PaulL > "Treason?? I don’t think so, and anyway who cares?"

I think that about sums up your foreign policy philosophy and bias. Not much more need be said.

Except that Fatah are the unelected ones and are terrorists after they tried a coup against Hamas. Do you believe in democracy or not? And if you do it is irrelevent in your case since you support all these transgressions of sovereignty for allies which you keep denouncing in Iran. It's double standards and inconsistent/biased.

Okay Paul now you are getting silly.

The A4s proved to be devastating to the British shipping in the Falklands war and highly accurate when delivering payloads on to targets. I never proposed that they were a danger to our airforce but rather to Australian cities and other ground targets.

We seem to be engaging in a game of ping pong, ‘So you have a fact well heres my fact right back at cha!’ It can be diverting and even educational on one level but I was more interested in examining why we are playing the game rather than score (20-2 my way if your interested).

My source for the 80% torture rate was the Compass program last week on the ABC “In Our Name”. I have looked for a transcript on their site but it is not available. I will do some more digging.

It is an interesting moral stance you take on the Tamil Tiger issue. For Israel to be supplying both sides out of ‘venal self interest’ would appear to be more acceptable than Iran supporting a democratically elected Hamas because of their situation and the situation of those in Gaza.

Regarding Ostrovsky, Gordon Thomas relates in his excellent book Gideon’s Spies that the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Samir asked Robert Maxwell “to mobilize his powerful media resources to destroy Ostrovsky’s credibility. Maxwell pointed out that before employing him, Mossad would surely have checked his background.”

“Nevertheless, Ostrosky became the object of a smear campaign in the Maxwell media, including the Tel Aviv tabloid Maariv, which Maxwell had bought. He was attacked as a fantasist, a liar, and, unlike Maxwell, not a true friend of Israel.”

“Having studied Ostrovsky’s books, senior members of the Israeli intelligence community knew much of what he claimed was true.”

I’m not sure if the effort is worth it PaulL because you have already firewalled yourself with the well worn phrase (that we are all guilty of overusing) “and even if it is true…”.

Hopefully though you will at least pause to examine who is telling my source is not reputable.

Csteele,.

>> “The A4s proved to be devastating to the British shipping in the Falklands war and highly accurate when delivering payloads on to targets. "

You have entirely neglected the fact that many obsolete aircraft are capable of great damage if they are unopposed. As I have already mentioned, the British were outnumbered 20 to 1 in the air, during the Falklands. When the A4’s got through they did actually do some damage, but in no sense were these jets a threat to the balance of power in OUR region. During the period in which the A-4 were fielded by the Indonesian Air Force they were always completely outclassed by the jets of the RAAF. And Indonesia didn’t, and still doesn’t, have nukes, so the aircraft posed no great threat at all.

Further, you also neglected the fact that WE (Australia) armed the Indonesian air force, as did the US during the 70’s and 80’s. So please do tell why Israel shouldn’t sell jets to Indonesia. If we are happy enough to supply them with jets, I can’t see what the problem is.

>> “For Israel to be supplying both sides out of ‘venal self interest’ would appear to be more acceptable than Iran supporting a democratically elected Hamas because of their situation and the situation of those in Gaza.”

You are confusing Haganahbet and myself. I never suggested anything in regards to the Sri Lankan military. I don’t even know if it’s true. I suspect not. There is certainly plenty of absolute bullsh!t out there. Same goes for the Tamil Tigers, all we’ve got is the word of one disgruntled ex-Israeli. Find a reputable source and we can talk about it.

>> ““Having studied Ostrovsky’s books, senior members of the Israeli intelligence community knew much of what he claimed was true.”

That doesn’t confirm or deny anything at all. That’s a wishy washy attempt to shore up the reputation of someone who’s name is in question. Which parts were true?

TBC,

CONT

Interesting the way the Author words it as well. He’s not actually saying senior members agreed it was true, he’s saying in his opinion he thinks they knew it was true. There’s a very big difference. It is not that the “senior members of Israeli intelligence” are in agreement with the claims, in it is only Gordon Thomas who is in agreement. And of what? We aren’t sure.

We know that Iran, on the other hand, supports Hezbollah, who are not democratically elected at all, in fact who recently carried out a minor coup in Lebanon. Iran basically formed Hezbollah and it has been their instrument ever since. They provide them with weapons, training and money to carry out their propaganda campaign. It’s a similar situation for Hamas, who only received their 44% of the vote two years ago. Iran was supplying them well before that. In fact is eminently likely that the funding that Iran gave to Hamas helped them over the line in the 2006 election.

“Democratically elected”, and “Hamas” do not belong in the same sentence. If I accused you of being a Nazi you would be offended, yet you seem happy to be supporting Hamas who have a similar racist philosophy and an agenda of genocide. Have a read of the Hamas charter and then try and tell me they have a legitimate right to be treated as any other sovereign government on the planet. They do not and it is an absolute joke that you would even suggest that they should. When you’ve actually read the Hamas charter, get back to me and we can talk.

Here are some of the highlights from the Hamas Charter, although there are plenty of other ugly passages.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.

TBC,

CONT,

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

You seem to be trying to make a case for moral equivalency even when it should be quite clear to anyone with a brain it does not exist. Iran is a brutal theocracy, which represses its people to ensure the survival of its Islamic republic. Their treatment of women and religious minorities is appalling and can in no real sense, be compared to Israel’s treatment of its Arab-Muslim citizens. Hamas is hardly any better, although we will need to wait until they attain full power before they begin to implement their agenda.

These are truly barbaric regimes, yet you keep pretending that Israel is just as bad if it makes you feel better.
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/december/iran_executions_191204.shtml
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2007/may2007/bad_hejabi_2507.shtml

Oh and by the way, 20 to 2? In my favour maybe. Otherwise as the man says “ You’re Dreamin”