Something's happening in Syria

Byrnzie

List of Israel's attacks on it's neighbours since it's violent founding amid acts of Israeli terrorism in 1947-1948:

1948: The truth is that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet exist.

The evidence that Israel started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources. The History of the Palmach which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972) details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs and secure more territory than allotted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel).

Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to "control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15" (Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).

1. Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948
2. Operation Harel, 15 April 1948
3. Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948
4. Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948
5. Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948
6. Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948
7. Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948
8. Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948

9. Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948
10. Operation Barak, 12 May 1948
11. Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948
12. Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948
13. Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948

The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.

Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the major military operations the Zionists mounted before the British evacuated Palestine and before the Arab forces entered Palestine:

· Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)
· Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)
· Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)
· Salameh (1 March 1948)
· Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)
· Qana (13 March 1948)
· Qastal (4 April 1948)
· Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)
· Lajjun (15 April 1948)
· Saris (17 April 1948)
· Tiberias (20 April 1948)
· Haifa (22 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (25 April 1948)
· Jaffa (26 April 1948)
· Acre (27 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (1 May 1948)
· Safad (7 May 1948)
· Beisan (9 May 1948).

David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:

"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 530).

Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it was alloted to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.

Late PM Menachem Begin adds:

"In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve [that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)

On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists started the war in 1948:

"As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).

Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle Eastern Studies, XXII, January 1986, pp. 5-19).

Conclusion:

In sum, it is not true that the Arabs "invaded Israel" in 1948.

First, Israel did not exist at the time of the alleged invasion as an established state with recognised boundaries. When the Zionist leaders established Israel on 15 May 1948 they purposely declined to declare the boundaries of the new state in order to allow for future expansion.

Secondly, the only territory to which the new state of Israel had even a remote claim was that allotted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan. But the Zionists had already attacked areas that were allotted to the Palestinian Arab state.

Thirdly, those areas which the Arab states purportedly "invaded" were, in fact, exclusively areas allotted to the Palestinian Arab state proposed by the UN Partition Plan. The so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt to hold on to the areas allotted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian state.

Finally, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, was under orders not to enter the areas allotted to the Jewish state (Sir John Bagot Glubb, "The Battle for Jerusalem", Middle East International, May 1973).

Byrnzie

1967: "The Egyptian build-up in the Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan," Israeli scholar Avraham Sela reports, "and Nasser's defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first-strike."

CIA Appraisal: 'In our view, UAR [Egyptian] military dispositions in Sinai are defensive in character...The steps taken thus far by [other] Arab armies do not prove that the Arabs intend an all-out attack on Israel....In sum, we believe these are merely gestures in the interests of the fiction of Arab unity, but have little military utility in a conflict with Israel.'

26th May - General Earle Wheeler, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: 'The UAR's dispositions are defensive and do not look as if they are preparatory to an invasion of Israel...'There was no indication that the Egyptians would attack. If the UAR moved, it would give up it's defensive positions in the Sinai for little advantage.'


'Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" (Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).

A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).


Also, the claim made by Israel's apologists that the Arabs were going to invade appears particularly ludicrous when one recalls that a third of Egypt's army was in Yemen and therefore quite unprepared to launch a war.

Israel's need for water also played a role in the 1967 attack. The invasion completed Israel's encirclement of the headwaters of the Upper Jordan River, its capture of the West Bank and the two aquifers arising there, which currently supply all the groundwater for northern and central Israel.

Byrnzie

Here's a few more:


1982 Lebanon War (1982) - Began in 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon. Up to 8000 Lebanese civilians killed, including the Sabra and Shatila massacre approx 3,500 civilians were massacred by a Lebanese militia group aided by the IDF. In 1982, a UN commission concluded that Israel bore responsibility for the violence.

2006 Lebanon War (Summer 2006) - Over 1000 Lebanese Civilians killed, after Israel used the pretext of the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers to launch an already-planned assault on Lebanon. All Human rights groups found Israel guilty of deliberately targeting unarmed civilians and of being guilty of numerous other war crimes, such as the following:

From 'Knowing Too Much' - Norman Finkelstein:

P.145: In February 2008 HRW [Human Rights Watch] issued a report entitled 'Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's use of cluster munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006'. The report found that Israel dropped as many as 4.6 million cluster submunitions on south Lebanon during the war. It was the "most extensive use of cluster munitions anywhere in the world since the 1991 Gulf war," while relative to the size of the targeted area the density of the attack was historically unprecendented. (Apparently the only reason Israel did not drop yet more cluster munitions was that it's stocks had been depleted). Some 90 percent of these cluster munitions were dropped "during the final three days when Israel knew a settlement was imminent," the U.N ceasefire resolution having already been passed but not yet gone into effect.

P.147: HRW reported that Israel's cluster attacks "blanketed" both "built-up areas" and "fields", resulting in the high saturation of towns and villages," and the "systematic 'flooding' of certain villages and populated areas."

P.149: Consider now HRW's description of the Israeli cluster attacks on Lebanon:

By their very nature, these dangerous, volatile submunitions [i.e, the duds] cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, forseeably endangering civilians for months or years to come.

It is inconceivable that Israel...did not know that...it's strikes would have a lasting humanitarian impact.

Many of the cluster attacks on populated areas do not appear to have had a definite military target. Our researchers...found only one village with clear evidence of the presence of Hezbollah forces out of the more than 40 towns and villages they visited.

The staggering number of cluster munitions rained on south Lebanon over the three days immediately before a negotiated ceasefire went into effect puts in doubt the claim by the IDF that it's attacks were aimed at specific targets or even strategic locations, as opposed to being efforts to blanket large areas with explosives and duds.

"Operation Cast Lead" (December 2008 - January 2009) - After having broken the ceasefire on November 4th 2008, the Israeli's engaged in an air and land assault upon Gaza, in which they were found guilty by every single Human Rights Organization of having deliberately targeted civilians, and of having dropped U.S-supplied white phosphorous shells on civilian residential areas. Palestinian casualties are estimated to have been in the region of 1,500, including over 1000 civilians, and 250 policemen.

Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012) - Israel's latest full-scale assault on the Gaza Strip, in which an estimated 158 Palestinians were killed, with 100 of them being civilians. Again, Israel shelled residential areas and deliberately targeted unarmed civilians, constituting war crimes.

Byrnzie

Choccoloccotide wrote:

Not trolling, just when I see such a ridiculous and ill-informed comment that wreaks of anti-Jewish hate I will laugh my ass of sir. Thank you and good evening.

I'm still waiting.

Choccoloccotide

So your stance is that Isreal doesn't have the right to defend itself against a group of people whose sole purpose in life is to destroy it? Now, keep in mind that Isreal is surrounded by these people and have to endure constant attacks against its citizens. I think your way off base in your thinking that the Jewish people are the bad guys, but don't let my opinion keep you up at night. It's just mine and I totally understand why you wouldn't subscribe to it all the way over in China.

Byrnzie

Choccoloccotide wrote:

So your stance is that Isreal doesn't have the right to defend itself against a group of people whose sole purpose in life is to destroy it?

The occupation has nothing to do with self-defense. But nice try.


Though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as I take it you know nothing about this subject, other than what you've been spoon-fed by the American mainstream media.

usamamasan1

Blast the evil do'ers

Byrnzie

Choccoloccotide wrote:

Not trolling, just when I see such a ridiculous and ill-informed comment that wreaks of anti-Jewish hate I will laugh my ass of sir.

http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2012/09/ ... -israelis/

US taxpayers paid more to Israeli defense budget than Israelis

The Israeli army’s chief of staff states that in the past three years, “US taxpayers have contributed more to the Israeli defense budget than Israeli taxpayers,” according to a report in the Jerusalem Post, a prominent Israeli newspaper.


by Alison Weir
September 17th, 2012


According to the report, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi made the statement during an Ashkenazi speech on September 11th. In it he emphasized: “We must preserve ties with the United States. I believe this is a security necessity.”

...American taxpayers give Israel over $3 billion per year (over $8 million per day), more than to any other nation, despite the fact that Israel is smaller than New Jersey and is in the top 30 richest countries in the world.

Per capita, Israelis receive $10,000 more U.S. tax money than average.

Some of the other top recipients of US tax money, Egypt and Jordan, were provided this assistance in return for diplomatic recognition of the Israeli state.

According to the Congressional Research Service, Israel is given this money in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year. Americans then pay interest on money they have given to Israel, while Israel makes interest on it.

In recent years Israel has reported a lower unemployment rate than the US and a better account balance.

Ashkenazi’s statements are extremely significant, since this is the first time that an Israeli leader has pointed out that American taxpayers pay more to Israel’s defense budget than do Israelis.

If the costs of the Iraq war, which was largely pushed by Israel partisans in the Bush administration, were added into the equation, the American tax money on behalf of Israel would quite likely dwarf the amount paid by Israeli taxpayers.

Some top economists predict that the cost of the Iraq war will be $3 trillion.

Israel has a population of about 7 million people.

Today, Israel partisans are similarly pushing attacks on Iran.

Israel has frequently been accused of using American funds in violation of U.S. arms control laws.

Choccoloccotide

Byrnzie wrote:

Choccoloccotide wrote:

So your stance is that Isreal doesn't have the right to defend itself against a group of people whose sole purpose in life is to destroy it?

The occupation has nothing to do with self-defense. But nice try.


Though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as I take it you know nothing about this subject, other than what you've been spoon-fed by the American mainstream media.

Forget it D.B. your right and the rest of us are complete morons. You would have fit in real nice in 1930's Germany. Go fuck yourself.

Byrnzie

Choccoloccotide wrote:

Forget it D.B. your right and the rest of us are complete morons. You would have fit in real nice in 1930's Germany. Go fuck yourself.

'Us'? Who's 'us'?

You mean you and usamamasan1?

Here, I'll educate you: The whole World supports U.N Resolution 242, which calls for a full and immediate withdrawal of all Israeli's from territories it captured during the June 1967 war. The Whole World supports it, excluding Israel and the U.S.
So, we have the whole World on one side, and Israel and the U.S on the other. Is that the 'us' you're referring to?

If so, then even those numbers appear to be thinning out: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false

'...Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.'


From 'Knowing Too Much - Why The American Jewish Romance With Israel is Coming To An End' - Norman Finkelstein:

P.23: In keeping with global trends, the most recent surveys suggest that American support for Israel is on precipitous decline. A 2009 poll by the U.S-based Israel Project found that Americans voters calling themselves supporters of Israel plummeted in just nine months from 70 percent to 50 percent, while voters believing that the U.S should support Israel dropped from 70 percent to 45 percent. A 2010 Israel Project poll found that whereas 60 percent of Americans believed the U.S should support Israel, it had dropped to 50 percent a year later. "The section of the American public where Israel is most rapidly losing support," Israel Project pollster Stanley Greenberg observed, "is among liberal Americans who align themselves with the Democratic Party." In other words, support for Israel is on sharp decline precisely in those political milieus where Jews tend to cluster.
A 2010 Zogby poll found that a plurality of Americans supported the Palestinian right of return, the evacuation of Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land, and Washington getting "tough with Israel," while more than half wanted Washington to get "tough with Israel" if settlements kept expanding. A 2011 BBC poll noted a significant shift in American opinion of Israel's influence in the World: "the U.S public is now divided rather than favourable in it's rating. While positive ratings have remained quite stable since 2010 (43 percent), negative ratings are up by ten points (41 percent).

yosi

B, you really don't know what you're talking about here. At most Israel conducted limited strikes targeting advanced weapons being shipped by Iran to Hezbollah for use against Israel. This fits pretty easily under legitimate self-defense, so for once can you just calm down and stop acting like Israel is always just itching to start WWIII.

yosi

Also, just cause you keep an encyclopedic library of quotes to repeatedly cut and paste into these threads doesn't mean you're informed. For example, as a liberal young American Zionist who's very engaged in what's going on with my peers on this issue I can tell you that that last quote you posted just doesn't get the dynamic right. Yeah, lots of people are upset that Israel seems to be moving away from their liberal values in certain respects, but that doesn't mean that we're abandoning our zionism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps our excitement over Israel is dampened somewhat, but that doesn't mean our fundumental committment has just evaporated. That's like saying that every time a Republican get elected president all the liberals in America stop being patriotic Americans.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Also, just cause you keep an encyclopedic library of quotes to repeatedly cut and paste into these threads doesn't mean you're informed. For example, as a liberal young American Zionist who's very engaged in what's going on with my peers on this issue I can tell you that that last quote you posted just doesn't get the dynamic right. Yeah, lots of people are upset that Israel seems to be moving away from their liberal values in certain respects, but that doesn't mean that we're abandoning our zionism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps our excitement over Israel is dampened somewhat, but that doesn't mean our fundumental committment has just evaporated. That's like saying that every time a Republican get elected president all the liberals in America stop being patriotic Americans.

Nobody said it had evaporated, or that it had been abandoned. But all of the surveys and studies point to support for Israel and Zionism being in sharp decline.

Oh, and your smug comments and personal attacks don't mean that you're informed either.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

B, you really don't know what you're talking about here. At most Israel conducted limited strikes targeting advanced weapons being shipped by Iran to Hezbollah for use against Israel. This fits pretty easily under legitimate self-defense, so for once can you just calm down and stop acting like Israel is always just itching to start WWIII.

If the same had occurred against Israel or the U.S it would have been declared an act of war, would it not?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH


Israeli bombing of Syria and moral relativism

No universally applied principle justifies the Israeli attack on Damascus. Only self-flattering tribalism does that


Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 May 2013

'...if Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria's rights given those nations' arming of its rebels?

Few things are more ludicrous than the attempt by advocates of US and Israeli militarism to pretend that they're applying anything remotely resembling "principles". Their only cognizable "principle" is rank tribalism: My Side is superior, and therefore we are entitled to do things that Our Enemies are not.'

yosi

Sure, whatever, yes...it's a violation of Syrian sovereignty and an act of war. If you stop to get off the high horse of pure principle what we're talking about is a country in tatters that is serving as a transit way for the shipping of advanced weapons to Israel's enemies. This is a question of power politics, not principle...you just don't sit back and let your enemies get armed to the teeth if you can do anything about it. As for your question about if such an attack were carried out on Israel or the US...that's a red herring because Israel and the US are stable, functioning states that aren't serving as the anarchic hub for the arming of all the regional homicidal malcontents.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Sure, whatever, yes...it's a violation of Syrian sovereignty and an act of war. If you stop to get off the high horse of pure principle what we're talking about is a country in tatters that is serving as a transit way for the shipping of advanced weapons to Israel's enemies. This is a question of power politics, not principle...you just don't sit back and let your enemies get armed to the teeth if you can do anything about it. As for your question about if such an attack were carried out on Israel or the US...that's a red herring because Israel and the US are stable, functioning states that aren't serving as the anarchic hub for the arming of all the regional homicidal malcontents.

So what you're saying here is that Israel and the U.S are superior entities, and that normal codes of conduct do not apply to them?


Interesting that in the piece I quoted above, Glenn Greenwald predicted and preempted your self-serving response:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH
'The ultimate irony is that those who advocate for the universal application of principles to all nations are usually tarred with the trite accusatory slogan of "moral relativism". But the real moral relativists are those who believe that the morality of an act is determined not by its content but by the identity of those who commit them: namely, whether it's themselves or someone else doing it. As Rudy Giuliani put it when asked if waterboarding is torture: "It depends on who does it." Today's version of that is: Israel and the US (and its dictatorial allies in Riyadh and Doha) have the absolute right to bomb other countries or arm rebels in those countries if they perceive doing so is necessary to stop a threat but Iran and Syria (and other countries disobedient to US dictates) do not. This whole debate would be much more tolerable if it were at least honestly acknowledged that what is driving the discussion are tribalistic notions of entitlement and nothing more noble.'


And as for the country being in tatters, just how and why did that come about? Did you read the Al Jazeera piece I posted above?

usamamasan1

Guardian
Emoticon
Loser terrorists<death

yosi

Yeah, I really have no problem saying that currently Israel and the US are superior to Syria. Neither one is two years into a civil war, nor has either of them endured roughly half a century of brutal dictatorship. As for "normal codes of conduct" I'd argue that your utopian notion of everybody agreeing to act according to high minded principle, real world consequences be damned is the departure from "normal codes of conduct." We're not talking about a society dinner here. We're talking about state level conflict. It's a particularly European perspective, enabled by American security guarantees and the blessings of history and geography, that allows you to think that what Israel just did is out of the ordinary. What Israel is doing, i.e. making sure that its avowed enemies don't get big fucking missiles to use against them, is pretty normal from my perspective.

yosi

And as for why Syria is the way it is currently, I'd refer you back to the half century of brutal dictatorship.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Yeah, I really have no problem saying that currently Israel and the US are superior to Syria. Neither one is two years into a civil war, nor has either of them endured roughly half a century of brutal dictatorship. As for "normal codes of conduct" I'd argue that your utopian notion of everybody agreeing to act according to high minded principle, real world consequences be damned is the departure from "normal codes of conduct." We're not talking about a society dinner here. We're talking about state level conflict. It's a particularly European perspective, enabled by American security guarantees and the blessings of history and geography, that allows you to think that what Israel just did is out of the ordinary. What Israel is doing, i.e. making sure that its avowed enemies don't get big fucking missiles to use against them, is pretty normal from my perspective.

Yep, damn that pesky thing called international law. How dare it prevent us from waging endless wars against our neighbours and continue our 45 year illegal occupation.