ME: the Diplomatic Game

[vt]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

+1

[ER59]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

+2

[don]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Your quip that I sound like "an Israeli government press release" also shows “no critical context whatsoever”.

Based on what you said, Raz, not on your body of work.

I assume you're familiar with these maps:


The Zionist cause becomes quite obvious when looking at this map.

I also assume you know that Hamas was armed initially by Israeli arms dealers: "Jews are selling arms to Palestinians" was the incredulous cry in Gaza when Hamas was being built to offset the PLO.

Raz - why is every nationalistic Palestinian leadership group destroyed by Israel? The consensus is the Mossad poisoned Arafat.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? We can stick to US Manifest Destiny. Wounded Knee: what could the troopers do. Damn braves hid among the squaws and children . . . .

I'm sure you know the conditions of Israeli control in Gaza, right? Nothing in, nothing out. Much of the manufacturing, electricity, water, have now been destroyed. What do you think the Israeli goals are in this campaign? Find the murders of the 3 Israeli youths?

Any people without a homeland are susceptible to being scapegoated, to the point of annihilation. Israel, as a national state for the Jews, is essential, just as the same could be said for the Kurds and many others. With the Israel state well established, and as the '67 war made clear, any combination of Arab armies could be defeated by Israel (with US re-supply), Israel has since expanded in its quest to be a dominant player in the ME. Who could blame them, that's how geo-politics is played. Must we pretend this is something else? (double plus)

Manifest Destiny doesn't happen in a vacuum. Somebody has to give it up.

(and I'll pass on the God card, Raz)

[Woodsman]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

I'll pass on the Guernica analogy.

I thought you would; the comparison is ridiculous.

I stand by it. The dead of Guernica have everything in common with the dead of Gaza


Ruins of Guernica


Ruins of Gaza

[vt]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Nonsense, Germany was not attacked with missiles or tunnels by Spain.

Israel only wants to live in peace, and Hamas along with Iran wants to kill all the Jews.

If a rival breaks into your home and kills your family, you would want to go after them.

This is not madman Hitler wanting to test his air force in 1936; Hamas is Hitler and the final solution.

[Woodsman]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Nonsense...

We disagree and I suggested earlier that we leave it there. So why keep interjecting yourself?

[vt]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Just hit news wires:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...560337,00.html

[Raz]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Based on what you said, Raz, not on your body of work.

Okay, Don. "Based on what I said" - that Israel should defend their civilian population from rockets launched by Hamas in Gaza, that it is not unreasonable for the IDF to strike at those rocket launchers or to invade so as to destroy the tunnels built by Hamas for their infiltration attacks against Israel: what do you suggest the Israelis do? What do you deem to be an appropriate response to this situation?

To keep this exchange on point please avoid a diatribe about how the Israelis are Pseudo-Nazis in the Middle East, how they want to annihilate the Palestinians, etc. - just lay it out for everyone to see what Don's response to these rocket attacks and tunnels would be.

The Zionist cause becomes quite obvious when looking at this map.

I believe I stated long ago that I'm NOT a Zionist. But even the Israeli Zionists accepted the UN Partition idea of 1947 - it was the Arabs who rejected it and attacked Israel. Do you disagree with this? If so, then please provide clear evidence to the contrary.

I also assume you know that Hamas was armed initially by Israeli arms dealers: "Jews are selling arms to Palestinians" was the incredulous cry in Gaza when Hamas was being built to offset the PLO.

No, I don't "know" any such thing. Maybe it's true; if you believe it to be so, would you please provide some real evidence that the Israeli government was complicit?

Raz - why is every nationalistic Palestinian leadership group destroyed by Israel? The consensus is the Mossad poisoned Arafat.

I assume it's because those Palestinian leaders are complicit in attacks against Israeli citizens and territory. Why do you believe the Israelis would kill those leaders who have demonstrated by both word and deed that they intend to destroy the Israeli state and drive the Jews into the sea?

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?

We can stick to US Manifest Destiny. Wounded Knee: what could the troopers do. Damn braves hid among the squaws and children . . . .

We can certainly agree about the injustice visited upon the Indians of North America by our own government. It was clearly an attempt, whether by design or not, to kill most of the Indian population and/or remove them by any means necessary from land that our government deemed too valuable to be left in the hands of 'savages'.

I'm sure you know the conditions of Israeli control in Gaza, right? Nothing in, nothing out. Much of the manufacturing, electricity, water, have now been destroyed. What do you think the Israeli goals are in this campaign? Find the murders of the 3 Israeli youths?

I sure do know of the conditions there and they are terrible. I assume the immediate goal of the IDF is to destroy both the rocket launchers and the tunnels, and additional goals are to bring about the downfall of Hamas by visiting horrible conditions upon the Palestinian population that voted Hamas into power. While that's bad enough, you apparently see their motives to be far more sinister; what do you believe their goals are?

And here's a question for you: why do you believe these Palestinian refugees of Gaza haven't moved to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq or Saudi Arabia? With all the Arab land available, and all the Billions of the Saudi and Kuwaiti regimes, why haven't these people moved on with their lives, and out of this small strip of land to find refuge in other Arab lands?
That's what the Jews did for almost two millenia.

Any people without a homeland are susceptible to being scapegoated, to the point of annihilation. Israel, as a national state for the Jews, is essential, just as the same could be said for the Kurds and many others. With the Israel state well established, and as the '67 war made clear, any combination of Arab armies could be defeated by Israel (with US re-supply), Israel has since expanded in its quest to be a dominant player in the ME. Who could blame them, that's how geo-politics is played. Must we pretend this is something else? (double plus)

Manifest Destiny doesn't happen in a vacuum. Somebody has to give it up.

I don't understand what you're saying here in this paragraph directly above.

(and I'll pass on the God card, Raz)

And by doing so you will never fully understand the Arab/Israeli problem, or the dysfunctional dynamic of the entire Middle East.

[Raz]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

I stand by it. The dead of Guernica have everything in common with the dead of Gaza


Ruins of Guernica


Ruins of Gaza

And I stand by my statement that your attempt to present these two events as a direct and fair analogy is utterly ridiculous.

[Shakespear]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

For a better and quick understanding of the problem I would suggest this documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2sm0iR0E8
and this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIfQ4GfSz3U

The problem in the Middle East will eventually "burn out", if you know what I mean. But I would put the blame on what is happening there squarely on shoulders of the British and their politics. They birthed its impossibility to function.

The British have been double dealers for a hell of a long time. Where they arrive you can be sure it will happen. This shouldn't be a surprised because they are a mutant offspring of the Romans. And the Romans used treaty breaking as their strategy to conquer neighbors for a heck of a long time with good results until that is "the camel's back broke".

For how Muslim Ottoman Empire treated minorities and other religions I suggest reading the beginning chapters of this book where this is presented. The rest of the book is rather controversial. But the beginning was for me at least very enlightening. There may be better books on this subject but this is the only one I read.

Bosnia: A Short History Paperback – October 1, 1996
by Noel Malcolm

It is also interesting to read how the Mongol Empire treated those it conquered. I have in mind once the fighting was finished. No forced conversions to anything and once a year visit to the Khan do drop off payments and bow to the master What is summarized here is basically what I read in the past,

Once in power, the Mongol princes sought to rule their subjects with justice and tolerance, and for the prosperity of all. Their contemporaries differentiated between the "barbarian" nomads of the past and their ruling masters now residing in fabulous imperial courts. The remains of the ragged Khwarazmshah's army, led by the bandit king Jalal al-Din Mangkaburti, now inspired far more fear and loathing than the disciplined Mongol troops. The Mongols had never targeted specific groups for persecution on religious, nationalistic, or ethnic grounds. When Baghdad was attacked, it was with the advice of Muslim advisers such as Nasir al-Din Tusi while supporting Muslim armies were led by Muslim rulers. Co-option was the desired result of the threat of attack or of conquest. Top administrators in all parts of the empire were Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Uighur, Armenian, European, or Turkish. Loyalty and ability were prized above ethnicity or religion. A center of learning was established around 1260 in Iran's first Mongol capital, Maragheh. It attracted scholars from around the world who flocked, in particular, to see the observatory built for the court favorite, Tusi. The Syriac cleric Bar Hebraeus used the libraries, stocked from the ruins of Baghdad, Alamut, and other conquered cultural centers, to research his own acclaimed studies and historical accounts.

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/...-mongoi-145295

[Woodsman]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

And I stand by my statement that your attempt to present these two events as a direct and fair analogy is utterly ridiculous.

It takes quite a bit of effort to avoid seeing how direct and fair the analogy is, I believe. In fact, the physical destruction and human wreckage is far worse than Guernica; there are far more dead and wounded in Gaza and operations have continued far longer.

From a ten day old UN report:

""This brings the cumulative death toll among Palestinians to at least 1,948, according to preliminary data collected by the Protection Cluster from various sources, including 320 persons who could not be yet identified or their status established."

Occupied Palestinian Territory: Gaza Emergency: Situation Report (as of 10 August 2014, 0800 hrs)
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

The carnage at Guernica pales in comparison:

"Until recently, the number of civilian casualties has been debated. However it has now been concluded that the total number of deaths are between 170 and 300, the ongoing debate now is whether the accurate number is closer to the former or the latter. Until 1980s it had been generally accepted that the number of deaths had been over 1700, but these numbers are now known to be have been exaggerated. Historians now agree that the number of deaths are under 300"

Bombing of Guernica
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The same UN report lists 11,855 homes and apartments totally destroyed in Gaza. The attacks at Guernica destroyed the majority of town with 3/4 of its buildings completely destroyed. As in Guernica, a technologically superior aggressor is making no meaningful distinction between civilian population centers and military targets as a matter of policy. The IDF's policy is known as the "Dahiya doctrine" and it guides its conduct of operations in Gaza.

"The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy put forth by the Israeli general Gadi Eizenkot that pertains to asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure. The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment buildings which were flattened by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 2006 Lebanon War. Israel has been accused of implementing the strategy during the Gaza War. The first public announcement of the doctrine was made by General Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF's northern front, in October 2008. He said that what happened in the Dahiya (also transliterated as Dahiyeh and Dahieh) quarter of Beirut in 2006 would, "happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power against [them] and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. [...] This isn't a suggestion. It's a plan that has already been authorized. [...] Harming the population is the only means of restraining Nasrallah...Some claim that Israel, whether by design or default, at least partially implemented such a strategy during the Gaza War."

Dahiya doctrine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At Guernica, a similar policy was in effect:

"For the German air force, Guernica was a trial run on how one can spread horror and distress through attacks on cities and towns," Wolfgang Schmidt, air force expert at the Military History Research Institute in Potsdam, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Of course the bombing of Guernica was a blatant violation of human rights and had a terrorist character. It was accepted that civilians would be harmed...The object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralization of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race.

Hitler's Destruction of Guernica: Practicing Blitzkrieg in Basque Country
Der Spiegel"

And the operations against Gaza mirror the "experiment" in Guernica where the Luftwaffe sought to test its theories and weapons in advance of a wider war:

"WASHINGTON — The conflict that ended, for now, in a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel seemed like the latest episode in a periodic showdown. But there was a second, strategic agenda unfolding, according to American and Israeli officials: The exchange was something of a practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran, featuring improved rockets that can reach Jerusalem and new antimissile systems to counter them."

For Israel, Gaza Conflict Is Test for an Iran Confrontation
New York Times

It might be a painful analogy that causes emotional discomfort. It might be threatening to long-held beliefs. But it's entirely fair and easily supportable by the facts of history. And I appreciate the opportunity for us to talk about it and to give others the opportunity to come to their own conclusions. Raz, we've come to ours so I can't see the point in carrying on with it.

I give you the last word it here, sir.

[Shakespear]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

More about Diplomatic Game

[Raz]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

It takes quite a bit of effort to avoid seeing how direct and fair the analogy is, I believe. In fact, the physical destruction and human wreckage is far worse than Guernica; there are far more dead and wounded in Gaza and operations have continued far longer. ...

It might be a painful analogy that causes emotional discomfort. It might be threatening to long-held beliefs. But it's entirely fair and easily supportable by the facts of history. And I appreciate the opportunity for us to talk about it and to give others the opportunity to come to their own conclusions. Raz, we've come to ours so I can't see the point in carrying on with it.

I give you the last word it here, sir.

Methinks we're talking past each other.




Let's set aside, for a moment, the fact that Zionism, whatever its original intentions, has become a form of colonialism in the Levant.

Let's then have a geographical comparison: German civilians were NOT being attacked by Spanish terrorists who were firing rockets indiscriminately onto their homes. The Germans traveled more that 1,900 kilometers to bomb a people who had never attacked them or done them any harm in any way.
Can we agree on these facts?

It takes quite a leap to make a direct comparison to the present battle in Gaza with the German government inserting itself into a civil war almost 2,000 kilometers away and having their Luftwaffe bomb a Spanish town to test the effectiveness of their weapons.

Surely you don't believe I am so cold and callous to turn aside from the dying screams of children as walls fall down upon them? In your emotional appeal where do you place the value of young Jewish lives?

As I asked of Don: what would you do - in this one specific instance of rockets being fired onto your civilian population - to bring a halt to it? How would you avoid hitting the civilians of Gaza? How would you go about destroying the tunnels?

[Woodsman]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Surely you don't believe I am so cold and callous to turn aside from the dying screams of children as walls fall down upon them? In your emotional appeal where do you place the value of young Jewish lives?

Now Raz, is that really necessary? Seems kind of beneath your dignity to even hint of such a thing. Really, can we put this aside please. I've asked twice now.

[Raz]

Re: ME: the Diplomatic Game

Now Raz, is that really necessary? Seems kind of beneath your dignity to even hint of such a thing. Really, can we put this aside please. I've asked twice now.

You haven't asked me once or twice - you simply said you would give me the last word.

I never meant to insult you, and if I did please accept my apology.

If you wish to drop it right here I promise that I will, but I don't believe I'm the only one who would like to hear just what you would do to stop these particular rocket and tunnel attacks by Hamas.