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OT: The News Thread

Re: OT - The News Thread

Here's my major problem with KB's assessment of the Chomsky interview and one of his major problems in properly analyzing the situation overall.

In the 2001-2006 period leading up to the Israeli-Gaza conflict, there were a total of 11 Israeli's were killed by rocket/mortar attacks. 11....let that sink in.

Okay...First and foremost, that's a tragedy that some sort of reasonable solution needs to be found for. Killing hundreds/thousands of Gaza residents and creating a walled ghetto isn't the answer.

Are rocket attacks a problem? Yes, absolutely and obviously. Are they a threat to Israel's existence? **** no. Prof Chomsky is dead right on that point, as much as it would choke KB to admit it.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

ME, answer this question truthfully:

IF they could get their hands on WMD's, the "palestinians"/hamas/hezbollah take your pick:

a) WOULD use them against israel in a heartbeat
b) WOULD NOT use them against israel

please answer that question honestly.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

or better yet, let's not deal in hypotheticals. answer this question using historical facts:

israel's arab neighbours:

a) HAVE
b) HAVE NOT

on numerous occasions ganged up to destroy israel militarily and "turn the sea red with the blood of the jews".
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
ME, answer this question truthfully:

IF they could get their hands on WMD's, the "palestinians"/hamas/hezbollah take your pick:

a) WOULD use them against israel in a heartbeat
b) WOULD NOT use them against israel

please answer that question honestly.
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First of all, that's a hell of an if. As I've mentioned in our Iran discussions previously, the likelihood of Iran handing a bomb over is imo, negligible (significantly less likely than Israel themselves selling or providing nuclear weapons to another actor as they agreed to with the S African apartheid regime a few decades back).

If they were able to get their hands on one however, I think there is the possibility of it being used yes. Which is why Prof Chomsky's suggestion of creating a nuclear free zone in the middle east should resonate with hawk and dove alike, it just makes too much sense.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
or better yet, let's not deal in hypotheticals. answer this question using historical facts:

israel's arab neighbours:

a) HAVE
b) HAVE NOT

on numerous occasions ganged up to destroy israel militarily and "turn the sea red with the blood of the jews".
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Why do you continuously attempt to simplify complex historical discussions?

A brief chronological history of Israel's wars

1948 - War of independence: After British mandate of palestine, the Arabs were obviously a little pissed, and yes, ganged up and attacked.

1956 - Sinai War: Israel ganged up with Britain & France to attempt to take the Sinai & Suez. All because the Egyptians had the audacity to *gasp* nationalize the suez canal.

1967 - 6 Day War: Israel & her Arab neighbours got into again after a decade of border skirmishes. Arab forces massed first, Israel attacked first.

68-70 - War of Attrition: Small scrap between Israel & the Egyptians, Egypt trying to take back the Sinai

73 - Yom Kippur War: A gang of Arab nations trying to get back the territory won by Israel in 67

First (82) & 2nd (06) Lebanon wars - Incursions into Lebanon for various reason.

So....the last time the Arabs ganged up on Israel was nearly 40 years ago. With obvious Israeli military alliances what they are today, this simply isn't a significant concern of Israel's.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

with the demographics, the spread of WMDs, and the rise of fanatical islam, it is laughable to suggest that arabs ganging up on israel "isn't a significant concern". laughable.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
with the demographics, the spread of WMDs, and the rise of fanatical islam, it is laughable to suggest that arabs ganging up on israel "isn't a significant concern". laughable.
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let's examine this....

demographics
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Here's a (not the, a) root cause of Israel's modern problems. They don't just require Israel's right to exist as a democratic nation state, but they require it to exist as a religiously and ethnically pure Jewish state. A large portion of their motivation for their recent policies and actions towards Gaza is the threat of demographic shift in Israel. The only way to avoid such a shift is through some sort of expulsion, or cleansing. It's the major reason that a 1 state solution is untenable to Israel.

the spread of WMDs
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Israel has done more to spread WMD's than any Arab actor has. But, ignoring that for a second. Where have they spread to, what has been spread...and cut the "WMD" catch phrase PR bullshit. In the context you're discussing, only nuclear is a threat to the existence of a nation state.

and the rise of fanatical islam
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Again, what rise? Fundamentalist Islam isn't new. It's still an incredibly small percentage of Muslims that do an fairly insignificant amount of damage on an annual basis in comparison with other events that occur (wars, etc).


Should israel be on guard against legitimate threats? Absolutely. Should they monitor the Iranian nuclear situation with extreme diligence, absolutely. Should they continue their ridiculously strong work at infiltrating Arab militant groups, absolutely. But throwing out a few PR buzzwords and claiming them as reasons why the big bad Arabs could jump the poor little Israeli's any second is ****ing ridiculous. If the same coalition of Arab states that took a shot at Israel in 67 decided to belly up to the bar for a rematch in 2010, the results would be significantly more lopsided than they were in the first go around.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Yes, let's dismiss what Noam Chomsky says.

What the **** does that guy know, anyway?

I'm still laughing.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Feel free to disagree with the man, I get that.

Dismissing "out of hand" one of the most coherent commentators over the last 50 years is just blind stupidity.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

I don't know. Chomsky's a perfect illustration of a man with unbridled intelligence but lacking even a modicum of common sense. And he's absurdly biased for a man of his intellect.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

demographics are a MAJOR problem for israel. they are a tiny state, they are an industrialized state, which means they have developed nation birth rates. the arabs, on the other had, breed like puppies. the numbers will get increasingly worse for israel and they know it. its what makes it impossible for them to EVER accept the "one state" solution, within a couple of generations israelis would be a very small minority in that state, and jews have never done well in states dominated by arabs.

it doesnt require "cleansing", it requires that israel remain a jewish state and it requires that the arabs accept their right to exist. so far, the arabs don't seem to accept their right to exist. that is by definition an existential threat.

israel has done NOTHING to spread WMDs in the region, nothing. there is no chance whatsoever that israel will pass on its nukes to anyone in the region, and they never have. there is no danger whatsoever that israel would pass its nukes on to, let's say, the sunnis in iraq to help them overcome their new shia masters, or to any other arab minority in any other country in that region. and israel's nukes are entirely secure. they are security masters, their nukes will NEVER mistakenly fall into the hands of someone else. and please don't talk about the shadowy and never-proven south african connection.

and please don't be so stupid and naive as to suggest that modern-day chemical or biological weapons don't pose an existential threat to a nation that is about 20km across at its narrowest point.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
demographics are a MAJOR problem for israel. they are a tiny state, they are an industrialized state, which means they have developed nation birth rates. the arabs, on the other had, breed like puppies. the numbers will get increasingly worse for israel and they know it. its what makes it impossible for them to EVER accept the "one state" solution, within a couple of generations israelis would be a very small minority in that state, and jews have never done well in states dominated by arabs.
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See, Arabs don't breed like puppies...(which is a stupid analogy to draw as puppies don't breed...but I'll ignore that and believe that you meant rabbits or some other fast breeding animal)...poor people (and I don't mean north american poor) breed like rabbits. The birth rates difference between the West Bank and Gaza are significant, simply due to quality of life. So if there is a demographics problem, it's one of Israel's creation, or at the absolute least, it's a problem they're making significantly worse.

it doesnt require "cleansing", it requires that israel remain a jewish state and it requires that the arabs accept their right to exist. so far, the arabs don't seem to accept their right to exist. that is by definition an existential threat.
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Accepts their right to exist as a nation state, or as an ethnically and religiously pure state? Because these are not the same question, though they are often combined innocuously by intellectually lazy and insidious commentators alike.

israel has done NOTHING to spread WMDs in the region, nothing. there is no chance whatsoever that israel will pass on its nukes to anyone in the region, and they never have. there is no danger whatsoever that israel would pass its nukes on to, let's say, the sunnis in iraq to help them overcome their new shia masters, or to any other arab minority in any other country in that region. and israel's nukes are entirely secure. they are security masters, their nukes will NEVER mistakenly fall into the hands of someone else. and please don't talk about the shadowy and never-proven south african connection.
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See, here's the thing. You don't get to set the boundaries of discussion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

The-secret-military-agree-006.jpg


Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.
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It appears to have happened, but you won't let it change your opinion of Israel.



and please don't be so stupid and naive as to suggest that modern-day chemical or biological weapons don't pose an existential threat to a nation that is about 20km across at its narrowest point.
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and who in the middle east has the expertise to manufacture such modern day chemical or biological weapons? Again and as usual you piss your pants at phantoms.

I will humour you though. What biological and/or chemical weapons could threaten the existence of a nation state, even the size of Israel. If you're doing your research out of Tom Clancy books, you get a "F"
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Don't waste your time trying to change their minds, koreaboy.

These are the same "progressives" that will plead for Israel to restrain itself, after 3 million of its people are wiped out by a nuke.

They are wrong now, and they will be wrong if that ever happens.

Don't waste your time.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

do you really think chemical weapons are difficult to manufacture? i mean, really? a second-rate japanese end-of-the-world cult was able to get its hands on a deadly toxin and use it. do you think a nation-state couldnt do it? iran is on the cusp of nukes yet you're trying to suggest they couldnt do chemical or biological? don't be stupid.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
do you really think chemical weapons are difficult to manufacture? i mean, really? a second-rate japanese end-of-the-world cult was able to get its hands on a deadly toxin and use it. do you think a nation-state couldnt do it? iran is on the cusp of nukes yet you're trying to suggest they couldnt do chemical or biological? don't be stupid.
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Ali would be proud, it takes talent to duck and dodge that well.

Of course "they" (Iran, Saudi, etc) can manufacture weaponry that would be considered chemical weapons.

My question is exactly what type of chemical weapon could possibly threaten the existence of a nation state? What type of biological weapon?
 
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Re: OT - The News Thread

These are the same "progressives" that will plead for Israel to restrain itself, after 3 million of its people are wiped out by a nuke.
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**** that, if Israel got nuked I would be shocked, incredibly saddened, and fully supportive of them finding who was responsible for the attack and letting one off the chain in retaliation.

All I require personally in the interim is measured response to potential threats. Turning Gaza into a super sized Nazi ghetto isn't a measured response. Shattering the civilian infrastructure of Gaza or Lebanon whenever a few soldiers get kidnapped or a few rockets land in a field a few KM's inside the border isn't a measured response.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
with the demographics, the spread of WMDs, and the rise of fanatical islam, it is laughable to suggest that arabs ganging up on israel "isn't a significant concern". laughable.
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spread of WMDs? Ok mouth, what country has them in that region? Oh yeah, Israel. No others do.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Boy it is interesting reading some of the different sides on the issue, but I think Krauthammer really showed some poor judgment and downright dishonesty with his remarks....


Echoing Ayalon Fox News yesterday, Charles Krauthammer asked “What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. No one is starving in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services by the U.N. for 60 years in part with American tax money.”
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Is the man bought and paid, as teeds would say, or does he really believe this?
 
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