Bloggingheads Community - Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

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- - Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum) (http://bloggingheads.tv/forum/showthread.php?t=7197)

Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Mr. Duss says that the problem with an Israeli attack on Iran is that they won't finish the job.
He does not seem to worry about a million dead Iranians. He does not seem to worry about nuclear fallout and American troops in Afghanistan. He does not seem to worry about the destruction of the world economy.
The man is morally wasted.
chamblee54

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

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Originally Posted by chamblee54 (Post 233080)

I think you're missing Duss's point, which is this: It is inevitable that the US will be drawn into the war to subdue Iran with conventional weaponry -- something Israel does not have the resources to do.

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

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Originally Posted by Simon Willard (Post 233083)

The effect of another military adventure on our struggling economy would be devastating. This is in addition to the oil shortage that would probably follow such an invasion. I think I understand his point all too well... the only thing that matters is the illusion of Israeli security. The security of the rest of the world can go to hell, and probably would if this fool's mission goes forward.
I think Israel sees itself as Samson in the temple. It is willing to take the entire world with her to hell.
At another point in the diavlog, Mr. Duss ( I almost typo'd that into Mr. Cuss) was discussing the trauma of taking down the settlements. Tearing apart neighborhoods is heartbreaking. I imagine the Palestinians felt this pain when they were evicted from their homes and farms to make way for the settlements.
chamblee54

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Quote:

Originally Posted by chamblee54 (Post 233088)

I think Israel sees itself as Samson in the temple. It is willing to take the entire world with her to hell.chamblee54

It has been speculated that Israel has a nuclear strategy named and based on Sampson's demise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

The increasing "Israel-centricity" of Blogginheads' Middle East coverage is seriously starting to worry me. I accept that the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is a pressing concern to many Americans and that recent events warrant increased scrutiny of the region. I'm also cognizant of Bob Wright's views on the subject - namely his promotion of the democratic liquidation of a sovereign state and US ally as a "solution" to the troubles. But there has to be a point where we recognize that it is not bloodiest conflict of the present day, that the years since the end of 2nd intifada have brought important improvements to the condition of West Bank Palestinians, and that there are great deal of powerful forces that have little or nothing to do with Israel. How about a conversation on the progress made by AU troops against the Shabbab in Somalia and the latter's attempts at de-stabilizing neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. What ever happened to the excellent Congo coverage? Isn't the journalists job to pry into regions and zones of conflict the public doesn't care/know about? Is/Pal is an obvious choice, but one with a limitless capacity to generate misinformation and hysteria (as the above comments regarding Israel's nuclear policy attest). Do the curious public and favour and change the channel from time to time guys.

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Quote:

Originally Posted by opposable_crumbs (Post 233100)

It has been speculated that Israel has a nuclear strategy named and based on Sampson's demise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

Good link. The idea that Israel would take out not only anybody who threatens their existence but a lot of other countries in the area as well. My guess is it is just Arab countries ( as opposed to others ) that they might vaporize. Iran could do what it wants with a bomb but if it uses it on Israel the whole of Arab civilization is wiped out.

Thrilling rhetoric from the article:

Quote:

"Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow — it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away--unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans--have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?"

In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence. Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying:

"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.

That is deterrence baby !!

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

The whole of Arab civilization, wiped out? Civilization, you say?

So you mean to say that Israel won't use its nuclear weapons at all?

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Quote:

Originally Posted by chamblee54 (Post 233080)

Duh. He wasn't talking about a nuclear attack on Iran.

Re: Middle East Problems (Matthew Duss & Ben Birnbaum)

Quote:

Originally Posted by apple (Post 233135)

The whole of Arab civilization, wiped out? Civilization, you say?

So you mean to say that Israel won't use its nuclear weapons at all?

Asalaam Alaykum apple :)

"This is Israel? Not the one I love"

The staggering details of Israel's repression of Palestinian people and its evisceration of its own state:

Quote:

This is Israel? Not the one I love
By Jonathan Freedland

All credit to Israel's friends in the British Jewish community: they are nothing if not energetic. A matter of months after they gathered for BICOM's We Believe in Israel rally in London, they are now erecting a Big Tent for Israel in Manchester. According to an ad for a spin-off event, once again the focus will be the "delegitimisation of Israel".

I applaud the tirelessness of these campaigners and they are certainly right to take on those who would deny the legitimacy of Israel's existence. But I wonder if they realise that the fight for the Israel they love may also need to take other forms - and not just against the obvious enemies.

Start with the place I visited a week ago: Hebron. What I saw there would shock even those who think they know all there is to know about Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. The centre of a city of 175,000 people has been utterly emptied, its streets deserted, its shops vacant, thanks to a policy the Israeli army calls "sterilisation" - ensuring the area is clear and safe for Hebron's 800 Jewish settlers.

In what was once a throbbing market district, a place teeming with life, successive restrictions have been placed on Hebron's Palestinian population. A map shows purple roads where no Palestinian cars are permitted, yellow roads where no Palestinian shops are allowed to open and red roads where no Palestinians are even allowed to walk.

I watched an old man, a bag of cement on his shoulder, ascend a steep bypass staircase because his feet were forbidden from going any further along the road. Those unlucky enough to live on a red road have had their front doors sealed: they have to leave their own houses by a back door and climb out via a ladder.

All this has made life so impossible that an estimated 42 per cent of the families who once lived in this central part of town have now moved out.

What they have left behind is eerie. Israelis can walk freely down streets that are barred to Palestinians, surveying the shuttered shops that have been covered with some of the most vile graffiti I have ever seen. The familiar "Death to the Arabs" is there, but so is "You have Arabs, you have mice," the words covered up, but still legible. Perhaps most shocking are the Stars of David, daubed on Arab shopfronts and doors. To see that cherished symbol used to spit in the eye of a population hounded out of their homes is chilling.

All right, some will say, Hebron is an extreme case. Not according to my guide, Yehuda Shaul, a kippah-wearing army reservist who served two long tours in Hebron and who now works with the Breaking the Silence movement which, via the new Yachad organisation, has shown several Anglo-Jewish Zionist youth leaders and synagogue activists around the city. Shaul believes that Hebron simply reveals the reality of the occupation in an intense, distilled form.

But let's say Hebron is too much to stomach. Contemplate instead the bill that would formally make Israeli democracy subordinate to the state's Jewish identity, altering the nation's Basic Law and elevating, in the words of the Knesset's legal adviser, Eyal Yinon, "values such as national strength, honour and Jewish identity, even at the expense of values...such as freedom of expression, the right to equality and minority rights".

It would be consoling if this proposal to turn Israel into a kind of Jewish Prussia - high on nationalism with democracy an afterthought - had at least come from the far right, with no prospects of success. But behind it is Avi Dichter of the supposedly centrist Kadima party.

Or visit the ultra-orthodox Mea She'arim neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where the streets themselves now have a mechitza, men walking on one side of the barrier, women the other. That is until they get on a bus, where the women are required to sit at the back, leaving the seats at the front for the men.

The point is that if the Israel we love is the Jewish, democratic state established in the Declaration of Independence then we need to fight for it. It is under threat and not only from the usual suspects, the hostile media and the "delegitimisers". It is also threatened from within, by Israel's own actions. Put simply, if we are true friends of Israel we would take on those who would transform the country into a place most pro-Israeli Jews in Britain would not even recognise.

Re: "This is Israel? Not the one I love"

Whoa, it almost feels like Palestinians will have to wear a star and crescent ☪ on their clothes for proper identification and routing. What an irony!