That's why it did it. To expand, and it knew full well that it had a far far more advanced and superior military; and the powerful message this would send.

I don't think this is necessarily true. It's all about leadership, negotiation, and diplomacy.

Carter made great strides in the Middle East towards peace between Israel and Egypt. Clinton cemented the Peace Accords in Oslo (1993) between Israel and the Palenstinians and the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace in 1994. In between these two successful attempts at peace, Reagan, Bush and Bush and the Neo-con warlords basically permitted open season on muslims in the Middle East. I don't think that it was any random coincidence that the First and Second Intifadas occurred during Republican administrations.

Israel has its' neo-con hardliners just like we do. When ours are in power they give the green light to their counterparts throughout the world, including Israel, to carry out their hardline fantasies.

The point that I keep trying to make is that in retrospect, this fact seems obvious. However, at the time, it was anything but. Yes, Israel was confident its army was superior, yes, it had superior technology, but its another thing altogether betting the life of your citizens and the existence of your country on such a gamble.

Only 6 years later, in the Yom Kippur War, Israel came incredibly close to defeat. When the price of failure is total annihilation, it is much harder to push your chips in when you estimate you have a good chance of being a 60% favourite.

I understand that Israel was been pleased with the outcome, but bringing that risk on yourself is basically insane. The idea that Israel instigated the war is classic results based thinking.

I know I keep posting these links, but they really are illustrative:

link

Its hardly difficult to understand that even if Israel knew it had a better army, the chances that it could lose a war against multiple arab armies to the east, north and south and with the sea to the west, was extremely significant. And that the cost of that defeat would be catastrophic.

Would any sane leader make that choice? Did the arab states think they were underdogs when considering the war?

The fact that the eventual outcome was positive for Israel strategically (at least in the short term) does not mean that Israel invited the war. I have yet to hear a respected senior military figure from anywhere in the world consider the Six Day War and its outcome as anything but a "very best case scenario" as far as Israel's existence is concerned. This is even more so for the Yom Kippur War (which of course vindicated Israel's territorial gains in the sense that if Israel had not retained the territory it did, it would have certainly lost the Yom Kippur War and in all probability ceased to exist).

Yes. Knowing that your military is a hundred times more capable, it looks like sound strategy to me.

Come on Boro. A hundred times more capable?

So, yeah if the Israelis had 100,000 tanks and 10,000,000 soldiers they could have been assured of taking out Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Russia, China and the U.S..

I pretty much agree with everything you have said. However, the Egypt and Jordanian peace agreements were possible due to pragmatic arab leaders with wider considerations (as opposed to the failure of the Oslo Accords involving a much less pragmatic Arafat with much narrower considerations).

It is also worth mentioning that the first and by far most significant peace treaty (with Egypt) was signed by Begin (right wing) and executed (via the IDF forcibly evacuating settlers from the Sinai) by Ariel Sharon as defense minister. Despite the folklore, Rabin (who signed the Jordanian treaty and Oslo) was far from what you would today call "left wing".

I do disagree regarding the timing of the 1st and 2nd intifadas (whilst accepting your general points) - however thats another discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli...he_Six-Day_War

Sounds like they had a pretty good damn plan, am i rite? Not to mention the world's best trained pilots.

You still miss the point - one that no military person would - that nothing in war is guaranteed. The price of defeat was ceasing to exist. You seem to think that Israel made a simple calculation and that was that. If the IDF had had a bad day, or if the weather had not been conducive to Israeli air action, or, or or....

The only reasonable inference for someone claiming that Israel knew its military was superior and therefore war was a good idea is that Israel effectively gambled heavily with its existence.

This is just not the reality of how sane leaders behave.

EDIT: re your post above: again, heavy results based thinking - it could easily have turned out differently. do you really think that results like this in war can be guaranteed?

No, they made a complex calculation.


But it is how aggressive and future-oriented leaders think.

Obviously not, but they were willing to gamble with their Air Force like we do with AA. Have you ever folded pocket aces?

It is also funny how these threads always take the same course. People start with the occupation, then, when you get down to brass tacks, they state that Israel started the Six Day War which caused the occupation.

I really dont see the problem with taking the view that Israel occupied the territories in a defensive war but that they should have a) returned the territories at some point or b) treated the Palestinians better.

This is a much stronger and balanced argument and one that is harder to reject.

No, but if I played donkaments and 8 hostile players went AI I certainly would if the price of losing was having my balls cut off and fed to hamsters in front of me whilst having my head slowly cut off with a rusty saw.

You really think that Israel was ready to gamble with the possibility of losing the majority of their Air Force (their primary advantage) out of choice?

(At least you have finally admitted that your theory rests on the belief that the leader of Israel gambled with the lives of his people).

Exactly. It was the plan to use a pre-emptive strike that was key, not the superiority of the IAF. If I have my numbers correct, the Egyptians brand-new Soviet made jets outnumbered the IAF 2 to 1, about 450 to 200. Most of the Egyptian planes, 360, were destroyed on the ground.

It's hard to understand how you could find a 100x superior military when you are outnumbered 2 to 1 in aircraft. It was a risky gamble if you ask me. But, after Egypt amassed tanks and soldiers on the border and ejected the UN Emergency force from the Sinai and started beating the war drums, what else are you going to do? Wait to get attacked when you're vastly outnumbered? Hide? Jump in the Sea?

And they were also due to American diplomatic pressure.



I really wasn't commenting on the left/right Israeli leadership but instead the left/right American leadership and desire to forge a lasting peace. But, your point is well taken as it shows that even left leaning American leadership can convince right leaning Israeli leadership to "get with the program".
As you clearly have insight on the Israeli/Arab conflict could you just give me a quick and brief explanation by what you mean here. Different causes of the Intifadas? Do you think the CIA plays any role there, etc, etc.?

and that was only egyptian aircraft. when you figure in syria, jordan and the other arab states that were sure to jump in, its even higher. the fact that israel had a "good plan" re what to do when push came to shove was only to be expected.

Absolutely

Very true. Generally, any US leader can exert significant influence on any Israeli leader (within reason) - its one of the things that the US gets in return for its support of Israel. However, I do not hold the opinion that right leaning Israeli leaders are absolutely opposed to peace deals, so the influence does not necessarily have to be that great.

In my opinion, the chances of peace deals being made are largely dependent on willing Arab leaders.

I would be happy to give my thoughts, but will only be able to post tomorrow - need to sleep.

While I'm not about to research the numbers etc., Arabs training was mickeymouse cartoon type **** compared to the Israelis.

If you believe that Israel was the little red riding hood in this mess, do you also believe that Normandy was to rescue the Europeans from Hitler--as opposed to Stalin? The conversation can end right then and there...

Ok. I wasn't going to spend the time to compile the list, but fortunately someone else already did. One thing that you should realize is that I am not trying to outnumber your list as it also includes run of the mill reporters, past owners of companies, and people who aren't even Jewish, like Rupert Murdoch.

Yes, Rupert has a Presbyterian grandfather minister on his father's side. Rupert claims that he is a Protestant. While there seems to be a vast campaign underway to portray his mother as Jewish, or at least part Jewish, just about the only place that you will find any mention of it is on Neo-Nazi sites or on your less than semitic-friendly sites like JewWatch.

One place I did just run into a mention of it though is on Wiki, but only in a caption to a picture of Rupert and his parents on a cruise. In it his mother was referred to as his "Jewish mother". I thought that was a strange caption as there was no other mention of "Jewish Mother" in the rest of the Wiki article. Then, I checked the Wiki for his mother. There she is said to have a Jewish upper-class mother and an Irish father. Then, the next sentence states that nothing is known about her Jewish father's background, but the author (or editer) is sure that he was a Jew from Ireland.

The most bizarre thing about the Wiki articles about Rupert and his mother was that by the time I had returned to the original Rupert Wiki (about 5 mins later), the Jewish descriptor of his mother in the picture's caption had been deleted. It was there. I know it was. I sat for a few minutes trying to figure out why it was there in the caption. I tried to see if a page search would fail to turn up "Jewish" which might have helped someone who wanted to hide their campaign to portray Rupert and his mother as Jewish. It was there. Then, I noticed the warning that this page may need cleanup to meet quality standards at the top of the page. So, I re-read his mother's page and, if you read it, it looks like it was written (or edited) by someone who wanted to portray Rupert's mother as Jewish.

This is from a run-of-the-mill genealogy site with no other agenda than the facts:
So, anyway Watchmaker, iraise44's list is based on most likely false Jews so it will be difficult to match when I don't even know what I should be trying to match. Also, he lists past owners like Katherine Graham past owner of the Washington Post. I am not going to spend the time to check the accuracy of the rest of the names on the list, and don't say that "it's not because you don't want to spend the time; it's because it's accurate".

Like I said before, I wasn't going to spend the same amount of time spent by whomever compiled that "Jewish Media Control" list, and I didn't. I am relying on the following two sources. I will add what got me started on this. That is that Jeffrey Immelt is the current Chairman and CEO of GE, parent company and in control of NBC. Sorry, Immelt is not Jewish. Also, Richard D. Parsons, is the current Chairman of the Board at Time-Warner, having given up the CEO position just last year. Richard Parsons is a black Republican. Sorry, he is not like Whoopi or Sammy Davis, he is not Jewish. Anyway, I already spent more time on this than it was really worth and more than I had planned, but Watchmaker, your statement was beyond childish.

And, then this which should be given a full read by following the link because there you will see how this "Jewish Media Control" propaganda is the same as that used by Hitler and Nazi-Germany to prepare their citizenry for the demented and demonic policies to follow.

7. Why do people say that ‘the Jews’ control the media? They don’t.

The notion that the Us has any significant influence over an Israeli leader is horribly wrong. Israel cares about one thing, the continued existence of their state. The US/Israeli alliance is not nearly the same as say the US/UK situation. If the Knesset saw it in their best interest to declare war on America tomorrow, then war would begin. LOL at the US having any real power over Israel. Even if we were to cut off funding the nation has done more with less and would find a way to survive.

An important note is that the US was not always a strong supporter of Israel. We are aligned solely out of convenience from the Cold war. The USSR picked the Arabs, so we picked the Israelis.

I believe your opinion is way off base. You give too much credence to the second half of the Khartoum resolution, and ignore the first part. The resolution, in its entirety, reads: The Arab heads of state have agreed to unite their political efforts on the international and diplomatic level to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from Arab lands which have been occupied since the 5 June [1967] aggression. This will be done within the framework of the main principles to which the Arab states adhere, namely: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it and adherence to the rights of the Palestinian people in their country.

(source: Rabinovich, Itamar, and Jehuda Reinharz. Israel in the Middle East. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2008.)

In the first half the Arab nations claim they are willing to use diplomatic and international efforts to reclaim land that has been occupied. One of the main stumbling blocks to peace has been Israeli unwillingness to return land that has clear strategic value.

The original 'land for peace' deal that the Israelis sought did fail because of Arab refusal to negotiate, but in today's world the only territory that Israel occupies of a foreign government is the Golan Heights (and by doing so is in clear violation of UN charter by annexing territory gained trough war) the WB and GS have been cut loose by their original owners long ago. What keeps peace from happening in these territories is the failure of Israel to withdraw and grant the Palestinians a state.