Really Jon R.Israel in 1966 attacked an unarmed intelligence ship The USS Liberty and tried to blame it on Egypt.The USA believed the ruse for a while and had planes armed with nuked on the way to attack Egypt.

Israel said it was a mistake but the ship was clearly marked and the crew now say that it was no mistake.This is all on record if you wish to know the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRfhUezbKLw 5 Israelis were arrested on 911,held for 10 weeks and released.Back in Israel on a talk show one said,"Our purpose was to document the event" If Israel knew about the attacks of 911,why did they not warn the US people?

Hasbeen

The scenario I described will only come to pass if Israel is backed into a corner which I think is unlikely. Israel's nuclear mobilisation in 1973 seems to have spooked its neighbours.

Muslim imams are happy to to use gullible young men and women as suicide bombers but seem strangely averse to having their sacred backsides vaporised.

But who knows. Anything can happen. See my piece:

You owe your life to Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14044

If a nuclear war does happen I think it will be by mistake:

>>Russia and the US are on opposite sides of the world. During the Cold War alerts air defence commanders had the luxury of a few precious minutes to double check and make sure they did not start a nuclear war by mistake. How much time would Indian and Pakistani air defence commanders have; or Israeli and Iranian commanders? We are talking seconds rather than minutes in both cases.>>

Israel has a submarine born second strike capability so it could annihilate its enemies even if the country itself were destroyed.

Arjay. One could write a whole book on Israeli false flag operations. Most intelligence agencies have that assumption as their starting point for terrorist attacks that seek to discredit Israel's enemies.

It is also useful to look at the 1948 map of the Israel/Palestine territory and compare it with a modern map. It is not the Palestinians who are doing the land theft. One could also look at the plans formulated decades ago as to what Israel's leaders considered to be "greater Israel". Their territorial ambitions extend from the Nile to the Euphrates. The annexation of the Golan Heights, the repeated invasions and occupations of southern Lebanon, and the treatment of the West Bank and Gaza are further illustrations. As recently as 1 March 2013 they have set up a separate bus system for Palestinians. Apartheid is the best word to describe much of their policy.

For all the bluster of Israel's apologists they refuse to acknowledge the reality of the Israeli state. They also refuse to address the issue of Israel's non-membership of the NPT treaty and the refusal to allow inspections of their nuclear facilities. All the while of course claiming that Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program constitutes an existential threat to Israel's existence. The hypocrisy is frankly sickening.

Yes Israel is larger and good luck, spoils (compensation) in defensive wars. Simple stimulus / response, Arabs start a war, loose and loose land, sounds fair enough. It is not anti Israel, just anti West led by fantasists in Unis (the useless bits), the Greens and others parasitic growths.

McCackie,

Many people believe that Israel was an illegitimate state from the outset, that all the land of Israel was "stolen" from the Arabs. They object in principle to the idea of a Jewish state and they will always find reasons to demonise it, reasons that to them seem good.

And that's OK. They're entitled to their opinion. I never argue with people who think that way.

However for good or ill Israel exists and will defend itself. I don't think it's ever going to die quietly. The Israelis will go on defending themselves and those that regard Israel as illegitimate will continue to demand concessions that they know will end the Jewish state.

So it goes.

The more interesting question is why so many people get so caught up in the question of Israel. Here we enter murky waters. Throughout history nobody has ever said "I hate Jews because I'm an anal orifice." Every generation of Jew haters has its rationalisations. Jews are "Christ killers" or Jews are involved in a conspiracy to enslave humanity as described in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Tragically every generation has believed its rationalisation. Israel-hatred is merely the latest iteration of an age-old process. One can see this by the amount of passion many Australians experience about what is in reality a small conflict far away.

There are many obstacles to peace in the M-E but the biggest, by far, is the venomous, genocidal hatred for Jews that permeates every level of Arab society and, to a lesser extent, the entire Ummah. Many Muslim speakers are smart enough to substitute "Zionist" for "Jew" when they rant about us but, in Australia, we call that a dog whistle.

At this point I am usually subjected to a fake history lecture about how well Jews and Muslims got on prior to the establishment of Israel. I have no doubt the creation of Israel exacerbated the hatred but it was there for decades. Ask Jews who used to live in Arab countries.

To be continued

Many people think Israeli, and Jewish, thinking is dominated by the Holocaust. I do not want to understate the importance of the Holocaust but I think most Israeli strategic thinking is dominated by the near death experience of the Yom Kippur war in 1973.

Firstly let's dismiss the Arab propaganda that all they wanted was to regain the lands lost in 1967 and would never enter Israel proper. If you believe that you should also believe tobacco company assurances that smoking is good for you.

For a while Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan really thought Israel was going down – they certainly did not believe the propaganda. They appealed for help from Europe and the US. The Europeans declined outright. The Nixon Administration dithered.

It was only when Golda Meir very openly mobilised Israel's fledgling nuclear strike force that the Nixon administration launched what was at the time the largest resupply operation ever undertaken. The UK and France did not allow the Americans to use their airfields and were rewarded by being exempted from the Arab oil embargo that followed.

The lesson for most Jews was clear. Arab oil is more important than Jewish lives.

As it happens, due to brilliant tactics, the Israelis defeated the Syrians before the resupply had much effect. At the same time Sharon crossed the Suez Canal and destroyed the Egyptian missile sites. The war ended in the total humiliation of the Arab armies even though they too received new supplies from the Soviets.

Since then the policy of successive US administrations has been that Israel must never again be in a position where it has to consider the nuclear option. So having nukes continues to pay off for Israel.

There is a take-home lesson from the Holocaust. When people rant and rave about how evil you are, when they compare you to dogs and apes, when they say you ought to exterminated, don't endlessly parse their words and wonder whether they really mean it. Assume they do and plan accordingly.