing arranged for him in Managua. He had bought Dabur class patrol boats and Arava STOI. aircraft; by the time he fought his final battle he would have 14 Aravas to rush his troops from place to place.S
Soon after Somoza's U.S. aid was blocked, insurrection flared against him. In Septcmber 1978, there was fighting in most of Nicaragua's cities and a massive general strike in Managua that was supported by virtually the entire business community. Somoza shot his way out of it. His National Guard used 1,000 Uzi submachine guns and Galil rifles from Israel, and Somoza was expecting "thousands more" Galils.9 Although most Latin American leaders were hoping for his downfall, Somoza survived the September challenge. "Is eli-made weapons helped to save the Somoza dynasty," read one headline.
That autumn, Israeli rifles and ammunition arrived in large quantities. Some of the Galil rifles were "sent directly to a special terror unit commanded by Somoza's son, which carried out the murder of political opponents, among them women and children."" The Guard also used the new Israeli weapons in its "clean-up" operations, which went on during October 1978 in half a dozen cities. The majority of the victims-many of them were shot by the Guard at their own front doors were between 14 and 21 years of age and were marked for execution simply because they lived in neighborhoods where the Sandinista National l.iberation Front (FSLN) had been active.
An Israeli adviser "who presented himself as an Israeli army officer" was also present in Nicaragua and worked in Somoza's bunker in Managua. The adviser allegedly represented David Marcus Katz, the Mexico-based Israeli arms dealer with close ties to the right wing Israeli settlers movement, Gush Emunim.
Israeli arms shipments continued to arrive. Several shipments came by air and were delivered at night during a curfew. Among the weapons delivered this way were surface-to-air missiles (although the Sandinistas did not have an air force). Israel had at one point given its word that it would not ship arms to Somoza. Now it denied doing so, but U.S. officials said that Israeli arms were still arriving in Nicaragua. "Our people in Managua tell us that the streets are starting to look like TerusaLembec.aus.e the National Guard is wearing 1sraeli berets," said one U.S. official.
By the following spring Israel was sending Somoza really big stuff: nine combat-armed Cessna aircraft and two Sikorsky helicopters. The FSLN shot down seven of the Cessnas. ~s Somoza got better use out of the helicopters, which he called "skyraiders." He had his Guards use them as platforms for machine gun strafing; and from 3,000 feet above ground, soldiers rolled bombs out of the helicopter doors.

I'll admit that I tend towards hyperbole, but I haven't really seen anything from Citizen Yakman that would make me change my mind. Big surprise, I know.


Yakman wrote:
Far more important "quartermasters and stooges" of the early 1970s would be the military juntas of Latin America and the royal families of the Middle East.

Que? - not sure what you mean with the mention of the royal families in the mid east?

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mark Sweetman wrote:
Yakman wrote:
Far more important "quartermasters and stooges" of the early 1970s would be the military juntas of Latin America and the royal families of the Middle East.
Que? - not sure what you mean with the mention of the royal families in the mid east?

The Saudis, the Shah of Iran.

The King of Saudi Arabia was going to give South Vietnam hundreds of millions of dollars in 1974, iirc, which would have propped up that gov't and given them the ability to hold out at least a while longer against the North Vietnamese, but he was assassinated about a week before he made it official.

The Shah was a mighty ally against the Soviet Union and the Arab Republics.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Yes, "stooges" implies that they were puppets. They weren't--they each were their own independent partners in American imperialism's anti-Soviet alliance.

Yes. Things like the words you choose are important. Also, refraining from outrageous statements is important.

Quote:
Amid doubt that China would invade, Deng Xiaoping travelled to Washington to brief President Carter on China's attack plans. Carter approved the Chinese invasion, "protected" China from Soviet counterattack and pushed China for restraint. The "worst possible case" of a nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union was averted.

Yes. So we were seen as a NEUTRAL PARTY that could be used to avert horrifying consequences.... in 1979.

Not 1972. 1979.

Not Chinese stooges, but Chinese acting in their own interest who wanted our President to keep the USSR from over-reacting to a punitive Chinese adventure.

Quote:
South Africa in Angola--Yes, South Africa was more involved than the U.S. That's what happens in a proxy war.

The South Africans started the war. We thought it was a good idea. It wasn't of any kind of national importance to us. We gave a tiny bit of money and some guns. Nothing special. Again, that doesn't make Apartheid South Africa in 1975-76 our stooge. Who cares about Angola? South Africa... but we don't. Was it nice to have them shoot up commies for a few months and then pay UNITA to do the same for a few years? Yeah - that doesn't make the South Africans allies, but a party with a mutual interest.

Quote:
I'll admit that I tend towards hyperbole, but I haven't really seen anything from Citizen Yakman that would make me change my mind. Big surprise, I know.

You made a bizarre statement about things in the early 1970s that has little, if any, relationship with fact.

Did all three countries oppose the Soviet Union... not really. Israel didn't oppose the Soviet Union in 1972, although the Soviet Union supported Israel's enemies. The Soviet Union was largely out of Egypt at the time and was trying to rein Sadat in. In 1972 Portugal was still firmly in control of its African territories, those same territories that would be South African-sponsored battlefields of the late 1970s and 1980s, namely Angola and Mozambique. In 1972, the PRC was overrun by raving lunatics and warring bands of Red Guards - and a sponsor of North Vietnam and other communist forces in South East Asia.


King Faisal was the one who was assassinated. One of the key figures in the oil shock of 73, though he seems to have been reasonably pro-US despite that instant. I don't think you could go as far as calling them stooges though. And quartermasters would imply a sub-position... where I don't think you could really argue that either.

I can't find any online reference to any connection to South Vietnam - do you have a link you could share?

Shah Pahlavi was also clearly pro-US... right up until 1979 happened.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I read about it in a book by a CIA Agent who was stationed in Saigon from 1973 - 1975 called "Decent Interval" by Frank Snepp.

Pretty good book, and it's actually factual.


Yakman wrote:

I didn't. I said that the Partition Plan was cover for the British to leave. Which it was. There was never any effort to create a Palestinian state

- in fact, we can deduce from the actions of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, there was little, if any interest on the Arab side for such a thing to exist.

Yakman, you're really not answering the question. You seem to be saying that the reality makes the case even MORE than the map does, but that something undermines that point.

Palastine was there, in law, on a map. If your legal rational for the existance of israel is that law then you can't just ignore the rest of that law.

If the rational for the expansion is -they needed to do it because they're not sustainable- then that gives the palastinians just as much if not more excuse to use violence, because as you can clearly see they're NOT sustainable.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I am answering the question. You aren't reading the response.

Those are just lines on a map. They don't describe how things are on the ground.

In 1947 at least, they were drawn by men who didn't care how things were on the ground. They made no sense in the context of things on the ground. Also, for the modern reader, they give no context of things on the ground in any sense whatsoever.

The "Palestine" of 1947... who was that? There was no governing authority, nor anyone who could make a serious claim of being the governing authority of the Palestinians. NOBODY CARED ABOUT THEM - not the Brits who were interested in leaving, not the Arabs who were interested in conquering them, and not the Israelis, who were interested in not being destroyed by the invading Arab armies and establishing their state.

There wasn't a Palestine "in Law", because you can't have a country without a government. And the UN didn't bother with setting up a Palestinian gov't.

Again, the Partition of 1947 was a pretence to get the Brits to leave and give the Israelis a state. Whatever happened to the Palestinians was unimportant to pretty much everyone who mattered. It's a shame, but it's true.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Lets just kill everyone who believes in god so we can raise their children better than they do.


Yakman wrote:
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:
Yes, "stooges" implies that they were puppets. They weren't--they each were their own independent partners in American imperialism's anti-Soviet alliance.

Yes. Things like the words you choose are important. Also, refraining from outrageous statements is important.

Well, I'm not certain how outrageous the statement was, but more importantly, as you acclimate to the wonderful world of Politroll Threads and realize that I am an ubiquitous irritant, you will realize that "stooge" is one of my trademarked words. Kind of like,

Vive le Galt!


Yakman wrote:


Not 1972. 1979.

Which is after 1972. Like I said.

I mean, there's a lot of fun to stuff go through here, but even my original, outrageous statement says "after 1972" not "1972" and I even went back and added "nuance" to what I originally meant.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Yakman wrote:
I am answering the question. You aren't reading the response.

What response? You've done nothing but vaguely complain about the maps without explaining how any of the additional information you want on it changes anything.

Quote:
Those are just lines on a map. They don't describe how things are on the ground.

They do. Not in as much detail as you could ever fit in a map, but not map, book, or report ever will. That doesn't mean you ignore what meaning is in there and hand wave "well the thing that makes my point is elsewhere"

Quote:
In 1947 at least, they were drawn by men who didn't care how things were on the ground. They made no sense in the context of things on the ground. Also, for the modern reader, they give no context of things on the ground in any sense whatsoever.

Made badly but still made. That describes most of the former ottoman empire.

Quote:
The "Palestine" of 1947... who was that? There was no governing authority, nor anyone who could make a serious claim of being the governing authority of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians were allocated land. Israel took it. Whether they had a government or not is completely irrelevant. You do not need a government to have rights.

Quote:
There wasn't a Palestine "in Law", because you can't have a country without a government. And the UN didn't bother with setting up a Palestinian gov't.

Then call it a territory instead of a country if you're getting hung up on the nomenclature.


Yakman wrote:

I read about it in a book by a CIA Agent who was stationed in Saigon from 1973 - 1975 called "Decent Interval" by Frank Snepp.

Pretty good book, and it's actually factual.

Fair enough... but I'm not sure how 'truthful' I'd hold up the memoirs of a CIA Agent, especially when quoting what may have been second or third hand information.

Acquisitives

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
BigNorseWolf wrote:
things

My response? The maps that Mr. Giant Posted were overly reductionist. I said this before. They don't tell much of a story. When people oversimplify things, they make poor decisions.

When one looks at those maps, they see a relentless, completely one-sided Israeli expansion, particularly in the difference between 1947 and 1949. What they don't see is all the stuff going on - the massive immigration and emigration, the wars, the agreement of the United Nations that the Partition Plan was a bad idea, the Egyptians and the Jordanians conquering and in one case, annexing, that territory.

Was Palestinian land stolen? HOO YAH. Bunches of it. It goes on today... but that's not shown on the map, is it? For all I know, the land changing hands could be the result of legal purchase, or treaty.

The maps don't show that some land is more important than other land - the Negev Desert is empty, while Jerusalem and the coast are full of people.

The maps don't show how many people live there, or who they are, or any of those kind of important details. Are there millions of Jews and hundreds of Palestinians? I dunno. The maps don't say.

Even the final map, showing the Palestinian archipelago does a disservice to the people of the West Bank. It doesn't talk about the barbaric conditions there - for all an uneducated observer might know the situation looks like the more chaotic sections of the Indo-Bangladeshi border with enclaves within enclaves within enclaves and nobody cares.

But that's not the case, is it? There's a military occupation - in response to a violent terrorist campaign - in response to a settlement movement - in response to a domestic demand - in response to an international exodus - in response to a .... and on and on and on.

In answer: TWO COLOR SOLUTION.

People talk about the Israel/Palestine issue as if it's a question of borders. In many ways, the border issue is among the easiest to solve - it's all the other things that are so hard to figure out.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mark Sweetman wrote:
Yakman wrote:

I read about it in a book by a CIA Agent who was stationed in Saigon from 1973 - 1975 called "Decent Interval" by Frank Snepp.

Pretty good book, and it's actually factual.

Fair enough... but I'm not sure how 'truthful' I'd hold up the memoirs of a CIA Agent, especially when quoting what may have been second or third hand information.

It's actually a pretty good book. He was there, reading the info, working with the station chief. The CIA hounded him for years over giving away secret information in the book, took him to the Supreme Court.

I really enjoyed reading it. You can pick it up on Amazon for probably a penny. Unlike astronauts who claim that NASA is covering up alien invasions, he's actually the real deal.

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


Yakman wrote:
People talk about the Israel/Palestine issue as if it's a question of borders. In many ways, the border issue is among the easiest to solve - it's all the other things that are so hard to figure out.

Ok. How do you solve it? Particularly the issues of the settlements, which cause that West Bank archipelago? And Jerusalem? And access to water? And assuring that Israel has borders it can secure?

All of that is part of the "question of borders". For all the rhetoric about "Israel's right to exist" and the "Right of Return", the real issues come down to borders.
Edit: and security, but even that is related to borders.


Yakman wrote:
Quote:
Amid doubt that China would invade, Deng Xiaoping travelled to Washington to brief President Carter on China's attack plans. Carter approved the Chinese invasion, "protected" China from Soviet counterattack and pushed China for restraint. The "worst possible case" of a nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union was averted.

Yes. So we were seen as a NEUTRAL PARTY that could be used to avert horrifying consequences.... in 1979.

Not 1972. 1979.

Not Chinese stooges, but Chinese acting in their own interest who wanted our President to keep the USSR from over-reacting to a punitive Chinese adventure.

At least in '79 we had a reasonable understanding of relations within the communist bloc as opposed to us not knowing about the Sino-Soviet split in the 60's.

Also no way was Deng crazy enough to escalate a nuclear war. Mao would have been that crazy but fortunately he was gone by then, and now the entire Chinese governent structure is set up to keep one leader from decomposing in power the way Mao did, not that this is relevant to the topic of this thread at all.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Angstspawn wrote:
How can you even think the United States were worse than the Nazis??? How many US soldiers gave their lives or integrity to save much more than their country? Maybe it was possible to influence or force Japan to submit differently but Japanese had to understand that Americans had spill to much blood to shed a single more drop (it had cost several dozen of thousands US soldiers lives to submit Japan with conventional ways).

While everything you said is true. It's not the only reason that the Bomb was dropped on Japan. At this point everyone knew that the war was more or less over and were looking to the post war situation with our "ally" the Soviet Union. The United States wanted an opportunity to fully demonstrate the power of the big stick it was going to use to dominate the international sphere.

As it turned out, that idea didn't work out as well as it was hoped.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
Yakman wrote:
People talk about the Israel/Palestine issue as if it's a question of borders. In many ways, the border issue is among the easiest to solve - it's all the other things that are so hard to figure out.

Ok. How do you solve it? Particularly the issues of the settlements, which cause that West Bank archipelago? And Jerusalem? And access to water? And assuring that Israel has borders it can secure?

All of that is part of the "question of borders". For all the rhetoric about "Israel's right to exist" and the "Right of Return", the real issues come down to borders.
Edit: and security, but even that is related to borders.

I dunno how you "Solve" the problem. There are very smart people who spend their entire careers working on these kinds of things.

Even when the leaders are willing to make the hard choices it's not always up to them. When Clinton was desperately trying to get a peace deal done before he left office, Ehud Barak was offering Yasser Arafat what the Israelis thought was a great deal that would have provided for a new Palestinian state, land, recognition, money, almost everything. Arafat agreed in large part to it, but told them that it was politically impossible at the time to move forward.

Clinton kept pushing, Arafat was disgraced, and nothing happened... not because the key leaders were unwilling to make tough choices but because of, like everything else, local politics, in this case the "Right of Return".

I know that there are various accounts of how these negotiations went down, but I'm not entirely onboard with Clinton's account of them - he claims that Arafat was intransigent on the "Right of Return" and that scuttled the talks. Other accounts point the blame to Clinton for pushing for negotiations at a time when he was politically weak (Monica, Impeachment, a Lame Duck) and when Arafat was also weak and unable to make the bargain.


Yakman wrote:


My response? The maps that Mr. Giant Posted were overly reductionist. I said this before. They don't tell much of a story. When people oversimplify things, they make poor decisions.

And what decision are you coming to? It seems to be the same that the giant reached showing those maps, and that i've reached showing similar maps in the same thread.

Quote:
When one looks at those maps, they see a relentless, completely one-sided Israeli expansion, particularly in the difference between 1947 and 1949. What they don't see is all the stuff going on - the massive immigration and emigration, the wars, the agreement of the United Nations that the Partition Plan was a bad idea, the Egyptians and the Jordanians conquering and in one case, annexing, that territory.

The same way that a climate graph doesn't focus on the hottest day in july or one really bad winter. Those events were transient, temporary and fleeting.

I mean i can go into prince Philips war when discussing the expansion of america. Its a good detail to know but it doesn't change the overall picture.

Quote:
Was Palestinian land stolen? HOO YAH. Bunches of it. It goes on today... but that's not shown on the map, is it? For all I know, the land changing hands could be the result of legal purchase, or treaty.

If I buy land in Canada, I can't send US troops or police in to clear out some granola eating tree huggers hanging out in a tree i want to turn into shingles. The acquisition of the west bank is more than a transfer of property, its a transfer of sovereignty as well. (even if the sovereignty is from none to Israeli)

But you may have a point with treaty. AFAIK the Palestinians have never given up land by treaty though. Perhaps the map maker would expect to think/know that?

But yes there are better three colored maps.

Quote:
Even the final map, showing the Palestinian archipelago does a disservice to the people of the West Bank. It doesn't talk about the barbaric conditions there - for all an uneducated observer might know the situation looks like the more chaotic sections of the Indo-Bangladeshi border with enclaves within enclaves within enclaves and nobody cares.

To fully make that point would require a James Cameron level of special effects movie. That's a lot to expect of a map. To me, small areas with no connectivity between them SCREAM "oh crap"

.

Quote:
But that's not the case, is it? There's a military occupation - in response to a violent terrorist campaign - in response to a settlement movement - in response to a domestic demand - in response to an international exodus - in response to a .... and on and on and on.

People A chased out people B who chased out people C. The ought question of what to do with B and C starts with B chasing out C.

Quote:
People talk about the Israel/Palestine issue as if it's a question of borders. In many ways, the border issue is among the easiest to solve - it's all the other things that are so hard to figure out.

The borders aren't the only solution but they're an incredibly necessary first step to any solution. NOTHING else can be done with the borders as they are: Palistine cannot develop an economy. Isreali jews will always be in range of rockets, palastinians cannot police themselves,and disenfranchised people won't stop picking up their only means of protest.

Can you see any solution to this mess that doesn't start with borders?

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yes. The first step is security.

Security for Israel, security for Palestine.

Unless you can achieve that, you cannot move forward.

The Exchange

I found this a couple hours ago surfing around on facebook, and thought to share it here. The link is to a video made by a Christian Arab where he accuses Hamas of crimes against Palestinians. It's kind of hard to verify if the video shows things as they are or not... but let me tell you, it dosen't look good.

I am trying to be as objective as possible about the conflict, and I am very moderate in my views compared to most people who live in a 350 miles redius from me. However one point is so clear to me that rejecting it seems follhardy from where I'm standing - Hamas is a terrorist group. They are not about ruling Gaza as a govrenment, their intrest is not the good of their own people - they thrive in war (or at least, in a violent daily routine), and have an intrest in perpetuating warfare in the region.

Watch for Yourselves


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yes, Hamas sucks.

It's too bad Israel spent so many years fostering them as a counterweight to the PLO.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Don't worry yourself bud. Just because some people on the internet like to complain about Israel doesn't mean the IDF won't get support from the people who matter. If you haven't noticed, not being behind Israel 110% is political suicide in the US.


GentleGiant wrote:

Another interesting article.

5 Lies the Media Keeps Repeating About Gaza

That was actually a pretty bad article, drawing ridiculous conclusions and clearly shows a lack of understanding of military hardware and capability. The journalist could well do us all a favour and try be a bit more informed before posing such ridiculous questions in future.

the silly man wrote:
If, for some odd reason, you cannot decide whether it is official Israeli spokespersons or soldiers of conscience and human rights investigators who are telling the truth, consider this question: If Hamas has only managed to kill 3 people despite being bent on killing civilians with thousands of indiscriminate rockets, how has Israel managed to kill several dozen Palestinian civilians when it is using sophisticated precision weapons to avoid civilian casualties?

Perhaps he could look into military technology and find the answer?

Like here, on Janes, with a 30 second search.

Just saying.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

That answers why Israel killed several dozen civilians with precision weapons?


It sort of makes his conspiratorial posturing look a bit ridiculous.

Once you start examining the basics of his question, it begins to look pretty stupid.

351 to 400 of 668 << first < prev | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Off-Topic Discussions / Facts about the war in Israel All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.