Posted on 04/28/2002 11:36:01 AM PDT by jern
That remains to be seen.
But i think its pretty clear when anti-semitism is involved in a call to quit supporting israel. And i didnt see it in this article.
He's a hard core socialist waiting for the revolution. He's anti-American so logically, he hates the only democracy in the Middle East.If you look further, you may find that he is an anti-semite. I wouldn't waste my time, he's just a stupid P.O.S.
Here he's basically saying "Let's throw Israel to the wolves! Therefore they will be forced to negotiate!"
Rall apparently hasn't been reading up on his history. 3 of the 4 Arab-Israeli wars were launched before they occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
And don't forget that in most, if not all, Palestinian schools, children are shown maps depicting "Palestine" as all of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. (Pre-1948) The leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have openly said their objective is to destroy all of Israel (The Hamas leader said the refugees could just head to America or Europe).
Rall also bitches about the fact that Israel's military is so modernized and high-tech. Well, if the Israelis were fighting with rocks too, would Rall have no problem with that? And the Palestinian's arsenal isn't that antiquidated. They have AK-47s, mortars, assault rifles, explosives. The biggest differences is they have no combat vehicles or aircraft.
I'd also like to say one more thing. I find it to be the utmost hypocrisy that people condemn us for our support of Israel and undemocratic Arab regimes while saying we should be supporting Arafat and the PLO. When the Palestinians finally get their state, they may have their own land, but will political conditions get better for them? Hardly. Arafat is hardly a democrat (by that I mean one who embraces democracy), and in the end the Palestinian Authority would become just another undemocratic Arab regime we are condemned for supporting.
As for the whole Sharon "war criminal" label, take a look at the history of Yasser Arafat career in the PLO and then decide who the real "war criminal" is.
I do not agree with this, deterrence must be of a graduated kind. The Israelis would be defenceless against terrorist attacks, long range rocket, shelling and mortar attacks.
If the Israelis only had a nuclear deterrent, there willingness to use it would be constantly tested, and their existance would become impossible.
A similar situation pertained in europe during the cold war, whem Soviet conventional military force was superior to NATO's. NATO's defence rested on tactical nuclear weapons, the use of which, was never certain, because of a reluctance to cause widespread damage, and civilian casualties.
I wish ole Ted would take a shot at rubbin' me.
That way I could break his friggin' wrist and then twist his arm off and beat the sh!t out of him with it.
Uh, excuse me, Mr. Rall? As far as I know, the Jews in pre-WWII Germany weren't walking into beer halls during Oktoberfest and blowing themselves, and as many non-Jewish Germans as possible, into little pieces. I also don't recall any Jews going house to house in the early morning, shooting German civilians, including 5-year old children, in their beds.
Taunt a tiger, and you just might feel his claws. Assuming that the Israelis are indeed using all of these tactics, the Palis have no one but themselves to blame. The Pali militants have employed terrorism, have committed numerous atrocities and crimes against Israelis, and do not deserve to be treated with anything but disdain, and subjected to the overwhelming force that up to this point, the Israelis STILL have not employed.
The Palestinians should be thankful that Israel hasn't carpet bombed ALL of their miserable hovels, as the Palestinians would no doubt already have done to Israel, if they only possessed the military capability to do so. Israel has nukes. The Palis do not. Now ask yourself, if the situation were reversed, do you honestly believe for one moment that Israel would not be a smoldering crater by now?
This is one thread that requires no arguments from friends of Israel. I propose we just sit back and let the Israel-bashers sign up to keep company with Ted Rall. That says more about them than any expose any of us could write.
In the unlikely event that we ever are so stupid as to leave Israel to the mercy of the unmerciful Arab world and the Israel hating Europeans, we would have no leverage with which to demand that she refrain from conquoring and occupying the whole damn Arab World, which she could do if we got the hell out of the way.
Fact is that if Israel were as evil as the media likes to portray them-they would have attained peace with the Arabs long ago. The old fashioned way, by winning an @$$ kicking contest. We are the anchor that has held them back-a mistake on our part I believe.
The Arabs should be careful what they wish for-one of these days they may get it.
I agree that we should immediately stop ALL aid to any nation which does not FULLY cooperate in defeating Islamic terrorism. That would eliminate all aid to any muslim country, excepting possibly Pakistan (yet to be seen how much it will actually cooperate) and Turkey. Just adopting that policy would probably come close to making your 50% reduction.
As for the aid we give to Israel, the majority of it comes back to US companies in payment for military hardware and consumer goods. Considering our 1-1/2 TRILLION dollar annual budget, I doubt that the .00019% that goes to Israel would go very far towards paying for all those social services you say we can't afford. It might not even pay the unemployment checks for the laid-off defense workers who could lose jobs if Israel didn't buy billions of $ worth of our military hardware. It certainly wouldn't pay for the military and intelligence facilities we would have to establish in the middle east if not for our close relationship with Israel.
If not for our intervention, Saudi Arabia would have been utterly destroyed and it's oilfields taken over by Iraq. It shows it's gratitude by threatening to cut off our oil supply if we continue to support Israel, a nation which presents absolutely NO threat to Saudi Arabia. Yet it refuses to make more than a token contribution of 5 million per year to support the Palestinians, while we contribute 85 million per year to the people who celebrated 9/11 by dancing in their streets.
Israel is a modern, democratic, civilized nation which shares our cultural and democratic values. The rest of the area is a medieval mishmash of tribal barbarism and perpetual warfare. I can't understand how anyone can fail to see who our true friends are in the middle east, or where our best interests lie in that region.
You are quite right of course. I wish I had read your proposition before I hit the reply button for my previous post.
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