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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (155908)	1/10/2005 10:33:37 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine: So it's underdogs who need terror? Yes! When you have overwhelming military superiority, you don't need terror. In such situations, war becomes a police action instead. Even when the military superiority is great, but you have fear as well, you start bending the edges. This is what the US is doing now, and Israel has continued to do. Do you seriously think that the Zionists & Israel spent the period from 1920 to 1967 as top dogs Heck No. Which is why some of them were terrorists. Ghandi had an entirely different approach. Weak does not mean you have to be a terrorist. You can just be meek as well, and wait to inherit the earth so to speak. But please read this: Even though they employed terrorism against the British and Arabs, they had a point. They sought a secure homeland. I understand that very well. I lived in a place where black terrorist fought to regain control of their (quite recently) ancestral land. I didn't like that terrorism either, but I can understand (in retrospect, I was dead against it at the time) why they fought, although I totally deplore terrorism. BTW, terrorism and suffering in Africa rather eclipses the entire mess of the ME. But it gets little attention. I have read a bit about 1948 and on. The Jews fought tooth and nail against great odds and they obtained a homeland. It can at a price to some other poeple. And in the case of Lod, and some other places, high Jewish officials purposely (but reluctantly!) chose a course of action against civilian populations that amounted to ethnic cleansing. I'm not making this up. Many Jewish individuals have commented on this in memoirs about their own involvment in these things. Such people are not traitors. It is definitely to their credit that individual soldiers participating in these actions had great moral difficulties with them. Lod's location was a great strategic liability from the Isreali POV. I agree. And it must have been very difficult for Jews from Europe to employ some tactics that surely reminded them of their own treatment a scant few years earlier (even though the magnitude and furthermore the intent for most parts was WAY different) The treatment of dispersed Jews in Arab lands IMHO should be factored into the Pal/Israeli solution. I think this should take the form of compensation from Arab nations to Pals. I would prefer it to be of a permanent nature like land, not monetary. But one can't have half a dozen Pal states. BTW, even in 1973, Israel was not totally in control, but they executed very well. You might also consider acquiring a sense of proportion... The proportions have changed greatly from pre 1948 to now. For the public record, I do consider the overall moral behaviour of the state of Isreal to be in a different league from that of its neighbors. It is a great testament to a long cultural history of seeking a moral way of life. It is truly sad that the circumstances in the ME (coupled with the horrors of WWII) have placed a beautiful culture in such a qaugmire. I would like to see that culture shine. Oh, well... At least there are some stirrings of hope with the Pals and their elections. We need a full court press to try and turn as many as possible (including Hamas) into champions of peace, not terror. I for one think this includes telling their story and noting their struggles, even if it means calling terrorists patriots or "freedom fighters" (the later used to really get my goat in Africa!) Honor is oh so important! BTW. Israel (and the Arab states) were getting their independance from Britian just a little before the African colonies did. It is interesting that Israel befriended some of those African states and sought to support their quest for freedom. They shared a common bond at that time. Later, most of the African states aligned with the Arabs, and Israel aligned more with the white states. S. Africa helped Israel with nukes, including testing in the southern ocean. S. Africa also got advanced fighter aircraft from Israel and manufactured them IIRC. S. Africa was also a major supplier of weapons to Iraq (their best long range artillery was S. African, and unmatched by anything in the west, I believe). It was actually a concern in Gulf I, as the US lacked comparable range.