Believe it or not - Playing the war game - The disturbing results of a recent war simulation

If the House of Saud are found to be complict in the attacks, they'll go from selling oil to working at a 7-11 rather quickly IMHO.

Oh, happy day !

"...it is up to us to wake up and start screaming to our representatives that we will not absorb an attack with a WMD when such an attack can clearly be averted by closing our borders, checking every shipment of every package that enters our harbors, deporting all non-resident aliens of Islamic origin, and announcing a new form of the MAD doctrine. As to the second problem, even though the enemy is a religion, it is a unique religion because it is a religion with a country and a city as its' capital. In fact, it is a religion that cannot be worshipped as required by its' own mandates without a pilgrimage to the city of Mecca. Therefore, a version of the MAD doctrine can be developed stating that if the United States is attacked with a WMD, then upon thirty days notice, the holy city of Medina will be destroyed with a small nuclear warhead such that no one will be able to inhabit Medina for hundreds of years. Should the United States be attacked a second time with a WMD, the city of Mecca will be destroyed on the same terms. There will be no lose of life due to the notice period, but the religion itself will not be able to be practiced in the manner it heretofore has been practiced for a thousand years. "

Absolutely agree with this strategy, with one question: why not make Mecca the first target ? Its destruction is what will undermine the religion. Otherwise, if only Medina is destroyed, they may take their revenge, even if they wait another 1000 years.

All of this business with the Islamic crazies could have and should have been taken care of in response to 9-11. Instead we'll have to endure a tit-for-tat internecine conflict that may last for decades and may result in the needless deaths of millions of Americans.

Thanks for pointing out what should be obvious.

Bush lacks balls.

"...because after your muslim friends slit your throat while you proclaim that you defended their rights to obliterate every Jew and Christian in the world, they will come for you children.

If you are muslim, drop dead and go to hell.

Couldn't say it better myself.

Deir Yassin

By Mitchell Bard

The United Nations resolved that Jerusalem would be an international city apart from the Arab and Jewish states demarcated in the partition resolution. The 150,000 Jewish inhabitants were under constant military pressure; the 2,500 Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade that lasted five months before they were forced to surrender on May 29, 1948. Prior to the surrender, and throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical.
Meanwhile, the Arab forces, which had engaged in sporadic and unorganized ambushes since December 1947, began to make an organized attempt to cut off the highway linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem - the city's only supply route. The Arabs controlled several strategic vantage points, which overlooked the highway and enabled them to fire on the convoys trying to reach the beleaguered city with supplies. Deir Yassin was situated on a hill, about 2600 feet high, which commanded a wide view of the vicinity and was located less than a mile from the suburbs of Jerusalem. The population was 750.¹
On April 6, Operation Nachshon was launched to open the road to Jerusalem. The village of Deir Yassin was included on the list of Arab villages to be occupied as part of the operation. The following day Haganah commander David Shaltiel wrote to the leaders of the Lehi and Irgun:

I learn that you plan an attack on Deir Yassin. I wish to point out that the capture of Deir Yassin and its holding are one stage in our general plan. I have no objection to your carrying out the operation provided you are able to hold the village. If you are unable to do so I warn you against blowing up the village which will result in its inhabitants abandoning it and its ruins and deserted houses being occupied by foreign forces....Furthermore, if foreign forces took over, this would upset our general plan for establishing an airfield.²

The Irgun decided to attack Deir Yassin on April 9, while the Haganah was still engaged in the battle for Kastel. This was the first major Irgun attack against the Arabs. Previously, the Irgun and Lehi had concentrated their attacks against the British.
No Easy Battle

According to Irgun leader Menachem Begin, the assault was carried out by 100 members of that organization; other authors say it was as many as 132 men from both groups. Begin stated that a small open truck fitted with a loudspeaker was driven to the entrance of the village before the attack and broadcast a warning to civilians to evacuate the area, which many did.³ Most writers say the warning was never issued because the truck with the loudspeaker rolled into a ditch before it could broadcast the warning.⁴ One of the fighters said, the ditch was filled in and the truck continued on to the village. "One of us called out on the loudspeaker in Arabic, telling the inhabitants to put down their weapons and flee. I don't know if they heard, and I know these appeals had no effect."⁵
Contrary to revisionist histories that the town was filled with peaceful innocents, residents and foreign troops opened fire on the attackers. One fighter described his experience:

My unit stormed and passed the first row of houses. I was among the first to enter the village. There were a few other guys with me, each encouraging the other to advance. At the top of the street I saw a man in khaki clothing running ahead. I thought he was one of ours. I ran after him and told him, "advance to that house." Suddenly he turned around, aimed his rifle and shot. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was hit in the foot.⁶

The battle was ferocious and took several hours. The Irgun suffered 41 casualties, including four dead.
Counting the Dead

Surprisingly, after the “massacre,” the Irgun escorted a representative of the Red Cross through the town and held a press conference. The New York Times' subsequent description of the battle was essentially the same as Begin's. The Times said more than 200 Arabs were killed, 40 captured and 70 women and children were released. No hint of a massacre appeared in the report. “Paradoxically, the Jews say about 250 out of 400 village inhabitants [were killed], while Arab survivors say only 110 of 1,000.”⁷ A study by Bir Zeit University, based on discussions with each family from the village, arrived at a figure of 107 Arab civilians dead and 12 wounded, in addition to 13 "fighters," evidence that the number of dead was smaller than claimed and that the village did have troops based there.⁸ Other Arab sources have subsequently suggested the number may have been even lower.⁹
In fact, the attackers left open an escape corridor from the village and more than 200 residents left unharmed. For example, at 9:30 A.M., about five hours after the fighting started, the Lehi evacuated 40 old men, women and children on trucks and took them to a base in Sheikh Bader. Later, the Arabs were taken to East Jerusalem. Starting at 2:00 P.M., residents were taken out of the village. The trucks passed through the Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim after the Sabbath had begun, so the neighborhood people cursed and spit at them, not because they were Arabs, but because the vehicles were desecrating the Sabbath. Seeing the Arabs in the hands of Jews also helped raise the morale of the people of Jerusalem who were despondent from the setbacks in the fighting to that point.¹⁰ Another source says 70 women and children were taken away and turned over to the British.¹¹ If the intent was to massacre the inhabitants, no one would have been evacuated.

The village after the attack
After the remaining Arabs feigned surrender and then fired on the Jewish troops, some Jews killed Arab soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. None of the sources specify how many women and children were killed (the Times report said it was about half the victims; their original casualty figure came from the Irgun source), but there were some among the casualties. Any intentional murder of children or women is completely unjustified. At least some of the women who were killed, however, became targets because of men who tried to disguise themselves as women. The Irgun commander reported, for example, that the attackers "found men dressed as women and therefore they began to shoot at women who did not hasten to go down to the place designated for gathering the prisoners."¹² Another story was told by a member of the Haganah who overheard a group of Arabs from Deir Yassin who said "the Jews found out that Arab warriors had disguised themselves as women. The Jews searched the women too. One of the people being checked realized he had been caught, took out a pistol and shot the Jewish commander. His friends, crazed with anger, shot in all directions and killed the Arabs in the area."¹³
Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. On the contrary, every villager ever interviewed has denied these allegations. Like many of the claims, this was a deliberate propaganda ploy, but one that backfired. Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi "there was no rape," but Khalidi replied, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror."¹⁴
Reaction

The Jewish Agency, upon learning of the attack, immediately expressed its “horror and disgust.” It also sent a letter expressing the Agency's shock and disapproval to Transjordan's King Abdullah.
The Arab Higher Committee hoped exaggerated reports about a “massacre” at Deir Yassin would shock the population of the Arab countries into bringing pressure on their governments to intervene in Palestine. Instead, the immediate impact was to stimulate a new Palestinian exodus.
Just four days after the reports from Deir Yassin were published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital, killing 77 Jews, including doctors, nurses, patients, and the director of the hospital. Another 23 people were injured. This massacre attracted little attention and is never mentioned by those who are quick to bring up Deir Yassin. Moreover, despite attacks such as this against the Jewish community in Palestine, in which more than 500 Jews were killed in the first four months after the partition decision alone, Jews did not flee.
The Palestinians knew, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, the Jews were not trying to annihilate them; otherwise, they would not have been allowed to evacuate Tiberias, Haifa or any of the other towns captured by the Jews. Moreover, the Palestinians could find sanctuary in nearby states. The Jews, however, had no place to run had they wanted to. They were willing to fight to the death for their country. It came to that for many, because the Arabs were interested in annihilating the Jews, as Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha made clear in an interview with the BBC on the eve of the war (May 15, 1948): “The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
References to Deir Yassin have remained a staple of anti-Israel propaganda for decades because the incident was unique.
Notes

¹"Dayr Yasin," Bir Zeit University.
²Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970), p. 141.
³Menachem Begin, The Revolt, (NY: Nash Publishing, 1977), pp. xx-xxi, 162-163.
⁴See, for example, Amos Perlmutter, The Life and Times of Menachem Begin, (NY: Doubleday, 1987), p. 214; J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out Of Zion, (NY: St. Martin*s Press, 1977), p. 292-96; Kurzman, p. 142.
⁵Uri Milstein, History of Israel's War of Independence. Vol. IV, (Lanham: University Press of America. 1999), p. 262.
⁶Milstein, p. 262.
⁷Kurzman, p. 148.
⁸Sharif Kanaana and Nihad Zitawi, "Deir Yassin," Monograph No. 4, Destroyed Palestinian Villages Documentation Project (Bir Zeit: Documentation Center of Bir Zeit University, 1987), p. 55.
⁹Sharif Kanaana, "Reinterpreting Deir Yassin," Bir Zeit University, (April 1998).
¹⁰Milstein, p. 267
¹¹"Dayr Yasin," Bir Zeit University.
¹²Yehoshua Gorodenchik testimony at Jabotinsky Archives.
¹³Milstein, p. 276.
¹⁴"Israel and the Arabs: The 50 Year Conflict," BBC.
Photo: The Irgun Site

You have probably read the Deir Yassin material I posted just previously ....But there it is.

You go, Phil! Cheer on the Palies!

If you are muslim, drop dead and go to hell.

My sentiments exactly, Yehuda. I just didn't want to say it.

This is the nightmare scenario - no specific target to retaliate against. Worse still is the detonation of a small nuke in one of our big cities followed up by demands which, if not met, will result in more prepositioned nukes going off in our cities. Bush's only choice would be to succomb to the terrorists' demands while frantically searching for the loose nukes. The terrorists could greatly amplify the chaos here by naming a bunch of target cities.

These nukes can never be as large and numerous as ours. When such demands are made you know who your enemy is and who to demolish with a volley of our own nukes.
UNLESS ..... You have a real nightmare where a party such as ChiComs fire off the first nuke and issue the threats and pretend they are from Islamic Jihadists. This way the ChiComs make a nice war between us and the Islamic world. I would not put it past them.

Unless someone salts the nuke with misleading elements, any nuke explosion can be identified as to what nuclear reactor the material was generated in.

No. The Jordanians successfully defended Jerusalem until 1967. Before that, there wasn't a single Arab that called himself a 'Palestinian'.

Although, ironically, the PLO was already in existence prior to 1967, founded by an Egyptian, for the sole purpose of running the Jews into the sea.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If (a) the missiles are intercepted prior to their designated detonation points and (b) they actually distribute their payload more efficiently...then the missiles were badly mistargeted to begin with.

I'm serious.

I am serious as a heart attack myself.

A.D.1967 Israel defeats Arab invading armies and occupies West Bank and all of Jerusalem. West Bank is under Israel occupation to this date. (December 1997).

I like your spin, let's see if this works for you.

Thomas Jefferson declares Independence from England.

The United States defeats invading English armies and occupies New England and all of Manhatten.

New England is under United States occupation to this date.

Invading armies that loose land have no right of return. Isreal took on the Arab countries in combat, and defeated them. They have every right to all lands they captured, with out question.

But, I would agree to give back Maine, Conn., Mass., and Delaware to the English "as is, no questions asked".