--- John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > On 2004/05/10, at 2:44, Stan Spiegel wrote: > > > John - Do you really think Lauri King-Irani's > comparison of America's > > bad > > behavior in Iraq with Israel's treatment of > Palestinians holds water? > > Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I am perfectly > willing to concede the > differences. There is no denying that Israel has > been under constant > attack and is a small democratic country surrounded > by larger, mainly > nasty dictatorial enemies *I am sorry to be pedantic, John, but I would question this summary. Israel was, indeed, attacked in 1948., following its expulsion of the Palestinians and its unilateral proclamation of independence. It attacked Egypt in 1956. It launched what it claimed was a pre-emptive war in 1967., resulting in an easy victory and occupation of Arab lands. It was then attacked in 1973. though even that war was largely fought outside Israel's territory. So the last time Israel actually came under substantial attack from an Arab state was more than 30 years ago. Israel further conducted an invasion on Lebanon in 1982, bombed Syria recently etc. Without going into too much detail, it seems to me that there is grounds to contend that Israel has been a threat to its neighbours at least as much as they have been to it, regardless of the respective size. (Also, regardless of the rhetoric of strength which the Arab leaders, for internal political reasons, were employing in the past, and which Israel was able to use to its advantage with the international public.) Is Israel today surrounded by large, nasty enemies ? Sure there isn't much love of Israel around, but Egypt and Jordan do have peace agreements and regular diplomatic relations with Israel. (I frankly wonder whether the people here are aware of this fact.) The main reason there is no peace agreement with Syria is that Israel still occupies the Golan Heights, which is sovereign Syrian territory. Lebanon is not large or particularly nasty or dictatorial. Further in the region, Iraq is occupied by the US, and Iran is surrounded by US troops from two sides and scared of a US attack. The Bush Administration wars do seem to have fulfilled one objective at least, which is enhancing Israel's strategic situation in the region. (Though in truth that situation was quite comfortable even before, and did not require such an intervention.) I would think that this creates favourable conditions to argue for pressuring Israel to renounce its illegal nuclear weapons and cease its occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories. Of course, I realize that some here would never argue this, but it does seem like a logical argument for progressives (I mean particularly the US Democrats) to make. O.K. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html