Poll: Over half of Egypt wants end to Israel peace

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Jason P wrote:

Maybe the US should scrape their peace treaties with Canada and Mexico too.

Wait, that doesn't make any sense ...

could it be possible that mubarek was governing against his people'e wishes for the last 29 years for upholding that clearly unpopular peace treaty? the people AND the military threw his ass out of there and now that democracy is taking hold they will govern themselves the way they want to govern themselves. if that treaty gets sacked you can bet that the US will have a permanent and escalated presence in the region to protect israel. take that one to the bank.

Not so much

And yes, Mubarak could give a crap about the Palestinians too. Just like the Jordanians, the Saudis, the Iraqis, etc. Tiny Kuwait oil money alone could easily turn the Gaza Strip into the Las Vegas Strip. With all the money in the oil producing countries, including Iran, why arent those countries spending money to build infrastructure instead of sending boatloads of RPGS?

Mariamaniatis wrote:

Why would Egypt fight Israel?? Israel gave them the Sinai and control of the Suez.

You mean Israel gave the Sinai and the Suez Canal back to Egypt after it stole them in 1967?

ONCE DEVIDED wrote:

Egypt attacked isreal in that war...

No they didn't.

1967:


'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).


'General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" (Ha'aretz, 19

March 1972). Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories" (Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).


After the 1967 war Israel claimed it invaded because of imminent Arab attack. It claimed that Nasser's closing of the Straits of Tiran constituted an act of war. It also cited Syrian shelling on the demilitarized zone of the Syrian-Israeli border. The claim 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. On the Syrian front, Israel was engaging in threats and provocations that evidenced many similarities to its behavior in the lead up to the Gaza raid of 1955.


The demilitarized zone on the Syrian-Israeli border was established by agreement on 20 July 1949. Israeli provocations were incessant and enabled Israel to increase and extend its sovereignty by encroachment over the entire Arab area. According to one UN Chief of Staff, Arab villagers were evicted and their homes destroyed (E.L.M. Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, Ivan Obolensky, 1962, pp. 113-114).


Another Chief of Staff described how the Israelis ploughed up Arab land and "advanced the 'frontier' to their own advantage" (Carl von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, Cassell, 1966, p. 79). Israel attempted to evict the Arabs living on the Golan and annex the demilitarized zone. When the Syrians inevitably responded, Israel claimed that "peaceful" Israeli farmers were being shelled by the Syrians. Unmentioned was the fact that the "farmers" were armed and using tractors and farm equipment to encroach on the demilitarized zone (David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: the Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1984, pp. 213-15). This was part of a "premeditated Israeli policy [..] to get all the Arabs out of the way by fair means or foul."


Shortly after the Syrian response on 7 April 1967, the Israeli Air Force attacked Syria, shooting down six planes, hitting thirty fortified positions and killing about 100 people (Hirst, op. cit., p. 214). It was unlikely that any Syrian guns would have been fired if not for Israel's provocation. 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.'


As for Israel 'giving back' the territory it stole in 1967:


1973:


'After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286).

When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched an coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights. The devastating defeat of 1967 left Israel in control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Israel rapidly moved to incorporate these occupied territories into its domain. Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem and began establishing colonial settlements in all the occupied territories.

It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.

On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).'

EdsonNascimento wrote:

They are the only democratic goverment in the area, and that is in fact important to anyone who believes in freedoms for all people.

There's nothing democratic about a racist, exclusivist state.

There's also nothing democratic about a state that attacks Human Rights Groups and media and political freedom:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12127090

Israeli MPs back 'McCarthyite' probe on rights groups

6 January 2011


Israeli MPs have voted to begin the process of setting up a formal inquiry into foreign funding of rights groups, a move critics say is "McCarthyite".

The bill accuses local rights groups of damaging the legitimacy of Israel's military by "branding IDF soldiers and commanders as war criminals".

It was sponsored by the hard-line party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

It follows other recent initiatives from the Israeli right, like requiring an oath of loyalty from non-Jews.

The motion to establish the commission of inquiry will now go to parliament's House Committee for debate, ahead of a full vote before the Knesset.

MK Fania Kirshenbaum - of Mr Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party - who submitted the proposal, accused human rights groups of branding Israeli soldiers as war criminals.
Continue reading the main story

"These groups provide material to the Goldstone commission [which investigated the 2008-2009 Gaza offensive] and are behind the indictments lodged against Israeli officers and officials around the world," Ms Kirshenbaum said.

A series of arrest warrants for Israeli politicians and military officials have been issued in the last few years, particularly by pro-Palestinian groups in European countries.

The 41-17 vote brought a storm of protest from local rights groups, including Acri, Btselem, Adalah and the Hotline for Migrant Workers.

"Persecution and attempts at silencing will not stop us. In a democracy, criticism of the government is not only legitimate - it is essential," said a statement from Btselem, one of the organisations named in the decision.

The Welfare and Social Services Minister, Isaac Herzog, called it a "political witch hunt" suited to "shady regimes" that would damage Israel's international standing, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Israel "must be a light unto the world in terms of freedom of speech and freedom to express beliefs, and reject proposals that have the scent of McCarthyism," Mr Herzog said, referring to the 1950s communist witch hunt led by US Senator Joseph McCarthy.