Letters to the Editor
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God bless .......
We are the chosen people, the master race, the shinning city on a hill. God and or history are on our side. All those who oppose our will are our enemies, even those in our midst. They are inferior, less than human or not human at all. They are a treat to us – even though we have more and bigger weapons. We will attack them because they may attack us. We will crush them all without regard to age or sex. We have the right to take their land and natural resources. Victory is inevitable, it is our manifest destiny.
Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Zionist Israel, NeoCon America and many more...
Once you buy into the us vs. them paradigm the rest is easy.
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The Liberty & Jonathan Pollard
Xanthro, Bamford's book Body of Secrets backs up the claim that Israel attacked the Liberty knowing it was an American ship. People have vigorously attacked Bamford, but IMHO he has the better of the case. And lots of respectable people think the same thing; for example, Dean Rusk. I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
You say that Israel apologized for Pollard's spying. I tried to find such an apology on the Web and couldn't. It seems that Israel for about two years denied he was their spy, so if there was an apology, it was pretty belated. Please provide a link evidencing the apology.
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Nothing New
From "Plan Dalet" which outlines Israeli plans to expel large portions of the Arab population from the areas given to Israel by the UN under the partition plan to statements by Israeli leaders such as Moshe Dayan about how the Six Day War was a war of choice, evidence of the fact that Israel's David vs. Goliath story was a myth have been present for years. The problem is that most histories of the Palestinian Israeli conflict published in the West have not been dispasionate analysis, but are rather used as political propoganda. It is about time that people start questioning the dominant paradigms.
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Revisionist History
The author has manipulated the facts to confirm his thesis.
First, the blocking of the straits is an act of war under international law.
Second, the removal of the UN observers and the movement into Gaza and Sinai of substantial men and tanks can reasonably be considered to be an act of aggression.
Third, even if the author is correct and the forces were on par, Israel always needed to consider that it had to fight a multi-front war. This was greatly exacerbated by the fact that at that time, the narrowest part of Israel was only a little over 10 miles wide creating the risk of the country (and Israeli supply lines) being severed.
As is typically the case with Israel bashers, Israel is held to a different standard than any other country. If the Arabs did not want a war they should not have put Israel into a position that it reasonably concluded that it had to preemptively attack the air forces of its enemies. What other country would have to wait to be shelled before it could act in its reasonable best interest.
This is the same reasoning that Solena uses when Israel is criticized for occupation, when it unilaterally pulled out of Gaza and the Palestineans (elected by the Gaza population) used this as an excuse to shoot rockets at civilians.
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Revisionist History
The author has manipulated the facts to confirm his thesis.
First, the blocking of the straits is an act of war under international law.
Second, the removal of the UN observers and the movement into Gaza and Sinai of substantial men and tanks can reasonably be considered to be an act of aggression.
Third, even if the author is correct and the forces were on par, Israel always needed to consider that it had to fight a multi-front war. This was greatly exacerbated by the fact that at that time, the narrowest part of Israel was only a little over 10 miles wide creating the risk of the country (and Israeli supply lines) being severed.
As is typically the case with Israel bashers, Israel is held to a different standard than any other country. If the Arabs did not want a war they should not have put Israel into a position that it reasonably concluded that it had to preemptively attack the air forces of its enemies. What other country would have to wait to be shelled before it could act in its reasonable best interest.
This is the same reasoning that Solena uses when Israel is criticized for occupation, when it unilaterally pulled out of Gaza and the Palestineans (elected by the Gaza population) used this as an excuse to shoot rockets at civilians.
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Just a minute
Shouldn't we learn from this story that there are serious consequences for hawkish rhetoric? Weren't we going to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age? Didn't we promise shock and awe in Iraq? Didn't Saddam's threatening attitude bring about the destruction of his family and his country? Threatening your neighbors is a good way to bring about your own demise.
When the President of Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the map, he is blowing smoke. There are no launch sites in Israel for its reputed nuclear arsenal; they're all on subs. If Israel were destroyed, every major city in Iran, Syria, etc. would go up in a mushroom cloud, including Tehran, Ramallah, Medina and Makkah.
But someone should point out to him and to North Korea that becoming a nuclear power coesn't make you strong. It just puts a target on your back.
And posting unneeded antimisslie sites in Poland (to stop missiles coming from Iran?) is, just as Putin says, a sure way to restart the arms race. God help us all (if He/She exists.)
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Israel as the "Victim"
Portraying Israel, the military nuclear superpower, as the "victim" and the ethnically cleansed, brutalized and imprisoned Palestinians as the "aggressor" -who should simply have been nicer about having their country stolen from them- has always been a cornerstone of Israeli propaganda efforts.
The problem is that this propaganda is now believed only in North America. When people from all around the world see the US financing the occupation of Palestinian lands and the apartheid policies of Israel, they assume that Americans are OK with these policies. As a result, the reputation of the US around the world has suffered greatly.
The role of the Israel Lobby in stifling debate about the Middle East has been one of the greatest sources of US foreign policy failures in the Middle East culminating in the Iraq war.
The essay written by professors Mearsheimer and Walt says it all. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html