It is not all right for a country to merely "feel threatened" to justify attacking others -- there must be some meaningful basis to believe that an attack is imminent to invoke self-defense.
No disagreement there.. For instance, had the Reagan, or previous Bush administration, attacked Iraq in 1989, on some subjective intelligence that Saddam intended to invade Kuwait, I would probably have agreed with you.
But what about when it was evident that Saddam was massing troops on Kuwait's border? Wasn't that sufficient to meet the definition of "meaningful basis"?
Would Kuwait have been justified in launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq in July, 1990?
Israel is already living on or over the edge, having alienated most every country on earth. Israel has exploited the openness of the American political system and achieved an unrivaled degree of influence in Washington
Hmmm.. I would opine that Saudi Arabia had more influence in Washington DC than Israel. They just circumvented the American public and went straight to the lobbyists and congress.
As for alienated the world, one has to ask why there remains this pervasive belief that Israel somehow invaded the West Bank and Gaza in an act of unprovoked aggression, or the fact that somehow those territories actually belonged to the PLO/PA in the first place..
Because as I recall history prior to 1967, the West Bank was ruled/occupied by the Jordanians, while Gaza was ruled/occupied by the Egyptians. And history, and even the UN, concurs that it was the Arab states that provoked the pre-emptive strike by Israel against them..
Which means if, in an act of legitimate self-defense, I attack and occupy the territory of an aggressor, that territory can legitimately be occupied until a peace settlement is in place.. In fact, that territory can be annexed for the purpose of enhancing the security of the aggressed nation in order to prevent future attacks.
So, review the facts GST.. Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 and the Sinai was returned. There were provisions under the Camp David agreement for Egypt, Israel, and Jordan to coordinate a 5 year plan to establish a self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza..
mfa.gov.il
But guess what? Jordan decided it was not in their interest to make peace with Israel until 1994, more than 15 years later. And they did that ONLY after having renounced their claim on the West Bank in 1989, AFTER the 1st intifada made it painfully obvious that they would be unrulable to the Hashemites. Of course, the assassination of Sadat and pressure from Syria might have also had something to do with the 15 year lapse negotiations.
So only gullible, or demagogic individuals like yourself can attempt to claim that Israel hasn't been willing to negotiate the final outcome of the occupied territories. But they aren't so stupid as to to give them up when their own security concerns have not been taken into account.
It has consistently been the dictatorial Arab regimes which have resisted engaging in negotiations with a country they, until recent years, asserted did not even have a right to exist.
And now, when there is a growing recognition of Israel's right to exist, we have Arafat and his cronies putting up every possible obstacle to achieving peace and a Palestinian state.
The bottom line is this: Neither Israel nor the United States has the right to launch unilateral preemptive attacks on other countries.
So does that mean that the US had no right to invade France during WWII? There existed no state of war between them and the US that I recall..
We launched a war without any basis in international law and/or behavior acceptable to the international community -- and we did it in no small part on behalf of Israel. This extreme foreign policy bias must stop.
I think we did just to p*ss you off and incite you into a display of pitiful whining... (and apparently it was a brilliant success)..
Hawk |
