PaulL

You ask what I'd do if extremists lobbed missiles into my home day after day.

Silly question really. But you won't be able to accept the obvious.

Simple I'd stop killing them, stop assassinating their leaders, stop suppressing them, stop stealing and settling their land, stop building a fence around their land, stop stealing their water, stop interfering in their internal politics, stop arresting them and detaining them indefinately, stop all the pettiness of the occupation checkpoints, stop portraying them as the aggressors and genuinely deal with the peace terms offered by the Arab League.

Quite simple really. And until you do those very reasonable things,why don't you stop whinging to the rest of us about how your neighbours lob bombs onto you and try to match your military and nuclear might.

If he was alive I'd ask the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat how he forced the Israelis to the peace table and the world eventually, notably the US and the USSR, put pressure on the Israelis to settle...and give back the Sinai. It wasn't as you try to portray a magnamious act. Similar with Jordan. But not so with Syria, Lebanon or Palestine. Why do you need to try to twist things? I am very familiar with the modern history of the region...and I don't accept blindly Israeli propaganda.

Keith

There is never any excuse for DELIBERATELY trying to blow up a school bus full of children. The Palestinian terrorists have tried this a number of times. The Israelis gave back the Gaza Strip yet they continue to receive mortars and rockets from that territory every day. Palestinians don’t even bother attacking the people responsible for Israel’s decision making, they just attack any Jew they can find, man woman or CHILD.

The Arab League does not speak for the Palestinians. The Palestinians aren’t even sure who speaks for them. At Camp David in 2000 the Israeli Prime Minister offered a better deal than the one the Arab League presented and the Palestinians knocked it back. Groups like Hamas don’t want a separate Palestinian state. They want Israel as well. Hamas is part of the Global Islamo-Facsist order. Is it any wonder Israel seeks to deal with (reasonable by comparison) Fattah and Abbas. Hamas have just recently tried to assassinate this man.

Israel is surrounded by Arab states bent on its destruction. Hamas believes that with help from Iran, through Hezbollah, they can drive all Jews from the Middle East.

When you suggest that Israel should stop ensuring its safety through arresting terrorists and making sure that weapons and explosives don’t enter the country it is clear you are an apologist for terrorists.

Israel has numerous times offered cease fires and other methods to begin the peace process but they do not have a partner in peace. Hamas is not interested in negotiating with Israel. Neither is Iran or Syria.

You have an incredibly distorted view of history if you think that Anwar Sadat forced Israel to the negotiating table. ROFLMAO. Egypt was soundly beaten in three wars of invasion. When they finally realised they were going to get nowhere militarily and that they no longer preferred the Soviets to the US, Sadat decided that making peace with Israel was the best solution. The victory in 1973 was so absolute in the end that he had no other choice. Who is giving you your opinions?

Bushbred

You seem to be very confused.

Otto von Bismarck wasn’t born in 1778 and so he would have had difficulty organising the shelling of Paris. In fact guns which could shoot that far weren’t invented then. Bismarck was born in 1815 and died in 1898.

He was an aristocrat and was vitally interested in the continuing dominance of the aristocrats in Europe especially the Royals. He also worked to assure Prussian pre-eminence in Central Europe.

His famous quote was "the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of majorities — that was the great mistake from 1848 to 1849 — but by iron and blood."

The Realpolitik of which you speak is an illusion. Bismarck was in many respects a typical modern politician of the type we see all the time.

He had little regard for ethics, morals or legalities. Realpolitik was the tool Bismarck used to achieve Prussian dominance in Germany, “as he manipulated political issues to antagonize other countries, possibly with the intention of war. Characteristic of Bismarck's political action was an almost Machiavellian policy”.

You castigate the militarist French for the Franco-Prussian war, yet Bismarck provoked this war to break French dominance in Europe. At the same time you assert that Versailles was too oppressive on the Germans.

Keynes has been acknowledged as an important economist but one who did not fully understand modern economies.

What is most ridiculous about your claims with respect to Realpolitik is your support for the extinguishment of the Jewish state. Surely this is a dogmatic/ideological position if ever there was one.

I wonder whether you think we should also continue to deal with the cruel dictators in Burma who are currently gunning down peaceful protesters all the while protected by the Chinese who hold the UN hostage on this and many other issues. Is that Realpolitik enough for you? Explain please why the whole world should be bound by the UN when it is only China which is getting in the way

PaulL

You point to a couple of dispicible acts by a few terrorists and attribute that behaviour to all Palestinians. Why do you make such disgraceful generalisations? That's racist.

Why do you ignore the fact Israel suppresses every Palestinian?
Why do you ignore and attempt to justify Israel's aggressiveness towards it's neighbours by pointing to the actions of a few Palestinians?

Why do you lie about the comparison between Camp David and the Arab League offer?

Hamas was the democratically elected government of the Palestinians and I am familiar with their election manifesto...so don't try the usual Israeli propaganda rubbish.

Israel is doing exactly what you accuss the Arabs of wanting to do. ie take their enemies lands. But you will never ever take that as reasonable and logical. You can't you are a propagandist.

It is fine for Israel to ensure its safety. But it is wrong try to do this in territories it illegally occupies.

I agree the Israeli action in Palestinian lands is state sponsered terrorism and 'it is clear you are an apologist for(state sponsered) terrorists'.

Israel hasn't a partner in peace because it won't return or doesn't want to return the occupied territories, especially those it is building a very provactive wall around. Until that happens there will never be peace...until sheer weight of numbers or a massive US recession which causes a lack of funding will eventuate in Israel's demise.

With regard to Sadat when the war was lost militarily the Soviets threatened to become involved by sending Soviet troops and equipment, that scared the crap out of everyone (Who had a reasonable world view that is.) and the US twisted the Israeli's arm to make a reasonable peace. Simple as that. So by winning a war the Israeli's were forced to make peace... by much wiser heads. A bit like what happened recently in Lebanon. Btw are those Israeli pow's returned yet?

My opinions are formed by reading all sides and making a judgement on that basis. I do not just blindly accept the Israeli version of events. They simply lie too much.

Paull, reckon you need a new pair of reading glasses, because on re-reading my last thread the only date I mentioned was
when Bismark's Germans crossed the French border.

Anyway, both Bismarck and Keynes are regarded by most political historians as the greatest forward thinkers of the age.

Further as Realpolitik was originally a science during the so-called Concert of Europe to avoid major war wherever possible, wonder where your info' came from?

Not like the Concert both Bush and Cheney attune to at present, anything to blast Iran so they can get the oil.

Their confidence lies not so much in Realpolitik commonsense but in American firepower, selfishly built up while banned in other countries.

Unfortunately it is also a power that has not prevented the rise of terrorism but built it up a hundredfold, the presence of a nuclear Israel also very much adding to it.

The real scary thing of course, is that the more hateful rhetoric the US exudes towards the terrorists the more surety that time is on their side to use mini-nuclear bombs instead of just ordinary street bombs.

Just wonder if we could try Mandelas's reasoning and try a bit of forgiving and admitting - because after all as more than one CIA leader has admitted, much of the terrorist hatred against us is related to blowback or payback.

michael_in_adelaide

I doubt that a nuclear armed Iran would embark on a nuclear war. I question whether they would even give bombs to terrorists.

However my fear is that the Iranian government may be UNABLE to keep its bombs out of the hands of terrorists. It seems to me very possible that Iran's nuclear guardians, motivated by cash and ideology, will hand over nukes or nuclear technologies to Muslim terrorists.

Obviously the same considerations apply to Pakistan with even more force. One of their foremost nuclear scientists, AQ Khan, has in fact sold nuclear know-how and, perhaps, equipment, to Muslim regimes.

It does look as if it is only a matter of time before terrorists get their hands on a nuke or three.

I'm at a loss to know what we do about it. The stock left wing answers – address the grievances of Muslims, etc – probably won't work because short of agreeing to live in a Caliphate what appeasement is possible?

Sancho,

Iran seems to be getting missile technology from North Korea. Once they get bombs it would only be a matter of time before they had delivery systems. In fact they may get the missiles before their bomb is ready.

So, yes, Iranian nukes could definitely pose a threat to Europe and the US. But I doubt the regime is mad enough to risk nuclear annihilation. I think the danger of terrorists getting their hands on Iranian nukes AGAINST THE WISHES OF THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT is the bigger danger.