More Propaganda

[B-Man]

To right wing Israeli the Settlers are fighters on the front line, just as to the right wing Palestinians the suicide bombers are fighters on the front line.

You see, that kind of thinking is a major part of the problem. What the settlers are doing may or may not be morally correct or legal, depending on your point of view, but it is not even in the same universe as suicide bombing. There is no moral equivalence between the suicide bombers and the settlers.

[ACPlayer]

Israel is not going to lay down their weapons until the terrorism stops.

Perhaps that contributes to the problem. No?

[ACPlayer]

Well, you cant deny that my statement is correct.

.. And I am not establishing a moral equivalence.

With the wall as I described it both parties win. The Palestinians keep the settlers out, the israelis keep the suicide bombers out. It is the start of a country for the Palestinians something that they are certainly entitled to have and defend.

[B-Man]

Well, you cant deny that my statement is correct.

I do not deny that in the Palestinians point of view, the suicide bombers are the front-line soldiers. That, however, doesn't justify their actions or mean that their point of view is reasonable.

For the record, I have stated on this site on several occassions that if a negotiated settlement can not be reached, Israel should unilaterally withdraw, secure its borders, and separate from the West Bank/Gaza. If the settlers refuse to leave, they would be on their own.

I don't think that's the best solution, but it is better than the cycle of violence of the last 3 years.

[MMMMMM]

Exercising the natural right to self-defense cannot be construed as contributing to any problem. Exceeding it may at times. However, determining what is the proper balance for exercising sufficient force for self-defense and not going overboard with it can be very difficult at times.

Also, if Israel actually were to disarm they would simply be annihilated by the Palestinians and Arabs. Not that the Arabs haven't tried it before.

[Cyrus]

"I read [that the sinking of the USS Liberty] was an accident--you are the ultimate conspiracy theorist."

Brad can be wild [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] but he's quite correct on this one. Let a Jew, and a religious Jew with rabbinical ordination at that, tell it like it was : The sinking of the USS Liberty was deliberate. It is a devastating and revealing article.

More web sources :

The official Israeli position on the sinking of USS Liberty

BBC broadcasts USS Liberty documentary "Dead In The Water"

Book on Nat'l Security Agency reveals the truth about USS LIberty

The USS Liberty survivors speak

[B-Man]

I can't believe I am going to agree with both Brad and Cyrus in the same thread, but I have also read that Israel deliberately attacked the Liberty, and that there was a joint coverup between Israel and the U.S.!

Why? Here is the very short version:

1. The Liberty was spying on Israel. Not only was it spying, it was giving away Israeli troop movements and other vital information to the Arabs. Perhaps the U.S. motivation here was to maintain the balance of power in the region, perhaps there was another motive.

2. Israel wouldn't tolerate the above actions, and decided to do something about it. Hence, the bombing of the Liberty.

3. The U.S. took part in the coverup because that story (that it was an accident) was far less embarrassing than the truth--that we (the U.S.) had been spying on an ally and giving crucial information to her enemies, leading to the ally bombing our spy ship.

So Brad and Cyrus may be right. Of course, as is often the case, they (well, some of Cyrus' links may discuss them, I haven't read them) omitted some highly relevant facts, i.e. the context in which the bombing took place and the events preceding it. Was the bombing justified? Some would say yes. I certainly would say this--if we are going to spy on a country and, even worse, give the information we gain to its enemies, we should be prepared to face the consequences.

[brad]

'However large-scale -commercially-grown crops which are GM-modified specifically for the purpose of being insect-resistant require less spraying with pesticides.'

u have no facts to back this up.

thec whole point of roundup-ready (rapeseed i think) is you can dump roundup (pesticide) on crop with no deleterious effect on crop, something that cant be done with non gm.

[MMMMMM]

damn, brad, Roundup is an HERBICIDE not a PESTICIDE...right????

[Cyrus]

"The Liberty was spying on Israel. Not only was it spying, it was giving away Israeli troop movements and other vital information to the Arabs. Perhaps the U.S. motivation here was to maintain the balance of power in the region, perhaps there was another motive."

The American ship was monitoring the activity of both sides in the 1967 war. This, for B-Man, is akin to "spying". If anything, the United States actively assisted through materiel and vital intelligence the Israelis in the 1967 war, as, among other sources, the BBC documentary I linked to, amply demonstrated. B-Man's claim that "the Americans might've been helping the Arab side" is adding insult to injury; the fiercely anti-communist Arab countries found themselves being supplied with arms by their worst ideological enemy, the Soviet Union, for the simple reason that America, the other superpower, was firmly on the side of Israel. There was no "balance" to redress, as B-Man claims.

The truth is that Israel was extremely keen on violating the US-sponsored cease-fire in that phase of the 1967 war and capturing the Golan Heights. The USS Liberty was able to detect the relevant troop movements and was thus made a target by the unscrupulous Israeli military command. The day after the ship was hit, Israel attacked and captured the Golan Heights.

B-Man cannot but acknowledge that the ship was deliberately attacked by Israel. The evidence is simply overwhelming to pretend otherwise. (MMMMMMM has some catching up to do!) But B-Man will always find an excuse for Israeli actions. When it's not "the terrorists", it's "Americans helping the Arabs". For pete's sakes.