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40 years since Arab-Israeli war
Toronto Sun ^ | 2007-06-02 | Salim Mansur

Posted on 06/02/2007 5:15:11 PM PDT by Clive

Forty years ago this month Israel's defence force dealt a fatal blow to Arab war-mongers and the Pan-Arabism of the Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Through the preceding weeks Arab preparations for a final showdown with Israel had gathered unchecked steam.

Arab intent to annihilate the Jewish state was never masked following the uneasy truce reached through the UN efforts in 1949 between the two sides.

But internal Arab politics as ever remained divisive, and the strident call for Arab unity by dictators in Egypt and Syria barely hid the reality of deeply entrenched quarrels within their world.

An axiom of modern Arab politics is the greater the internal division among Arabs, the more strident is Arab rhetoric against Israel. In May, 1967, this stridency reached its peak when Nasser announced on May 22 the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, which triggered the Six Day War.

In the morning of June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force preemptively struck and within a few hours the entire Eygptian air force lay in ruins. The war Arab dictators had been announcing on radio for weeks was over even before their people had awoken fully from night's slumber.

Nasser never recovered from the military disaster brought about by his recklessness. Several weeks later in September in Khartoum, Sudan, Nasser -- joined together with other heads of Arab states -- offered a petulant response to Israel. This was the three "noes" -- "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country."

In the four decades since the Middle East has been turned upside-down in pursuit of Palestinian rights that were barely acknowledged by Arab leaders before June 1967. This pursuit became an excuse for the dreadful regression of the Arab world into a malaise of brutally repressive order (Syria, for instance) and blood-soaked anarchy as in Gaza.

Anwar Sadat succeeded Nasser and planned the limited war of October 1973 to redeem Egypt's lost honour. Sadat then negotiated a peace agreement with Menachem Begin of Israel which remains in place.

Jordan's King Hussein, regretting his strategic blunder of joining forces with Nasser and losing the West Bank to Israel, expelled the trouble-making Palestinians from his domain after a bloody shootout in September 1970.

In receiving those Palestinians, Lebanon has not recovered from the disaster visited upon that once easy-going Levantine state.

Palestinians, goaded by brutally corrupt leaders, went from hijacking airplanes, murdering Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic of 1972, making common cause with genocidal dictators of the Third World, vowing fealty to Communist rulers in Moscow, to spreading terror through suicide-bombings and murdering each other in their quest for "liberation" from Israeli occupation.

The UN Security Council, in an extraordinary feat of unity, worked out the blueprint of trading land for peace in its resolution 242 of November 1967.

Western powers becoming convinced that providing Palestinians with a state would make for peace in the region, despite contrary evidence, have pursued this mirage of a policy even as it contributes its share to the spread of self-inflicted misery in the region.

Yet the unvarnished truth of the Middle East remains unaltered and unspoken since June 1967 even as Arab nationalism got exchanged for Islamist-jihadism.

Palestinians are responsible for their misery, and their rights among Arab leaders have no more merit than those of the greater suffering people of Darfur, except to malign Jews and taunt the West.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Israel
KEYWORDS: israel; milhist; sixdaywar

1 posted on 06/02/2007 5:15:13 PM PDT by Clive
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To: Alberta's Child; albertabound; AntiKev; backhoe; Byron_the_Aussie; Cannoneer No. 4; ...

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2 posted on 06/02/2007 5:16:08 PM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive

Hey, you muslim jihadi homicide bomber worthless nazi wannabes:

Israel kicks serious ass. Has in the past, always will.

[Thus says the Lord: whosoever blesseth the Jews, so shall I bless him. Whosoever curseth the Jews, him shall I surely curse!]


3 posted on 06/02/2007 5:35:37 PM PDT by elcid1970
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To: Clive

Just a couple of notes where the author seems a bit blase about events...

1) That “limited war” in 1973 nearly destroyed Israel. If not for an emergency airlift from the US, Israel WOULD have been destroyed.

2) That “bloody shootout” in September of 1970 was the Jordanian response to Arafat and the PLO trying to overthrow the government. It’s known as “Black September,” from which the terrorist group took their name. Between 5,000 and 8,000 palis were killed, though I’ve seen numbers as high as 23,000. Either way, it was quite a blow for the PLO.

Mark


4 posted on 06/02/2007 5:47:27 PM PDT by MarkL (Environmental heretics should be burned at the stake, in a "Carbon Neutral" way...)
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To: Salem; ExTexasRedhead; SJackson; Alouette; wagglebee

“Palestinians are responsible for their misery, and their rights among Arab leaders have no more merit than those of the greater suffering people of Darfur, except to malign Jews and taunt the West.”

This is SO true!


5 posted on 06/02/2007 5:53:01 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (If the GOP were to stop worshiping Free Trade as if it were a religion, they'd win every election)
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To: MarkL

Everywhere those parasites go, misery and death follows.

After the PLO was kicked out of Jordan, Arafat arrived in Lebanon and started a civil war that ripped the country apart for years.


6 posted on 06/02/2007 7:37:33 PM PDT by Proud_USA_Republican (We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. - Hillary Clinton)
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To: SJackson

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7 posted on 06/02/2007 8:30:07 PM PDT by Clive
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

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8 posted on 06/03/2007 6:17:04 AM PDT by SJackson (Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything, Andre Malraux)
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To: Clive
The Palestinians have forfeited any right to a state by their genocidal conduct. In any event, it is clear to all but the most obtuse person on the planet that they have turned to slaughtering each other. There will not be a Palestinian state in my lifetime.

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

9 posted on 06/03/2007 6:24:13 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Clive

Wow, forty years ago today.


10 posted on 06/03/2007 7:34:50 AM PDT by Perdogg (congratulations - you have just won an ipod nano)
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To: Clive
Meanwhile, the sob-sisters are gathering history from disinterested parties...

Say What?

"...recapture the village which the Jews stole from us???"

11 posted on 06/03/2007 12:36:36 PM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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To: MarkL
1) That “limited war” in 1973 nearly destroyed Israel. If not for an emergency airlift from the US, Israel WOULD have been destroyed.

And Egypt lost the entire Sinai, which the Israelis graciously (and astonishingly) "gave back".

Limited war, indeed!

12 posted on 06/03/2007 12:40:16 PM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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