Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "What has that got to do with the price of tea in China?"
There is a strong historical tendency for ethnic groups with large populations to control ethnic groups with small populations. This probably dates back to Neanderthal days. The Arabs are a large population ethnic group. The Jews are a small population ethnic group.
Re: "Jews are not trying to conquer the whole region ..." Well duh! Israel is too tiny to contemplate any such thing. But that is not Israel's problem. Israel's problem is that the Arabs are trying to "conquer the whole region". Or didn't you notice?
Re: "... an area in which they are the majority ..." Okay. The white South Africans were the majority population in the areas they declared to be "South Africa", but that didn't mean that they were a viable country. The Kurds are the majority in the various regions of Iraq, Iran and Turkey that they live in, but they're not viable countries. The Indians are the majority population in various parts of the United States (and have been for centuries), but they're not a viable country. The various Indians in South America still form majority populations in various regions, but no viable countries. The Armenians were majority populations in Turkey, but they weren't a viable country. The Basques form a majority population in parts of Europe, but no viable country. The Welsh form a majority population in various parts of Britain, but no viable country. The same with the Aborigines in Australia, or the Ainu in Japan, or the Jews who once were local majorities in small regions of Europe. Heck, I'm a majority population in my house, but the US will come down on me hard if I declare independence.
There's just one reason necessary to explain the absence of small states in the middle of big nations, and anyone who's played Risk knows the answer. Little states get picked off by big states before the big states go after each other. The Arabs are a big nation. Israel is a small state. The primary reason Israel has survived so long is that the Arabs are not united into a single state. But that just delays the inevitable.
Re: "... which they have successfully defended in four major wars."
(1) Note the "defended". Israel has never won an offensive war. Israel has never captured an enemy city (except Lebanon, and they had to retreat from it). Israel's military force, like that of the US, is only useful in the defense (i.e. in attacking other country's military). Israel has almost no ability to force any enemy state to unconditional surrender and has never done so.
(2) None of Israel's wars were "major". Heck, one of them lasted 6 days, is that "major"? India has riots that kill more people than most of Israel's wars. None of these "major" wars killed very many people on either side. A single US bomb killed several times as many people as were killed in all of Israel's wars combined together, even counting deaths on all sides combined. Four weeks in the Iran / Iraq war killed 49,000 soldiers, which is many times more soldiers than Israel has lost together for all its wars, or killed of their enemies. (There was a total of 300,000 Iranians killed.) I doubt that any of Israel's complete wars would make the top 100 in a list of even the world's major battles. Hell, a couple dozen US soldiers, over the space of 12 hours in Mogadishu, killed better than a thousand Somalians, and we don't call that even a battle, much less a major war. Gettysburg alone, considered a small battle on the world scale, killed 6 or 7 thousand, more than Israel has lost in any of its wars. Even Naval combat regularly produces battles where more people are killed than in Israel's "major wars". The Turks lost 70,000 at Lepanto (killed or captured), Trafalgar killed 4800. The Persians lost 50,000 killed at the single battle of Issus. The Mongols killed a quarter million during the march on Vienna. A single Australian Division had 3199 killed in 24 hours at the 3rd Battle of Ypres in WW1. Ten thousand Americans and Filipinos were walked to death after Bataan surrendered in WW2. Heck, even in the ragged poverty of the Middle Ages the French and Genoese lost 5~10,000 at the single battle of Crecy. Germany lost 4,000 paratroopers and 6,000 total killed in the invasion of the obscure and unimportant island of Crete. A half million were killed in the Spanish Civil war, about 100x as much as a typical Israeli war.
Can you see what I'm getting at? Israel does not have, and has never had a "major" war nor does it have, nor has it ever had a significant military history. It's got a pretty good elite military force, especially for a country so tiny, but that's all. That's also, by the way, the reason why it is impossible for Israel to be a significant (i.e. important) military ally to any significant country.
-- Carl
P.S. Statistics on Iran / Iraq war, an example of a rather modest (as opposed to major) war:
The war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and injured more than 500,000, out of a total population which by the war's end was nearly 60 million. Without diminishing the horror of either war, Iranian losses in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war appear modest compared with those of the European contestants in the four years of World War I, shedding some light on the limits of the Iranian tolerance for martyrdom. During the Great War, German losses were over 1,700,000 killed and over 4,200,000 wounded [out of a total population of over 65 million]. Germany's losses, relative to total national population, were at least five times higher than Iran. France suffered over 1,300,000 deaths and over 4,200,000 wounded. The percentages of pre-war population killed or wounded were 9% of Germany, 11% of France, and 8% of Great Britain.
fas.org
Also, one of my buddies says that Israel's policy of taking land for terror will halt suicide bombing eventually. I'll collect dinner in June 2003 when the first suicide bombing of that month breaks his prediction. |
