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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Ah well, so Israel self destructs. The logical fallacy of empire I've never fully understood: Why in the world would you extend your empire to the point where you became a minority in your own empire, especially among subjects that hated you?

Israel's manifest destiny will lead it to conquer the Levant, under a theological fiction that at some point in the past, Israel or Zion ruled the Levant. Not only is this not the case, but Israel and Zion were never one political entity until 1919. But nevertheless, here they go. When they succeed, they will be vastly outnumbered by people who hate them. This will last until some liberal govt. agrees to give "subjects" the vote, whereupon the Zionist extremists will be voted out of office and the end result will be South Africa. (Another example: If south africa had remained a small capetown colony, it could have been an isolated nation in an otherwise uninhabited land. Instead, they had to conquer people who outnumbered them. The end result was inevitable.)

Expect to see the major middle eastern powers continue to do nothing but use the palestinian issue as a political soap box at home and abroad. What a perfect wedge issue. why solve the problem when you can get so much mileage out of it.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Israel's manifest destiny...When they succeed, they will be vastly outnumbered by people who hate them.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Hero: You mean Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, not Arabs. Arabs are a race. The other three are nationalities, comprised of numerous middle eastern tribes, ethnicities, and religions. One of which are Arabic Jews.

Arab =! Muslim =! Palestinian, Syrian, or Lebanese.

And probably, of the Palestinians, the people you really don't like are Hamas. It seems the only people who like Hamas are the Palestinians. There's no accounting for taste... or political leaders.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Israel's manifest destiny...When they succeed, they will be vastly outnumbered by people who hate them.

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How is that different then any other time in the history of mankind?

Even if you just count recent history, since the day it was born Isreal has been surrounded on 3 sides by folks who want to kill them and drive them into the sea. I note for the record that the Arabs have always been the aggressors in the ongoing conflict. Its not like they EVER sat down in protest and started singing "we shall overcome".

The Arabs bomb, murder, kill, invade, kidnap, etc...leaving Isreal no option but military response. As President Obama noted in his Peace Prize lecture, "A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaidas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Isreal has been living with this truth since before it existed as a modern state. It was nonviolent movement that shuffled millions into neatly ordered lines for efficient disposal. I don't blame them for fighting back.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Hero,

I meant all empires, not just Israel. Israel is full of people put there by the Rothschild's pet project. I feel for them, but not their leaders. Arabs don't hate Jews intrinsically, they hate them because of the way the govt. of Israel has behaved for much of the last 90 years.


Gino,

Put their money where their mouth is. The fact is, Palestine makes a great wedge issue for any mideastern politician.

No politician wants rid of a wedge issue. If republicans wanted rid of abortion, they could have done so a long time ago, economically. Abortion is elective surgery. Most elective surgery is really expensive. Cost relation has no basis in this: An MRI is expensive without costing anything. It's just a picture. But it costs thousands. So could abortion. OTOH, adoption pays thousands, tens of thousands. If adoption was worth +$30,000 and abortion was -$4,000, virtually all women would carry all pregnancies to term, even if they didn't want the baby. Afterall, the overwhelming majority of unwanted pregnancies are not had by the rich. Outlawing abortion would probably be less effective actually, it would reduce abortions by around 2/3 from what I've read.

But that's not what it's about: It's about the value of the wedge issue.

Going to war with Israel would be moronic. Arming Gaza at any point over the last century, defensively, would have been easy. Similarly Future targets, such as Lebanon (Okay, Iran has armed Lebanon.)

But also, economically. Why does no one invade Dubai? It would take about 8 hours for Iran to seize control of Dubai, and about 40 minutes to obliterate it.

Reality, no one attack Dubai for the same *real* reason no one attacked Switzerland in WWII. Too many financial interests. If Gaza was a major financial center, particularly one that affected Israeli interests, they would never dare attack it.

In short: There are lots of ways to play this one if you actually wanted to protect Palestine. There are also lots of muslim nations in the world with lots of power, particularly over oil, the could use that power to leverage teh US to stop arming Israel, they could use it to leverage Europe into supporting a palestinian state, or to pressure, China, or Japan, to do the same, or the UN to recognize Palestine. Or any one of the Five Permanent Members to veto any resolution in support of Israel or against Palestine until this nonsense stops.

That is not, IMHO, how they've decided to play it, in large part. They've decided to use it as a picture perfect wedge issue.

And no, no slight was intended against Iran or Syria in this, they're not really who I'm talking about. I'm referring to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, The UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, the Sudan, Lybia and the former Iraq. The proof of this one is look how Palestinians are treated in Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where they live in large numbers, or the UAE. Their status runs from refugee camp to slave labor. I'm afraid that Arab leadership is as coming to the rescue of Palestine as much as the US and USSR came to the rescue of the Jews: It sure sounds good, but is clearly not the agenda.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
A minor one, yes. Not a major one.

It's like military containment. You don't set up shop where the fight is *now*, you predict down the road where it will end up, and set up shop there.

This Gaza invasion was a long time in coming, but late in the day. As for the leadership of said countries, it's pretty corrupt. Corrupt leadership needs a bugbear to distract people, to prevent them from asking whether or not King Abdullah is really the best leadership they could hope for.

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Nuke the entire site for morbid..

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Yes, leadership in most countrys these days is pretty questionable...

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Yes, leadership in most countrys these days is pretty questionable...

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These days?

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Yes, leadership in most countrys these days is pretty questionable...

But I don't see it as a distraction alone as you say, I think they don't have a plan because there is nothing more within their power to do...

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:


well okay, it has always been questionable...

but I think either I am more aware of the issues or it has become worse

rather than thinking my leaders were happy idiots robbing me blind, now I think they are malicious whack a doodles out to create chaos and suffering everywhere they go


am I wrong

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Originally posted by Geezer:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Yes, leadership in most countrys these days is pretty questionable...

But I don't see it as a distraction alone as you say, I think they don't have a plan because there is nothing more within their power to do...

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But the beauty of it from their point of view is that they don't have to do much at all. Send a few bucks to Hamas and some of the more violent Palestinian groups. Have state media stir up the populace and refugees. DON'T use any bucks to actually improve the lot of the mass of Palestinians - either in Israel or refugees in your country. DON'T grant any Palestinian refugees citizenship or full rights, even though they've been in your country for generations. Wait for the Israelis' knee-jerk reaction toward any violence by the Palestinian radicals you fund. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:


well okay, it has always been questionable...

but I think either I am more aware of the issues or it has become worse

rather than thinking my leaders were happy idiots robbing me blind, now I think they are malicious whack a doodles out to create chaos and suffering everywhere they go


am I wrong

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I think if anything our present leadership, in the west at least, is better than ever before. Before the 1920's government was mainly rich old guys manipulating the masses to get richer.

Ok it's still like that, but there is more public involvement in government affairs. Now they have to convince the populace to support wars, where as before they'd just, you know, go to war.

But that's probably an aberration that's about to swing back to some techno-quasi-feudalism.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I agree with Citizen. The Saudis, for example, are not a creation of the British. I looked it up when PN posted that, but they've been doing their thing since the 1700s. It's just like Afgh, the conquering power has to deal with the local petty power. I think this might be a factor of how long a population has lived in an area. The long, it seems, the more petty warlordism there is.


Nuke them for morbid? Sorry. Provides ammunition, armaments, and target.

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Without the British support, or the war... they likely would have simply remained as they were one tribe among many.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Without the British support, or the war... they likely would have simply remained as they were one tribe among many.

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I assume he's referring to the various saudi states that existed from 1744. The first Saudi state encompassed roughly the same area as the current state, the area was disputed on and off between the house of saud and the ottomans from the mid 1800's up till the first world war.

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
the way I have read it there were many factions, none really having enough power to say they were in control of the region,

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The period beginning from 1744 is usually referred to by historians as the First Saudi State. This period was marked by conquest of neighboring areas and by religious zeal. At its height, the First Saudi State included most of the territory of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and raids by Al Saud's allies and followers reached into Yemen, Oman, Syria, and Iraq.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
the way I have read it there were many factions, none really having enough power to say they were in control of the region,

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The period beginning from 1744 is usually referred to by historians as the First Saudi State. This period was marked by conquest of neighboring areas and by religious zeal. At its height, the First Saudi State included most of the territory of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and raids by Al Saud's allies and followers reached into Yemen, Oman, Syria, and Iraq.

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Really? It was up and down, the first Saudi state was overthrown by the ottomans because they thought it was getting too powerful. They're puppet government was quickly overthrown which created the second saudi state. There were likely many different factions, but that's what states were like back then, the nation state is a relatively new concept. Look at The Holy Roman Empire, dozens of different sub-kingdoms supposedly under one emperor.

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