Ted,

Can you solve a problem without solving some of its route causes?

“And no one should doubt the willingness of the Jewish state to secure its self-preservation today”

You need to think of resolving the underlying issues for threats otherwise you will always be living a ground hog day, Hitler, Nasser, Ahmedi Nejad, whoever comes in another 39 years and the one to follow..


Start by explaining your views on the following:
- What are the borders of the Jewish state that you need your neighbours to recognize and accept?
- What is your definition of the Palestinian state: land, people, borders and government?
- Is Israel, the nuclear state, capable of initiating, driving and reaching a settlement with a weak state?

Yet another recycling of Zionist mythology. The Six Day War:
"Nasser didn't want war. The 2 divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." (Yitzhak Rabin, Le Monde, 28/2/68)
"The Egyptian layout in Sinai and the general buildup there testified to a militarily defensive Egyptian set-up, south of Israel." (Levy Eshkol, Yediot Ahronot, 16/10/67)
"In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack them." (Menachem Begin, New York Times, 21/8/82)

Strewth....
very selective quoting there. I don't have the time or energy right now to sus out the rest which you omitted, but Ted did give a few hints at where things were headed. You also neglect the role of the Russians in all this, and their role was not insignificant.

TED.. if you have a hotline to the powers to be in Israel, you know what to do, just DO it. Look closely at the trappings of Ahmedinajads speeches, it looks like some Jehovah Witness scene.. VERY theological as you pointed out. Persian history goes back a longggg way, and their various trists with empire and domination of Israel are numerous.

I don't think the Americans will have a hope in hell of taking out the Iranian Nuke sites, they are too selfishly reliant on the oil, which would probably have the tap turned off if they attacked.

I don't think I've ever seen such an epitomy of pure distilled evil as when I look at Ayutollah Khomenie's picture. Ahmedinajad is just a new cloak for the same mentality.

My views on what Israel should do, have nothing to do with my theological standpoint re Israel, its just common sense about survival. (ours as well as Israel's)

In the end..what will be... will be.

Ah, STREWTHIE,

You never let an opportunity pass to recycle an erronious assertion from a dubious lefty website. Rabin never made the comment that you attribute to him because it simply doesn't convey the true facts. You are regurgitating an anti-Israel urban myth. Why am I not surprised?

Allow me to present an accurate account of the stituation immediately prior to the commencement of the Six Day War:

After evicting the UN force, Nasser sent 5 divisions into the Sinai to reinforce the 30,000 Egyptian troops already there and the 10,000 strong Palestine Liberation Army division stationed in Gaza. The units dispatched from Egypt into the Sinai on 15-16 May 1967 included: the 5th, 2nd and 7th Infantry Divisions and the 6th and 4th Armoured Divisions, as well as several independent brigades that collectively amounted to the strength of another division. Each division was composed of about 15,000 men, and bringing the total Egyptian troop strength in Sinai to over 100,000. And they brought with them over 900 tanks, hundreds of artillery pieces of various calibres and vast ammounts of ammunition.

The Egyptian order of battle is openly available from a variety of sources on the 1967 war. Michael Oren's "Six Days of War," and Eric Hammel's "Six Days in June" are just a couple of books on the subject.

You might want to do a little reading from reputable sources before you embarass yourself further.

Ted, old son,

Settle down. The only parallel with the Six Day War that the Iranian crisis presents is that there may be serious trouble if parties don't sensibly negotiate.

Tony Walker, foreign editor of The Australian Financial Review, who himself has spent a long time in the Middle East, discussing the fact that the Bush Administration is in serious trouble in the popularity polls in its final 1000 days, reports today:

QUOTE
Arthur Schlesinger, a historian and adviser to John F. Kennedy, finds a foreboding in [new White house Chief of Staff Joshua] Bolten's phrase "1000 days" since he fears that Bush, driven by a messianic belief in his own divine mission, will launch the US into another war - this time against Iran.

"There stretch ahead for Bush 1000 days of his own," Schlesinger observes. "He might use them to start the third Bush war. There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than foreign policy based on presidential preventive war."
END QUOTE

What do we have to do to persuade both Palestine and its Hamas administration and Israel and its noisy diaspora that neither suicide bomber attacks nor missiles fired from jet fighters pave the road to peace?

It is worth remembering that some of Israel's most fervent supporters in the US, fundamentalist Christians, oppose Muslims because they wish to reclaim Jerusalem for Christ and on the Day of Rapture wish to see Jews tipped down the garbage chute into the fiery furnaces of Hell.

Uncomfortable bed-fellows I would have thought, Ted.

Ted, are you part of the solution, or part of the problem? Are the Coalition of the Deluded ready to wage war on Iran?

Big Ted, You question my sources. All quotes come from Hebrew University of Jerusalem sociologist, Baruch Kimmerling's 'Politicide' (p 58) But I suppose you'd have a problem with him too?

Another monotheist playing with himself, careful more of it will drop off. Jews forced their way into the middle east, murdering everyone that opposed them after WW2.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Ted, Such short memories, the followers of god. You must enjoy constantly repeating yourselves over and over with war. Consider why the Egyptians confronted the jews back then. Wasn't it because jews had violently entrenched themselves in others land and then said it was theirs according to god. Another example of the violence of your beliefs.

You along with other god factions seem to revel in preaching both peace and war in the same breath. As the middle east is the birth place of monotheism, its understandable that it would be the place where god would be fully expressed in truth. Thats why the area's the most violent place on earth, its destined for a constant expression and example of gods ways.

When you consider the book you worship the OT, is a plagiarised violent work, the koran is a plagiarised violent work and the NT is a historically inept and unproven failed fallacies.

Is it any wonder you can only express your beliefs in god by violent means, to overcome the reality of what monotheistics is. Despotic in expression, application and outcome.

I doubt any would care two hoots what you do or believe, the problem is you and your god have this terrible habit of repeating yourselves over and over. Again thats fine, but you effect all of us. Still knowing how you people think, as long as you see yourself sitting on top of the pile of destruction that your god has handed out, you care nothing for anyone or anything.

Ted,

How can Iran pose a threat to Israel?

When was the last time Iran occupied 10% of one of its neighbours?

Does Iran receive the equivalent of 20% of all foeign aid of the world's last remaining superpower?

Can you name me an instance of Iran laying siege to and bombing one of its neighbours in the past 20 years?

Ted, if you are so keen to have Iran attacked, why are you lobbying us Aussies? Or do you want to deprive our farmers of export income?

And why lobby other Western nations? Why not tell your beloved Israel to fight its own battles?

You've fought in the Israeli army. Why not pack your bags and prepare for war? Why beat the drums of Middle Eastern conflict in my peaceful country?

Seriously, the more I read of your stuff, the more you are beginning to sound like one of those "thick sheiks" that keep rabbitting on about conspiracies and war.

Ifran:

"How can Iran pose a threat to Israel?"

You cannot be serious.

"When was the last time Iran occupied 10% of one of its neighbours?"

The American embassy was technically 100% of a neighbours territory.

"Does Iran receive the equivalent of 20% of all foeign aid of the world's last remaining superpower?"

This is relevant how? This talking point is some diffuse smear that misses any mark entirely. America gives Israel money so it is OK for Iran to nuke them. Sounds pretty convincing to me.

"Can you name me an instance of Iran laying siege to and bombing one of its neighbours in the past 20 years?"

Iraq perhaps? If you include proxies then Israel springs to mind. Iran currently resides in southern Lebanon, along with Hezbollah. You already know this. Why the cute memory lapses. Buenos Aires was another good example of Iran's benign intentions.

"And why lobby other Western nations? Why not tell your beloved Israel to fight its own battles?"

This comment conflates Ted Lapkin and Israel. I don't imagine they are the same thing. But anyway, why lobby, simple, that is the way that civilised nations behave.

"Why beat the drums of Middle Eastern conflict in my peaceful country?"

That is a bit underhanded don't you think? Totally irrelevant also.

"thick sheiks that keep rabbitting on about conspiracies and war. "

You mean Hilali right?

Mearsheimer & Walt's insightful and much-needed analysis of the power of the Israel lobby over US policy in the Middle East, in its discussion of the lobby's propaganda blitz for the Bushies to do something about Iran, is proving prophetic. Written a year ago, M & W said, "Op-eds and articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a 'terrorist' regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is also pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions on Iran. Israeli officials also warn they may take preemptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, hints partly intended to keep Washington focused on this issue." M & W also point out that "Iran's nuclear ambitions do not pose an existential threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea, then it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep constant pressure on US politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option." Well, the Iran Freedom Support Act has just been passed overwhelmingly by US congressmen against the wishes of the Bush administration. AIPAC, the spearhead of the Israel lobby, had been pushing for the bill to be passed and it looks like what M & W call its "stranglehold on the US Congress" has been instrumental in the passage of the bill, referred to by Rep. Kucinich as a "steppingstone to war". Big Ted is a key official of AIJAC, Australia's version of the American AIPAC. Ted's 'Brewing Calamity' should be seen in the context of M & W's analysis.

Ted, in the name of consistency I hope Mr Ahmadinajad has a nuclear weapon aimed at China. In 1949 didn't Eastern Turkistan with its 300 mosques and 18 madrasas get incorporated into Communist China? Why aren't the Iranians upset about that?

Mr Ahmadinajad's latest blague confirms his residence in the sad world of oneirataxia. Watching and reading his speeches creates the impression that the surreal mahdi has been transubstantiated into the Iranian president. The chimera he sells to his countrymen is that pushing the red button will deliver eudaemonia to the region and reinstall the Islamic imperium. He should know that the Israelis won't respond by calling a committee meeting. And after calling for Israel's destruction he segues into his role as a man of peace seeking to enliven the Tehran electricity grid with nuclear generated power.

Let's hope that the Iranian kakistocracy and the willing Israelis, both expert at indulging in the pudendous practice of saying one thing and doing the other, don't drag us into the maelstrom of ME machinations.

I note that Ted writes for the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. Ted, please drop the Australia from that title as I don't see why we have to be dragged into the stupidity of ME politics. I wonder if we have said a big 'thank you' to these acidulent, rebarbative and anhedonic types for bringing their troubles and ancient feuds to our once peaceful country.

Parallels could be drawn between Iran and pre WW2 imperialist Japan - both have a divine mission to unify their respective regions under the total domination of a religious theocracy whilst promoting the cult of bushido "the way of the warrior" in the form of armed kamikaze jihadists.

Rog... spot on.

Sage.. toooooooooooooo many 'unusual/big/rare' words mate.. sorry.. I did the 'machine shop/metal bashing/woodwork' stream at Assy Tech, not the 'humanities' stream at Mordy High.

We are treading through a mine field of light globes at the moment.

Many inconsistencies are being noted (why not attack North Korea) etc.. and the Wests ability to live with a Nuclear this country and that country.. Then there is the wild card of Pakistan. Who is our defense against a rogue Islamist regime there ? India most likely.

China and the Soviet Union are increasingly acting like Telstra.. "I'm in it for the MONEY" and their interests are always being calculated, Its not an easy path to solve Dafor Sudan etc... Chinese interests at stake.. and can we blame them ? We rammed unwanted Opium down their throats for decades, had gun boats off the coast or up the rivers.. punished them with EXTREME economic burdens when they objected, humiliated them with treaties like Nanjing. Why should they care one iota for our interests now ?

On the inside their leadership is probably saying "OUR TURN".......and we will reap what we sowed.

Of course there is an Israeli lobby in the US, just as there is an Australian, British and every other countries.

All these lobies are doing things diplomatically for security and economic reasons. Duh.. welcome to the reality which has been with us for like..SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN !

The important issue is more 'how will we fare or stand when the END of the world comes' ? and if things continue the way they are now, even without the return of our Lord, we will create our own Armageddon.

But I have confidence that things are shaping up as prophesied in Scripture, I cannot join the dots, and don't intend to try, but I can warn, urge, encourage and proclaim, that In Christ, we will enjoy forgiveness, salvation and life as it was intended.

Before getting into the warm fuzzy feeling of righteousness and retelling our version of who did what to whom start with the basics. Kindergarten?
Distortion of what happened, our and every ones media has its own spin on truth, for the latest see Glasgow university media department on this issue Pluto press.
We all have our liked “truths” biases based on temperament what’s in it for us and does it satisfy my credo as voiced in whatever book of imaginings takes our fancy. Dissenters shall be hanged or shot or well whatever all on the basis of conformity to myth.

Surely Israel arose from colonial history and a sense of deserving some compensation because of their treatment, wave to religious belief in passing, all at someone else’s expense. Terra Nullus Palestine was not, but then as now the world order was determined by the powerful and lobbies within the powerful. It was ever thus.
Dispute resolution does not come from fixed positions yet dangerously in the time left the issue becomes hotter with each little power sounding off, the Palestinians outbreed the Jews and Islam fights for its end.
Me I find no enjoyment in this game having no evangelical desire to kill anyone, banned by the books, nor to trade one fact against another as facts are reported. Friedman or Fiske etc.
Oh yes feeling threatened gives life a tingle, a purpose a potential momentary meaningfulness. More enjoyable than the peace of humanity also found in the books. Meanwhile our Government true their stated belief in big powers pushes the nationalistic beliefs so much part of the problem.

Sorry BD, I thought you had access to Google.

Do you show as much reluctance to reach for your bible to obtain a quote or to settle an argument about some passage in your bible?

Tubs think you be playing the competing narratives game there untutored. We have all seen this one before.

Yes, they all take sides, the media too. Pity about the western media. Might get both sides more often if it were otherwise.

Anyway, that being the case, we take sides. Please to notice how many (and in particular who) pick which side. Also what each side is promising.

Maybe it is all about that frisson that comes from life's little tingles as you say. Maybe not. Maybe the whole narratives thing, my journo is better than yours, is beside the point when nutjobs start lobbing nuclear bombs. What do you think? Meaning comes from not being dead too, you know. Tubs writes more stories that way.

Dear Sage
I didn't mean to annoy you there mate.. nor was I being facetious.

For those who feel its just about 'narratives' consider this.

All biological Jews (those descended from the 12 tribes) of whom there are many, particularly those named "Levi" (with variations) and "Cohen" (with variations) and I would guess 'Reuben'Stien, can trace their ancestry back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, particularly Jacob, who was married to 'Rachel' and 'Leah', though whom the sons who formed the 12 tribes came. Now, while this happened around 3500 years ago, you can goto Israel/Palestine today and there is a place called 'Rachel's Tomb'. The Palestinians have desicrated it, to eliminate all sense of connection to the land, but it still is there.

Not just this, but the Caves of Macpelah (Abraham) and numerous other sites directly referred to in Genesis.
The connection to the land, goes back quite a long way. So, I feel Israel has a very sound claim on the land historically and morally.

This leads to the problem 'What to do'? Does the fact that your home was illegally repossesed by a bank, and given to the managers nephew, make it any less 'your home' ? Does the idea that you were driven out by a local gang leader, and your home given to his cronies make it any less yours ? If you had the wherewithall to RE-TAKE IT.... would you goto the corrupt bank or the gang leader to 'discuss' the matter ? Unlikely, they had their chance, no, of course, you would USE that wherewithall to re-take what was rightfully yours.

The ensuing social dislocation of those who took advantage of your illegal and immoral exile, is, to be frank, not your problem. I suggest the 'baggage' and expense, and 'picking up the pieces' costs, should be borne by those who initiated the problem. Lets list them.

1/ Italian government (Romans)
2/ Saudi Arabia (Islamist invaders)
3/ Iran (Persian invaders)
4/ Turkey (Ottoman Invaders)

All these should share not only the cost of resettlement of Palestinians, but ALSO the cost of re-establishing Israel.

And with the above I rest my case against intelligent design.

When the nut jobs start lobbing
Surely near the point. Why the nut jobs how do they arise in a democracy with the fourth arm fulfilling its role of informing. Man is a cooperative creature, we would not be here otherwise, early experience plus gene effects establishes the pattern. Does this mean the leaders Bush, Sharon et al have a twist in their upbringing? A long term research aim. Will not solve why the electorate accepts the bilge dished out or do they not read it? Some points contradicted within the same media outlet surely raising a query.
Yes dead and the argument is ended but since man has been so clever in tackling problems, though perhaps not so clever as to see consequences, Global warming or downside to nuclear knowledge, cant we find out how the nuts come to the top and why? Why can investigations which few seem to deny show that the bosses have acted in satisfaction of what at least is a misplaced possibility, world control on the basis of exceptionalism a duty to ’help the world’ or to exclude others from lands. Only compromise and sharing gives a longer term stability. Maybe we just enjoy vocalising our sorrow our outrage, over shattered bodies, children without parents or countryside without trees

Our great god Noam/Gaia/Gore/etc, who art in Berkley, says that to raise oneself above the processing level of the common herd... Tubs stopped there, didn't really understand the rest.

Best to drive SUV down to the Burger King (over the skulls of the wretched and unwashed) and contemplate some third world misery that will result from scoffing that triple cheese bacon burger with extra bacon. Laughing.

And.. there I rest the case for those who 'have no case' :)

I rather deliberately constructed a scenario which made me vulnerable to the same charges re Australias indigenous people. I'm surprised no one tweaked to it and gave me curry about it.

So, the broader thing is of course, 'where do we draw lines in the sands of history' ? In the absense of a better argument or historical evidence, it would appear 'might' takes the prize.

But the noteworthy aspect of 'power' is its transient nature. Todays powerful may well be tomorrows down and out.

Amos prophesied against the following cities. "You will be destroyed"

Damascus
Gaza
Ashdod
Tyre
Edom
Moab

A glance at an atlas will show they are in a circle around Israel.
Each one had their 'day' of power and abused others disgracefully.
Within a number of years, they were ALL destroyed.

Before we get too cocky, and suggest that he was speaking against those cites because he was a Jew and they were Israels enemies, he ALSO prophesied against Israel/Judah.

"For three sins of Judah,
even for four, I will not turn back {my wrath}.
Because they have rejected the law of the LORD
and have not kept his decrees,
because they have been led astray by false gods, [b]
the gods [c] their ancestors followed

And so, Judah/Israel was also judged, but not in a 'terminal' way.
They were to be restored.
Notice the other nations just acted cruelly, Judah's sin was 'rejection of God'.... are we guilty of this today ?
What will happen to a nation which rejects God ?

You've got to feel sorry for poor old Ted. I can see him now, having just read the above gibberish, muttering to himself, "Boaz - Thy friendship oft hath made my heart to ache. Do be mine enemy - for friendship's sake."

Folks, forget the religious bulls...and look at the facts. Irael has Le Bomb and if history is any guide they will use it first. Playground struggle shows he who gets the first punch in is likely to win.

The silly dangerous Americans are also likely to allow themselves to be sucked in, throwing their wealth and sanity away in another unwinnable war.

Better to let Iran have Le Bomb and the electricity. Better to increase their wealth which history shows decreases religious fervour. A cold war against another Isalmic Arab nation is stupidity on the grandest scale, but Israel is nervous and their mentor America is has a case of paranoid psychosis.

And our own Australian president seems to absorb American paranoid psychosis by osmosis.

From:
http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/14112

“JERUSALEM, May 19, 2006 (AFP) - Israel and South Africa carried out a nuclear test on an offshore platform in the northern Antarctic in 1979, according to a newly disclosed US document, Yediot Aharonot newspaper said Friday.

The document, released at the request of the security studies centre at Georgetown University in Washington, says a mystery explosion detected on September 22, 1979 by a US satellite was a nuclear test.

Prepared for the White House in December 1979, it said Israel and South Africa, then under apartheid rule, were cooperating on military issues, including nuclear research.

US intelligence services reported in 1990 that South Africa was producing nuclear weapons, while Israel is estimated to possess 200 nuclear warheads, although it has never confirmed or denied holding such weapons. South Africa later dismantled its nuclear weapons program under UN supervision.”

So, whilst the rest of the world was isolating South Africa for its racist policies, Israel was actively cooperating? The country established to provide a homeland for oppressed Jews was encouraging the oppression of another race?

The Israeli mythology of the Six Day War is breathtaking: consider the USS Liberty incident: whilst it is possible, just, that the Israel Air Force misidentified a large converted freighter festooned with American flags and moving at around 12 knots as an Egyptian destroyer, the continued attack on that vessel after its correct identification begs the question of why Israel wanted an American intelligence gathering ship silenced? (see http://www.ussliberty.org/)

To consider more fully Israel’s strategy look back to the 1964-65 ‘War of the Waters’. Syria wanted to convert its ‘deserts into gardens’. To do this Syria would need the waters from the Jordan. Israel also wanted these waters, so it took aggressive action, firing on Syrian civilian workers undertaking irrigation works. This action temporarily stoped these works, but the Six Day War was intended, amongst other things, to claim all these waters for Israel, and let its neighbours go thirsty.