Report: Israel operating hundreds of agents in northern Iraq

"Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way as balance against Saddam," the magazine quotes a former Israeli intelligence official as saying. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq, and Syria."

The report also said Israeli operatives had crossed into Iran with Kurdish commandos to install sensors and other sensitive devices to spy on Iran's suspected nuclear facilities.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=9&u=/nm/20040621/ts_nm/iraq_kurds_israel_dc

"Look, Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way as balance against Saddam,""

The Kurds have been OCCUPIED by Arabs and Turkey since the destruction of the Ottomon Empire...In Syria, they're slaughtered, in Iraq, they were slaughtered....why shouldn't there be an independent Kurdistan?
Is the OCCUPATION and brutalization of the Kurds OK, because the Arabs are the occupiers?
It might come as a shock, but Israeli Commandos operate in concert with Jordanian, British and US Commandos...It's nothing new...

Hey, a lot of people have their minds cemented into an unyeilding ideological straitjacket of good and evil writ large. palestine is all that matters and israelis must therefore be inherently evil. very catholic of them, don't you think? but not to digress.

even mentioning "kurdistan" is thus cruel and unusual punishment. it forces such people to think about arabs as conquerors, jews as heroes and geoterritorial politics in general as a world of greys in which all peoples are both righteous and cynical, saints and sinners (if you will), all wrapped into the same messy bundle. very human. very tragicomic. very hard to ideologically digest when you can only see black and white (inferences intended).

therefore, people of conscience should re-cease speaking of the kurds at once. it will hurt the heads of people who hate israel for its own sake, and moreover, people who hate israel as a projection screen for all their very own internal demons. the jews helping others be free, when they don't even have permission for their own freedom, i ask you.

meanwhile... i'm just dying to hear the arguments for iran's freedom to develop nukes, in the name of palestine, or of their own sovereignty, or whatever. this should be as good as those who preferred soviet nukes to american ones. or pakistani nukes to israeli ones, for that matter.

or whatever contradiction their demons have led them to uphold today, publicly or just implicitly.

nope, nothing to see here. move along......

First a correction:
The Kurdish desire for self-rule isnt a conflict between Kurds and Arabs. In Iraq its primarilly a conflict between Kurds and Turkmen and the larger conflict is focused mainly on Turkey.

That said, the temporary support by Kurds for the US (which is rapidly comming to an end) shouldnt make people see Iraqi Kurdish leaders as US pawns. Ocalan is respected by both Turkish and Iraqi Kurds but is in jail in Turkey partly as a result of help from both the US and Israel ( http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/terrorism/tr_1999_02_001_s.html ) Iraqi Kurds gained a lot from the first Gulf war and for that reason were the most open to the current US invasion, but with the possible loss of independence from a new unified government, Iraqi Kurds have the most to lose from the US invasion too (since before the invasion they were not really under the rule of Saddam).

Israel's attempt to gain some support among the Kurds is dangerous for both the Kurds and Israel. It plays to antiSemitic beliefs among Iraqis (Arab, Kurdish and other) that Israel was behind the US invasion (which obviouslly it wasnt) and that the US invasion is intended to turn Iraq into a larger version of the West Bank. It also is being used in Iraq to build hatred for the Kurds. Attacks on Kurds have occured in Baghdad due to images showing Kurdish forces involved in the US massacre of civiliains in Falluja. Israeli support for Kurds will help fan the view among Arab and Turkmen Iraqis that the Kurds are not really Iraqis but are collaborating with the occupying power. While seperate Kurdish state in N Iraq is probably the only stable long term solution, a breakup caused out of ethnic hatred will be incredibly bloody and could spill over into renewed war in Turkey.

Although I applaud Hersh's achievements and have little doubt that the gist of his story is accurate, there is something about it which is profoundly disingenuous.

That is, this attitude of Israeli officials which he describes, and apparently agrees with viz;' The Israelis didn't realize that the US invasion of Iraq would result in a huge improvement in Iran's global strategic position and political leverage on occupied Iraq, and this resulted from the Coalition's amateurish bungling of the situation'.

Perhaps President Bush was too ignorant to anticipate that outcome, but many other officials in the Administration were not so naive, and neither were the Israelis.Merely looking at a map would tell you that it would be impossible for a foreign occupation force to effectively guard the Iranian border.Furthermore, it was the neocon Israeli allies in the Bush camp who pushed the very policies which have made the US forces' position precarious and compromised Iraq's integrity, leading to a situation which could result in dismemberment and civil war.

Jay Garner, who wanted to keep the Iraqi Army and Iraq's governmental institutions intact , and hold elections within 3 months, was ditched because Chalabi and the Pentagon chickenhawks didn't like the way he dressed. Richard Perle's personal choice, and the favorite of most of the neocons as Iraq's new leader, was the aforementioned Chalabi, who, as it turns out - and as anyone paying attention has long suspected - is an Iranian agent. Chalabi was also the main backer of the radical de-Ba'thification program that has undermined and scattered any basis for a secular, non-sectarian future for Iraq.And many suspect him of being an Israeli agent as well.

The fact is that it has always been a fundamental, rather, THE fundamental, Israeli foreign policy to agitate for the weakening and division of Arab states, especially secular ones in proximity to Israel.It is also a fact that Washington is flooded with Israeli and neocon advisor saying the US should begin backing out of Iraq, leaving it in the hands of "moderate Sh'ites", like the Iranian cleric Sistani and the Iranian-inspired political party, SCIRI.

Add to all that the further consideration of Hersh's description of Israeli activities among the Kurds and the sad news that UN envoy Brahimi, the only bright spot in the entire history of the occupation, has been jettisoned because the Israelis called him "anti-semitic"...well, I'm getting tired of writing, but I think readers can arrive at my prediction.

It just puzzles me that Hersh would play dumb, too.

One of your claims doesn't make sense to me. Why would Israel want to destabilize neighboring secular Arab states like Jordan or Egypt, to the point where the regimes buckle under the pressures of the fundamentalist Islamic groups? What good would Israel gain from such a development? If you don't mind, I'm looking - with all due respect - for an explanation, not a rationalization.

I have long thought that Israel would be happy to try preserve secular regimes like Saaddat's, Mubaraq's, King Hussein's and King Abdallah II's. Your argument doesn't seem sound.

I should have narrowed it down to Syria and Iraq.Secular Arab governments that have capitulated and collaborate with Israel and the West, like Jordan and Egypt, are acceptable as long as they behave, follow orders and keep their populations, which overwhelmingly oppose such policies, under control.Jordan has been safe from Israeli aggression since King Hussein gave up all claims to speak on behalf of the Palestinians or Jerusalem, but Israel's attempt to send the PLO back to Jordan in 1982 and thereby topple the monarchy wasn't that long ago, and one of Ariel Sharon's favorite slogans until very recently remained, "Jordan is Palestine".If Egypt's leaders tried to break out of Sadat's straitjacket you would also probably see the reappearance of Israeli support for Coptic and other separatist movements in Egypt

Political systems like that of Lebanon, which is at the same time secular but politically subdivided along sectarian lines, are inherently weak, and therefore also acceptable to Israel.Should Syria and Lebanon reunite and end the Lebanese confessional system, that would undoubtedly be a pretext for war in Israeli eyes. Conversely, if all nearby Arab countries were broken down into Lebanons, or into more religiously homogeneous states, the Israeli State would seem quite normal and legitimate in comparison. This isn't just theorizing, Elliot Abrams' Partition Conflicts project shows that some Israeli-bent neocons believe that it is possible to Lebanonize Syria and subdivide Iraq, or to subdivide them both.

What Israel feared most prior to the invasion was the successful unification of Ba'thist Syria and Iraq, as nearly happened just before Saddam seized control in 1979.Apart from Ba'thism, some leader could emerge and tap into the same source as Nasser did, reenrgizing and reorienting the politics of the entire Arab world.Israel doesn't make sense within the context of a region whose politics are based, as they should be, on non-sectarian Arab nationalism and unity.Within the the Arab political context as it exists today Israel can adopt a credible pose of moral superiority.In an Arab world which was divided even further along sectarian lines, Israel would appear not only superior, but totally legititimate.

If the Israelis were naive enough to believe that the US occupation could, under the banner of democracy, establish a capitulating, collaborating, secular government in unified Iraq, they may have supported that plan.But I don't believe they were so naive.They pinned their hopes on Plan B, the breakup of Iraq with Kurdish and Iranian help, regardless of the consequences in terms of civil war and increased Islamist influence.

Well, if Syria were destabilized, I could see how Israel would have been indirectly benefited by an ostensible and assumed need of the Syrian military to pull out of Lebanon, denying Lebanese bases of Hizballah and some Palestinian terror organization of some of their Syrian support.
As for Iraq, Israel would be benefited only if a regime that stopped vying for a place in an eastern military front against Israel and less supportive of Palestinian terror (via training and monetary awards for relatives of genocide-suicide bombers) were established.

As to your notion of certain secular Arab states having "capitulated", they may have "surrendered" to certain elements within the US administrations, not Israel.
Anyway, you weren't exactly explicit in telling us what constitutes "behaving" and "following orders".

King Hussein had always been safe from Israeli aggression, because Israel never had any aggressive designs on, nor did it commit any acts of aggression against, Jordan. Israeli raids on Palestinian terror bases within Jordanian territory were acts of self defense as per int'l law.

Funny, I've never heard of, nor found, any source claiming Israel tried to push the PLO back into Jordan on the heels of its invasion of Lebanon. I know Israel decided to let the PLO relocate to Tunisia, which it did. Could you show me a reliable source that supports your allegation? Thanks in advance.

>>>"When didIf Egypt's leaders tried to break out of Sadat's straitjacket you would also probably see the reappearance of Israeli support for Coptic and other separatist movements in Egypt."<<<

Between which years did Israel support the Coptic and those other Egyptian movements?

>>>"Political systems like that of Lebanon, which is at the same time secular but politically subdivided along sectarian lines, are inherently weak, and therefore also acceptable to Israel."<<<

Only acceptable in that it hasn't enabled Lebanon to commit aggression against Israel as other Arab states have. But the Lebanese political structure has become totally irrelevant since the strings of its rulers started being pulled by the Syrian regime's military occupation which you neglected to mention, probably on purpose.

>>>"Should Syria and Lebanon reunite and end the Lebanese confessional system, that would undoubtedly be a pretext for war in Israeli eyes."<<<

Your argument is unfounded. A Syrian annexation of Lebanon wouldn't be in and of itself a pretext for Israel to declare war on Syria. Much depends on what Syria would do. If Syria refrains from invading the Golan Heights or other aggressive actions and doesn't give Hizballah and other terrorists free reign to act against Israel as Syrian troops or direct Syrian agents, it's quite doubtful that Israel would make war on Syria.

>>>"Conversely, if all nearby Arab countries were broken down into Lebanons, or into more religiously homogeneous states, the Israeli State would seem quite normal and legitimate in comparison."<<<

For several reasons, Israel is much more normal and legitimate, including warts and other faults, in comparison to its neighboring Arab states, regardless of their ethnic, religious or political make up.

When France and Britain drew up the political map of the Middle East following WWI, they made a tremendous mess, unnecessarily carving out states that included, as in the Iraqi and Lebanese cases, several religious and ethnic elements that were inimical to one another, because they had their own interests at the top of their priorities. I know there have been discussion within neo-con and other circles about breaking up Iraq into several states.

>>>"Apart from Ba'thism, some leader could emerge and tap into the same source as Nasser did, reenrgizing and reorienting the politics of the entire Arab world."<<<

In theory that's possible, but it's a very distant possibility. The Arab world is currently too polarized for such an endeavor to succeed. Not to mention that a pan-Arab leader, or one of Nasser's unifying capabilities, isn't on the horizon.

>>>"Israel doesn't make sense within the context of a region whose politics are based, as they should be, on non-sectarian Arab nationalism and unity."<<<

That's in the eye of the beholder. Different strokes for different folks. Many Arabs (and others) claim Israel wouldn't make sense under any set of circumstances. Many others claim Israel's existence makes sense regardless of other Middle Eastern the states, and still others have other opinions. You're entitled to yours. I'm among those who claim Israel makes sense for a variety of reasons, with or without Arab states existing.

>>>"Within the the Arab political context as it exists today Israel can adopt a credible pose of moral superiority.In an Arab world which was divided even further along sectarian lines, Israel would appear not only superior, but totally legititimate."<<<

Ditto.

>>>"If the Israelis were naive enough to believe that the US occupation could, under the banner of democracy, establish a capitulating, collaborating, secular government in unified Iraq, they may have supported that plan."<<<

It's high time you learned that Israelis aren't a homogenous group, opinion-wise.
I also must remind you that Saddam Hussein had been financed by the CIA and enjoyed American support during the first decade of his rule. He was serving US interests. So, why wouldn't it be right to consider his first years in office as afflicted by capitulation, or being semi-capitulative? Alternatively, one may ask why have you chosen the capitulation meme? I'd be happy if you explain.

>>>"But I don't believe they were so naive.They pinned their hopes on Plan B, the breakup of Iraq with Kurdish and Iranian help, regardless of the consequences in terms of civil war and increased Islamist influence. "<<<

Again...not only do you fail to distinguish between Israelis of different opinions, you also make unfounded allegations. Which authoritative source tells such a thing with such certainty?

Merely being picky doesn't cut it.

Your point by point format is pointless, but I'll try to address some of our areas of difference as you see them in reverse order.

You are certainly free to disagree with my opinion of what will happen in Iraq in the future, but if Iraq breaks up bloodily, or if there is a weak confessional federal system, also violent, then I hope you will reevaluate my opinion.The same goes for what would happen if Lebanon and Syria choose to reunite.Note the wording. I did not say annex.

When I used the term Israel, Israelis and the Israelis, I was not referring to individual Israelis of diverse opinions. A non-picky reader would have inferred from context that those were references to the military, intelligence and foreign service of the government of Israel.

It may be true that the various departments of the US government, including the CIA, helped Saddam at several points in his carreer. As you say, this did occur from shortly before his seizure of power in 1979 up to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The US and other Western nations also authorized the sale of weaponry and dual-use materials to Saddam in the same period in what was a deliberate policy, but that was only half of the policy.But at the same time the West was helping Iraq, it was also opposing and undermining it through a policy of providing even greater covert support to Iran.Was the intent of this policy to strengthen Iraq for its own sake? Obviously not. Here is a quote which illustrates the real intent:

British Defense Secretary Sir Alan Clark:"It was in the best interests of the West that Iran and Iraq should fight each other, and the longer the better."

Israel was the key to the Iran arms network.Surely you are aware that Yaacov Nimrodi, who ran the SAVAK for the Shah, David Kimche, one-time Mossad chief and veteran Israeli diplomat, and Al Schwimmer, founder of Israeli Aircraft Industries, managed the illegal Iranian arms trade from their office in Victoria, London, just a few doors down from the second largest military mission in Britain, that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which employed dozens of Iranian officers, supervising hundreds of employees, engaged in obtaining mainly US weaponry and spares.It was big business, certainly running well into tens of billions. Take a look at the latter chapters of "Nest of Spies" by Amir Taheri for one confirmation of this claim.Yitshak Rabin and Moshe Arens, among others, insisted that all Israeli sales of US weapons and parts were US-authorized.

Your next point, that the British and French messed up the post-Ottoman Middle East, I would agree with.In fact, maybe I would go further than you and say that most of the current problems of the Arabs are direct consequences of the colonialist system which was imposed upon them at that time, and which they have never been able to break out of.But you are utterly wrong when you imply that the Europeans' error was in not politically dividing the Arab lands even MORE than they did. The Arabs were promised self-determination, independence and UNITY as a consequence of the Ottoman defeat.The only attempt made by the Paris Peace Conference to demographically assesss the desires of the Arabs was conducted by the King-Crane Commission. That canvassing indicated overwhelming support for immediate independence under a unified Arab government.

Drawing political boundaries along confessional lines would be utterly impractical, although it might be worth it in certain areas..Would Haifa be Druze, Baha'i or Jewish? I think Baha'i.They certainly deserve a nuclear-armed national homeland in view of their persecution in Iran.

Israel is not the most "normal" country in the Middle East.The stunting of Arab political development ids the result of colonialism, Ottoman and Western, followed by hegemony, mostly US and current US Imperialism. Israel is the most prominent symptom of this neo-colonial disease.As Lord Sydenham said in 1922: "What we are doing by concessions, not to the Jewish people, but to an extreme Zionist sect, is to start a running sore in the East, and who knows how far it will spread."

Now we know how much damage that infected splinter, inserted in the very heart of the Arab world, could do.

Mossad intrigues among the Copts of Egypt was at its maximum around the time of the 1956 Israeli-French-British invasion.If you research the Lavon Affair, I'm sure you can find something on it.If you find an early 1980s article from the WZO magazine 'Kivunim' by Yoram Beck, I believe, translated to English by the great Israel Shahak, I'm sure, it goes into some detail on how Israel should break up Egypt and other Arab countries.

One source for Sharon's 1982 attempt to relocate the PLO to Jordan and topple Hussein is "The Iron Wall" by Avi Shlaim.Here are two quotes i jotted down when I read it:

Sharon:"One speech by me will make King Hussein realize that the time has come to pack his bags."

Arafat's response to Sharon's demand that the PLO return to Jordan:"1.Jordan is not the home of the Palestinians 2.You are trying to exploit the agony of the Palestinian people by turning a Palestinian-Lebanese dispute into a Palestinian-Jordanian contradiction. 3.You are trying to provoke a Palestinian-Jordanian conflict to give Israel the excuse to occupy the East Bank of the Jordan."

Arafat used to be pretty astute.

If you don't grasp the fact that Jordan and Egypt have been bribed and coerced by the US to knuckle under to Israel, then you haven't traced the peace process back very far. I would suggest you read the Lausanne Protocol of 1949, in which all of Israel's neighbors and Israel agreed to the parameters of negotiations for a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and compare that to Jordan and Egypt's current stance. Jordan is now even equivocating on Resolution 242 of 1967.I don't wish to semantically dissect "Follow orders" "capitulate", etc., for you.

Your statements about Arab aggression and Israeli actions being approved by international law are simply dumbfounding.Was Ariel Sharon's first known war crime, the Qibya raid of 1953 okay? How did the UN Truce Supervisors feel about Israel's continual provocations along the Syrian border in the 1950s and 60s? Look it up - Keyword "UNISPAL" .Israel has been censured by both the UNSC and the UNGA more than any other country.The High Contracting Parties to the IV Geneva Convention in Dec 2001 at long last ruled overwhelmingly that Israel is in violation of numerous Articles.

The 1948, 1956, 1967, 1978 and 1982 Arab-Israeli Wars were all started by Israel.I don't wish to argue about all of them.Pick one.

I hope we can find a peaceful way out of the Israelis' predicament.

Best Regards,

======= =====

I always get his quote wrong

"The interests of the West were best served by Iran and Iraq fighting each other, and the longer the better."

!##)(*&^%$#@ elegant Englishman

There were a couple more issues you raised regarding Syria that I want on this record even if you are not going to respond.

If Syria should try to drive the Israelis out of the Golan again, as they did in 1973, that would not be "aggression". The Golan is Syrian territory Israel captured in the 1967 war that it started. Since the Golan's capture Israel has violated many of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on occupied territories.Therefore it is an ILLEGAL OCCUPATION.

The Syrian presence in Lebanon is not illegal.The government of Lebanon asked Syria to enter the country in 1976 to help them stop the Civil War, a task which was nearly accomplished in 1978, when Israel invaded.The ongoing presence of Syrian troops in the Biqa' region is authorized by the Lebanese.

If you do want to discuss the causes of one of the Arab-Israeli
wars, I would prefer 1967, but again, take your pick.

"The Golan is Syrian territory Israel captured in the 1967 war that it started."

14 Arab armies massed at israel's border..the straits closed (an act of war)
LOL!!! Israel started Syria's war of aggression...you're just pissed off that the arabs are incompetent, and LOST their aggressive war in SIX Miralculous DAYS!!! Masha'allah!!!

Hey, when is Syria going to end the brutal OCCUPATION of Lebanon?
Some guests get invited, but never leave...Syrians are like a bad cold...
(A vampire can't come into your house, unless you invite him!)

The 1956 Suez War had ended with the defeat of the Egyptian forces. But heavy diplomatic pressure from both the US and the USSR forced Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and return it to Egypt which in exchange had agreed to stop sending guerrillas into Israeli territory. As a result, the border with Egypt quieted for a while.

At that time, no Arab state had recognized Israel's right to exist, and many considered Israel's long-term prospects for survival to be rather dim. The aftermath of the 1956 war saw the region return to an uneasy balance, maintained more by the competition among Egypt, Syria and Jordan than any real resolution of the region's difficulties. Egypt and Syria, who were backed by the Soviet Union, and Jordan, supported by Britain, maintained a constant pressure of guerilla raids on Israeli civilians. Israeli armed forces were disciplined and enjoyed massive air superiority.

In 1956, when the US refused to help Egypt build the Aswan hydroelectric "high dam" facility, Nasser decided to nationalise the Suez canal, a move which incensed Britain and France. The two former Middle Eastern colonial powers allied with Israel, whose invasion was a success. Nevertheless the alliance quickly collapsed under the weight of overwhelming world condemnation. The U.S., U.S.S.R. and U.N. were uncharacteristically in agreement on the issue; the U.S.S.R. even issued veiled threats to use nuclear missiles against Paris or London. Israel was able to obtain the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, the U.N.E.F. (United Nations Emergency Force), to keep that border region demilitarized and ensure Israeli security. Prior to the 1956 war, Egypt had stationed significant forces in the Sinai, on the Egyptian-Israeli border.

Several years later, in response to Israel's construction of the National Water Carrier, Syria initiated a plan to divert the waters of the Dan (Banias) stream so that the water would not enter Israel and the Sea of Galilee, but rather flow through Syria to Jordan and into the Jordan river. In addition to sponsoring Palestinian attacks against Israel (often through Jordanian territory, much to King Hussein's chagrin), Syria also began shelling of Israeli civilian communities in north-eastern Galilee, from gun emplacements on the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights. Although in 1964, Israel managed to destroy the water-diversion facilities, the border remained a scene of constant conflict, and the Israeli North was under continuous threat from Syrian guns.

On April 7, 1967, a comparatively minor border incident escalated with dizzying rapidity into a full-scale aerial battle over the Golan Heights, resulting in the loss of 7 Syrian MiG-21s and a flight of Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft over Damascus. Border incidents multiplied in frequency, and numerous Arab leaders, both political and military, called for an end to Israeli responses to these incidents. Egypt (then already trying to seize a central position in the Arab world under Nasser) accompanied these declarations with plans to re-militarize the Sinai, thereby obtaining a position convenient for invading Israel. Syria shared these views as well, although it did not prepare for an immediate invasion. The Soviet Union actively backed the military aspirations of the Arab bloc. It was later revealed that the Soviet Union had intentionally escalated the situation in the Middle East by sending false messages to the various Arab states that the Israelis were massing their forces at the border with Syria.

On May 17, Nasser demanded that the U.N.E.F. evacuate the Sinai Peninsula (hence: Sinai), a request which UN Secretary-General U Thant immediately complied with, surprising Israel. Nasser began re-militarization of the Sinai. On May 23, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, blockading the Israeli port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. The closure of the straits was a known casus belli. Overnight, Nasser had become the hero of the Arab world; he had vindicated Arab pride by standing up to the Israelis, erasing the "last traces of aggression" from the 1956 war. Almost overnight, the always tense Middle East had slid from a relatively stable status quo to the brink of regional war.

The few regional forces which might have prevented war quickly crumbled. In spite of the will of Jordan's King Hussein, who felt that Nasser's pan-Arabism was threatening his rule, it had numerous supporters in Jordan, and May 30 saw Egypt and Jordan signing a mutual defense treaty. Several days later, Jordanian forces were given to the command of an Egyptian general. Israel called upon Jordan numerous times to refrain from hostilities. However, King Hussein was caught on the horns of a galling dilemma: Allow Jordan to be dragged into war, and face the brunt of the Israeli response; or remain neutral, and risk full-scale insurrection among his own population.

Israel's own sense of concern regarding Jordan's future role originated in Jordanian control of West Bank. This put Arab forces just 17 kilometers from Israel's coast, a jump-off point from which a well co-ordinated tank assault could cut Israel in two within half an hour. While the small size of Jordan's army meant that Jordan was probably incapable of executing such a manoeuvre, the country had a long history of being used by other Arab states as staging grounds for operations against Israel; thus, attack from the West Bank was always viewed by the Israeli leadership as a severe threat to Israel's existence.

Israel watched these developments with alarm, and tried various diplomatic routes to try settling them. The U.S. and U.K. were asked to open the Tiran straits, as they guaranteed they would in 1957. Jordan was asked through numerous channels to refrain, weeks before the war by the Jewish lobby in the USA. All Israeli requests for peace were left unanswered, creating a feeling of grave concern for the future of the country. Israelis claimed that the closing the Straits met the international criteria for an act of war. On June 3 the American administration gave its acquiescence to an operation against Egypt, and plans for war were finally approved.

Warfare

Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula
Israel's first, and most important move, was to attack the Egyptian Air Force. It was by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, sporting about 385 aircraft, all of them Soviet-built and relatively new. Of particular concern were the 45 TU-16 Badger medium bombers, capable of inflicting heavy damage to Israeli military and civilian centers. On June 5 at 7:45 Israeli time, as air alarms sounded all over Israel, the Israeli Air Force audaciously left the skies of Israel virtually unprotected, sending all but a handful of its jets in a mass attack against Egypt's airfields. Egyptian defensive infrastructure was extremely poor, and no airfields were yet equipped with armored bunkers capable of protecting Egypt's warplanes in the event of an attack, especially on the forward bases in the Sinai. The Israelis employed a mixed attack strategy; bombing and strafing runs against the planes themselves, and tarmac-shredding penetration bombs for the runways that rendered them unusable, leaving any undamaged planes unable to take off, helpless targets for the next wave. The attack was successful beyond the wildest dreams of its planners, destroying virtually all of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground with few Israeli casualties, and guaranteeing Israeli air superiority during the rest of the war.

Israeli forces concentrated on the border with Egypt included 3 divisions, which consisted of 9 brigades, of which 5 were armored; there were also three reserve brigades. The Egyptian forces consisted of 7 divisions, five of them infantry and two armored. Four infantry divisions were near the Eyptian-Israeli border in the Sinai, an infantry and an armored division in central Sinai, and a second armored division in the west. In addition, a reinforced brigade (with 200 tanks) under Colonel Shazly was deployed in the southern Sinai with orders to encircle Eilat in the case of war. Overall, Egypt had over 100,000 troops and 1000 tanks in the Sinai, backed by an appropriate number of artillery guns. This arrangement was based on the Soviet doctrine, where mobile armor units at strategic depth provide a dynamic defense while infantry units engage in defensive battles at the border.

The northernmost Israeli division, consisting of three brigades and commanded by Israel Tal, one of Israel's most prominent armor commanders, found itself slowly advancing through the Gaza strip and Al-Arish, which were not heavily protected. The central division (Avraham Yoffe) and the southern division (Ariel Sharon), however, entered the heavily defended Abu-Ageila-Kusseima region. Egyptian forces there included one infantry division (the 2nd), a battalion of tank destroyers and a tank regiment.

At that moment, Sharon initiated an attack, precisely planned and carried out. He sent out two of his brigades to the north of Um-Katef, the first one ordered to break through the defenses at Abu-Ageila to the south, and the second to block the road to El-Arish and to encircle Abu-Ageila from the east. At the same time, a paratrooper force was landed that destroyed the artillery, preventing it from engaging Israeli armor. Combined forces of armor, paratroopers, infantry, artillery and engineers attacked the Egyptian disposition from the front flanks and rear, cutting the enemy off. The breakthrough battles which were in sandy areas and minefields, continued for 3 and-a-half days until Abu-Ageila fell.

Many of the Egyptian units remained intact and could be scrambled to prevent Israeli units from reaching the Suez Canal or engage in heavy combat in the attempt to reach the canal. However, when the Egyptian Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer heard about the fall of Abu-Ageila, he panicked and ordered all units in the Sinai to retreat. This order effectively meant the defeat of Egypt.

Due to the Egyptians' retreat, the Israeli Command decided not to pursue the Egyptian units but rather to bypass the Egyptian units and destroy them in the mountainous passes of West Sinai. Therefore, in the following two days (June 6 and 7) all three Israeli divisions (Sharon and Tal were joined by an armored brigade each) rushed westwards and reached the passes. Sharon's division first went southward then westward to Mitla Pass. It was joined there by parts of Yoffe's division, while its other units blocked the Gidi Pass. Tal's units stopped at various points to the length of the Suez Canal.

Israel's blocking action was only partially successful. Only the Gidi pass was captured before the Egyptians approached it, but at other places Egyptian units did manage to pass through and cross the Canal to safety. Nevertheless the Israeli victories were impressive, in four days of operations, Israel defeated the largest and most heavily equipped Arab army leaving numerous points in the Sinai filled with hundreds of burning or abandoned Egyptian vehicles.

On June 8th, Israel completed capturing the Sinai by sending infantry units to Ras-Sudar on the western coast of the peninsula. Sharm El-Sheikh, at its southern tip, was already captured a day earlier by units of the Israeli Navy.

Gabby Bron, an Israeli reservist at the time, now a journalist, said he witnessed the execution of POWs in the airport area of al-Arish in the Sinai peninsula on June 8th. He says he watched them dig their own graves, and were then shot dead with Uzis. The American naval ship the USS Liberty, which was attacked by Israel during the Six-Day war, resulting in the death of 34 American sailors, was less than 13 miles off al-Arish. Some have speculated that Israel attacked the American naval ship to cover up the execution of POWs in al-Arish that Gabby Bron said he witnessed.

Several tactical elements made the swift Israeli advance possible. The first is the complete air superiority the IAF has achieved over its Egyptian counterpart; the second--the unique morale among the Israeli troops who believed they were fighting for Israel’s suvival; the determined implementation of an innovative battle plan; the lack of coordination among Egyptian troops and as a result their inability to help each other, deploy artillery or summon reinforcements. The first three would prove decisive during fighting in the Jordanian and Syrian fronts as well.

West Bank

Jordan was more reluctant to enter the war. Some claim that President Nasser used the obscurity of the first hours of the conflict to convince King Hussein that he was victorious; he claimed as evidence a radar sighting of a squadron of Israeli aircraft returning from bombing raids in Egypt which he claimed to be Egyptian aircraft enroute to attacking Israel. One of the Jordanian brigades stationed in the West Bank was sent to the Hebron area in order to link with the Egyptians. King Hussein decided to attack.

Prior to the war, Jordanian forces included 11 brigades (total of 60,000 troops), equipped by some 300 modern Western tanks. Of them, 9 brigades were deployed in the West Bank and 2 in the Jordan valley. The Jordanian ground army was relatively well-equipped and well-trained. Furthermore, Israeli post-war briefings claimed that the Jordanian staff acted professionally as well, but was always left "half a turn" behind by the Israeli moves. The Royal Jordanian Air Force, however, consisted of only about 20 Hawker Hunter fighters, obsolete by all standards.

Israeli Central Command forces consisted of five brigades. The first two were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were called the "Jerusalem" brigade and the mechanized "Harel" brigade. A paratrooper brigade was summoned from the Sinai front, Mordechai Gur's 35th. An armored brigade was allocated from the General Staff reserve and brought to the Latrun area. The 10th armored brigade was stationed north of Samaria. The Northern Command provided a division (3 brigades) which was stationed to the north of Samaria and led by Elad Peled.

On the morning of June 5, Jordanian forces made thrusts in the area of Jerusalem , occupying Government House used as the headquarters for the UN observers and shelled the city. Units in Qalqiliya fired in the direction of Tel-Aviv. The Royal Jordanian Air Force attacked Israeli airfields. Both air and artillery attacks caused little damage. Israeli units were scrambled to attack Jordanian forces in the West Bank. In the afternoon of that same day, Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes destroyed the Royal Jordanian Air Force. By the evening of June 5, the infantry Jerusalem brigade moved south of Jerusalem, while the mechanized Harel encircled it from the north.

On June 6, the Israeli units attacked: The reserve paratroop brigade completed the Jerusalem encirclement in the area called "The Ammunition Hill" (which was the site of a bloody battle). The infantry brigade attacked the fortress at Latrun capturing it at daybreak, and advanced through Beit Horon towards Ramallah. The Harel brigade continued its push to the mountainous area of north-west Jerusalem, linking the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University with the city of Jerusalem. By the evening, the brigade arrived in Ramallah.

The Jordanian forces in Samaria amounted to 4 divisions, one of them being the elite armored 40th. The IAF caught the 60th Jordanian Brigade on the road from Jericho to reinforce Jerusalem and destroyed it. One battalion from Peled's division was sent to check Jordanian defenses in the Jordan Valley. A brigade belonging to Peled's division captured Western Samaria, another captured Jenin and the third (equipped with light French AMX-13s) engaged Jordanian Pattons main battle tanks to the east.

On June 7 heavy fighting ensued. Gur's paratroopers entered the Old City of Jerusalem via the Lion's Gate. The Jerusalem brigade then reinforced them, and continued to the south, capturing Judea, Gush Etzion and Hebron. The Harel brigade proceeded eastward, descending to the Jordan river. In Samaria, one Peled's brigades seized Nablus; then it joined one of Central Command's armored brigades to fight the Jordanian forces which held the advantage of superior equipment and were equal in numbers to the Israelis.

Again, the air superiority of the IAF proved paramount as it immobilized the enemy, leading to its defeat. One of Peled's brigades joined with its Central Command counterparts coming from Ramallah, and the remaining two blocked the Jordan river together with the Central Command's 10th (the latter crossed the Jordan river into the East Bank to provide cover for Israeli engineers while they blew the bridges, but was quickly pulled back because of American pressure).

battle map (http://www.idf.il/english/history/sixdaym2.stm)

[edit]
Golan Heights
During the evening of June 5th, Israeli air strikes destroyed two thirds of the Syrian Air Force, and forced the remaining third to retreat to distant bases, without playing any further role in the ensuing warfare. A minor Syrian force tried to capture the water plant at Tel Dan (the subject of a fierce escalation two years earlier). Several Syrian tanks are reported to have sunk in the Jordan river. In any case, the Syrian command abandoned hopes of a ground attack, and began a massive shelling of Israeli towns in the Hula Valley instead.

June 7th and 8th passed in this way. At that time, a debate had been going on in the Israeli leadership whether the Golan Heights should be assailed as well. Military wisdom, however, suggested that the attack would be extremely costly, as it would be an uphill battle against a strongly fortified enemy. The western side of the Golan Heights consists of a rock escarpment that rises 1700 feet from the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River to a more gently sloping plateau. Moshe Dayan believed such an operation would yield losses of 30,000, and opposed it bitterly. Levi Eshkol, on the other hand, was more open to the possibility of an operation in the Golan Heights, as was the head of the Northern Command, David Elazar, whose unbridled enthusiasm for and confidence in the operation may have eroded Dayan's reluctance. Eventually, as the situation on the Southern and Central fronts cleared up, Moshe Dayan became more enthusiastic about the idea, and he authorized the operation.

The Syrian army consisted of about 50,000 men grouped in 9 brigades, supported by an adequate amount of artillery and armor. Israeli forces used in combat consisted of two brigades (one armored led by Albert Mandler and the Golani Brigade) in the northern part of the front, and another two (infantry and one of Peled's brigades summoned from Jenin) in the center. The Golan Heights' unique terrain (mountainous slopes crossed by parallel streams every several miles running east to west), and the general lack of roads in the area channeled both forces along east-west axes of movement and resticting the ability of units to support those on either flank. Thus the Syrians could move north-south on the plateau itself, and the Israelis could move north-south at the base of the Golan escarpment. An advantage Israel possessed was the excellent intelligence collected by Mossad operative Eli Cohen (who was later captured and executed) regarding the Syrian battle positions.

The I.A.F., which had been attacking Syrian artillery for four days prior to the attack, was ordered to attack Syrian positions with all its force. While the well-protected artillery was mostly undamaged, the ground forces staying on the Golan plateau (6 of the 9 brigades) became unable to organize a defense. By the evening of June 9th, the four Israeli brigades had broken through to the plateau, where they could be reinforced and replaced.

On the next day, June 10, the central and northern groups joined in a pincer movement on the plateau, but that fell mainly on empty territory as the Syrian forces fled. Several units joined by Elad Peled climbed to the Golan from the south, only to find the positions mostly empty as well. During the day, the Israeli units stopped after obtaining maneuveur room between their positions and a line of volcanic hills to the west. To the east the ground terrain is an open gently sloping plain. This position later became the cease-fire line known as the "Purple Line".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

Those are the origins of the Six-Day War - all because of Israel's raid on the West Bank town of Samu'. Except now we know from the declassified documents that the raid on Samu' should never have taken place. Go back to November 11, 1966: King Hussein, in his rhetoric, was as anti-Israel as the next Arab leader of his generation. But secretly, Hussein had a modus vivendi with the Israelis, often meeting secretly with Israeli emissaries. When Hussein heard about the deaths of the three Israeli soldiers along the border, he wrote a personal letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in which he said we will work together to combat this terrorism. This letter reached the desk of respected American Ambassador Walworth Babour on November 11 - a Friday. Everything shuts down in Israel on a Friday, the Sabbath. Babour looked at his watch and decided it could wait until Monday.

On Sunday, Israel launched its attack on Samu'. Had Israel received that letter, there's no way they would have launched that attack, because the letter bore the imprimatur of the American government. The Six-Day War broke out not because of Israeli activism or Nasser's nefariousness, but because of procrastination of one American diplomat.

A similar random event prevented Egypt from launching the same type of surprise massive attack against Israel that Israel launched against Egypt on June 5. The Egyptian plan went by the code name Al-Fajr - "the dawn," in Arabic - and called for massive aerial bombings of Israeli strategic targets, followed by a large-scale armored thrust through Israel's southern Negev Desert to link up with the Jordanian border and literally cut the Jewish state in half. This was the brainchild of the de facto commander of the Egyptian army, Field Marshall 'Abd al-Hakim 'Amer. He had performed poorly as the commander of the Egyptian army in the 1956 war with Israel, failed again in Egypt's disastrous intervention in the Yemeni civil war and was anxious to find any way to restore his tarnished personal glory. On May 17 and May 24, Egyptian MiG aircraft penetrated Israeli airspace over the Negev and photographed Israel's most sensitive strategic sight, the Dimona nuclear reactor. Israel sent Hawk missiles up after the planes, but the Egyptians got away. 'Amer had proved that Israel was vulnerable to surprise attack.

Nasser did not want to start a war with Israel; we know this now from documents. He wanted to provoke Israel to start the war so that Israel would be saddled with blame for igniting this conflagration. But Nasser could not stand up to 'Amer, who was very powerful and also his best friend. So, H-hour for Operation Dawn was set effectively at dawn for May 27, 1967. Why didn't it happen? The previous day, Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban landed in Washington with the goal of ascertaining from the American administration its position in the event of the outbreak of war. As soon as Eban arrived, he was handed an ultra-secret cable directly from the Israeli government, and in it the information that Israel had learned of an Egyptian and Syrian plan to launch a war of annihilation against Israel within the next 48 hours. Eban met with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary McNamara, finally with the president himself. The Americans said their intelligence sources could not corroborate the claim; that Egyptian alignment in Sinai remained defensive.

Eban left the White House distraught. Johnson sat around with his advisors and said, What if their intelligence sources are better than ours? Johnson decided to fire off a hotline message to his counterpart in the Kremlin, Alexi Kosygin, in which he said, We've heard from the Israelis, but we can't corroborate it, that your proxies in the Middle East, the Egyptians, plan to launch an attack against Israel in the next 48 hours. If you don't want to start a global crisis, prevent them from doing that. At 2:30 a.m. on May 27, Soviet Ambassador to Egypt Dimitri Pojidaev knocked on Nasser's door and read him a personal letter from Kosygin in which he said, We don't want Egypt to be blamed for starting a war in the Middle East. If you launch that attack, we cannot support you. 'Amer consulted his sources in the Kremlin, and they corroborated the substance of Kosygin's message. Despondent, 'Amer told the commander of Egypt's air force, Major General Mahmud Sidqi, that the operation was cancelled.

Israel launched the first surprise attack on June 5, with the goal of destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. Israel's military operations were originally conceived as a 48-hour, limited, even surgical strike, that had only one other goal: eliminating the first of three Egyptian defense lines in Sinai. It was not about taking the whole Sinai Peninsula down to the Suez Canal, occupying the Gaza Strip, seizing the Golan Heights, entering the West Bank or liberating the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel did not want a war with Jordan; Israel had a working relationship with King Hussein. The Jordanian border is Israel's longest and most vulnerable. Strict instructions went to the Israeli forces that even if the Jordanians fired on Israel, even if King Hussein "had to loft a few shells to prove that he was an Arab ruler," Israel would not react to that fire.

Hussein didn't want a war with Israel, but was in a terrible dilemma. If Nasser went to war, Hussein didn't help and Nasser lost, Palestinians in Jordan and the entire Arab world would accuse Hussein of being a traitor and they'd kill him. But if Nasser won, if that Egyptian column cut across Israel's Negev Desert and went right to the Jordanian border and continued to Amman, then Nasser would kill him. To get out of that dilemma, Hussein decided to abrogate all personal responsibility for this crisis by placing his army under direct Egyptian command of General Riyad. June 5, the first day of the war, Jordanian howitzers in East Jerusalem opened fire on the Jewish half of the city. They lobbed thousands of shells, destroyed hundreds of buildings, killing 20 people. Jordanian planes began to strafe Israeli cities. More disastrously for the Israelis, Jordanian Long Tom guns situated around Jenin began to shell the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Israeli airfields. With all of this provocation, the Israeli orders stood.

But at 12:30 p.m. on June 5, Jordanian radio announced that Jordanian soldiers had attacked and captured Government House Ridge at the southern approach of the city of Jerusalem. It was a zone demilitarized by the UN in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war because it was such a sensitive site: Anybody who controlled that ridge controlled the entrance to all of southern and ultimately western Jerusalem. Israel had a secret observation point right off of the ridge, and when the central command of the Israeli army heard on Jordanian radio that Jordanian soldiers had captured the ridge, central command called the outpost and said, Do you see anything up there? The post reported, No, it's perfectly quiet.

But at 1:30, Jordanian soldiers invaded and conquered Government House Ridge. Jordanian radio announced that Jordanian soldiers were in the process of attacking the Israeli enclave in the northern part of Jerusalem, on Mount Scopus. Israeli central command called the garrison at Mount Scopus, and the answer was, It's perfectly quiet here. Israeli central command concluded that there was no coordination between Jordanian radio and the Jordanian army, and that the Jordanian radio was in effect announcing the army's movements about an hour ahead of time.

At 9:30 a.m., General Riyad received a telegram from Field Marshall 'Amer in Cairo that said 70 percent of the Israeli air force had been destroyed, that a large Egyptian column had broken through the Negev and would soon enter southern Jerusalem via Government House Ridge. It was therefore incumbent upon the Jordanian Army to take the ridge to cover the eastern flank of this advancing column. The Israelis knew that 70 percent of their air force hadn't been destroyed, they knew there was no Egyptian column advancing up the spine of the West Bank, but they did fear a recurrence of one of the great traumas of the 1948 war: the Jordanian siege on West Jerusalem. They quickly sent soldiers to Government House Ridge and brought paratroopers up from the Sinai to link up with Mount Scopus. The battle for Ammunition Hill was really the bloodiest battle of the whole war.

Two days later, most of the West Bank had fallen to the Israelis. The Israeli government paused and deliberated for 24 hours on whether or not to reach the Wailing Wall, because the Old City of Jerusalem contains not only Jewish holy shrines but also Christian holy shrines, in particular the Holy Sepulchre. Israeli ministers, led by Moshe Dayan, thought that if Israel conquered the Old City, Catholic countries, led by the Vatican, would sever relations with Israel, deepening Israel's international isolation at the worst possible time. The decision came down to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. He wrote a letter to King Hussein, saying that if you retake control of your army, if you accept an unconditional cease-fire, and agree to peace talks, we will not take the Old City of Jerusalem. Levi Eshkol was within a hand's grasp of realizing a millennial Jewish vision and was willing to forfeit it in return for a peace process with Jordan.

This letter went out about 9:30 a.m. There was no answer, ever. At 11:30 Israeli paratroopers broke through the Lions Gate in the Old City. Two hours later they reported, Har ha-Bayit be-Yadenu - in Hebrew, "The Temple Mount is in our hands" - and the paratroopers took their famous picture outside of the Western Wall.

The Six-Day War broke out because one letter from King Hussein to Levi Eshkol was not delivered; the West Bank and Jerusalem fell to Israel because one letter was delivered from Field Marshall 'Amer to General Riyad with false information; and another letter, a final letter, from Levi Eshkol to King Hussein was never answered. The basic conclusion has to be that rather than a logical reaction to events on the field, the Six-Day War appears the result of unanticipated vicissitudes, the vagaries of war, random chance, and often just plain dumb luck. That type of conclusion is particularly pertinent to the Middle East today, because it remains engaged in a context of conflict, and frankly the context is far more unstable today than it was in 1967.

http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-06oren-speech.html

Those two relatively noncontroversial and unfortunately pretty proIsrael accounts of the history of the six day war contain some interesting facts.

One always hears the following argument from the proIsrael side:
"14 Arab armies massed at israel's border..the straits closed (an act of war)
LOL!!! Israel started Syria's war of aggression...you're just pissed off that the arabs are incompetent"

Obviously the cause of the war was a lot more complicated and viewing any side as innocent in it ignores human nature (there is rarely if ever a wholely good or wholely evil side in any human conflict)

The following recent update to the history of the war is interesting:
"King Hussein, in his rhetoric, was as anti-Israel as the next Arab leader of his generation. But secretly, Hussein had a modus vivendi with the Israelis, often meeting secretly with Israeli emissaries. When Hussein heard about the deaths of the three Israeli soldiers along the border, he wrote a personal letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in which he said we will work together to combat this terrorism. "
Does this imply that secretly that Jordan was (and probably still is) supportive of the Israelis more than the Palestinians? Could the same be true for many other Arab leaders?
The conflict in 1967 was more one of Syria and Egypt (both allied with the Soviets) confronting Israel (which was allied with the US). To see any major conflict during the Cold War period without looking at what US and Soviet policies were is to ignore a lot of why things happened.

1967 wasnt a case of Israel defending itself because 14 Arab armies acting out of antiSemitism wanted to push all Jews in Israel into the sea. Israel clearly wasnt the main party that should be blamed for the war, but it wasnt a completely innocent party. Secret support by Jordan (and other regional governments?) for Israel not only helps to explain the events leading to the war but could could also help explain why it was such a quick war.

I'm not trying to argue that Jordan wanted to get defeated in the battle's it fought, just that the government of Jordan saw the Palestinian militants as their major threat before the war not Israel. Once a war started Jodran didnt want to lose the West Bank, but the government's heart wasnt in the fight since it was an area full of Palestinian militants. One only has to look at Black September a few years later ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September ) to see the internal politics of Jordan and that modern myths about a united but incompetent Arab world unable to help Palestinians is just a myth.

I would like to hear more about what people in Lebanon think about Syria. Its only an occupation if its opposed by the population.

The pointless parts are your unrealistic declarations in support of pan-Arabism and what can only be seen as childish references to alleged capitulations, "behaving" and following orders. Your unwillingness to clarify what you meant by this nomenclature isn't all that surprising.

I'm all too aware of the difference between reunification and annexation. And, surely you don't expect me to ignore that if Lebanon ever agrees to reunite with Syria, it will only have happened because Syria, the PLO and Lebanese anti-Christian elements have (and some still are) taken their turns in enormously diminishing the Maronite Christians' political clout so that a reunification will be possible.

You may call me picky, yet you fail to realize that even between the Israeli intelligence apparatuses, the military and the foreign ministry there are often differences of opinion in, even within those bodies themselves, like within the military (sometimes the military intelligence are at odds with the chief of staff and other brass officers).

It is a fact that within the US government at least the CIA had extended assistance to Saddam Hussein. In fact, the CIA-Hussein relationship began in 1958.
I'm aware of the so-called [Iran-Iraq] dual-containment policy which was conceived by the Reagan administration, in effect during the 1980s

I haven't known Ya'akov Nimrodi ran the SAVAK for the Shah. Call me a nitpicker, I think you have the wrong name here. Or perhaps I'm wrong and you can show me a source confirming this Nimrodi ran the SAVAK at some point.

I agree the British and French colonial systems have caused the Arabs problems, yet I disagree with an implicit attempt to pin the blame for most of the problems that are currently besetting (and have been since at least two decades after the occupations ended) the Arab world on the former colonialist occupations in a manner that absolves the Arab rulers (and to a somewhat lesser extent also the general populations) of their responsibilities to extricate their nations from all these problems. It's always convenient to blame external forces and hang onto past grievances as an excuse to avoid soul searching, introspection, situation evaluation, lesson learning and practical attempts at transcending victim state of mind and status. At some point this mentality will have to be eradicated. After all, Also the Holy Land was under British occupation; any problems caused by that occupation that may still exist aren't an excuse for Israelis to avoid trying to solve them while blaming Britain.

>>>"Would Haifa be Druze, Baha'i or Jewish? I think Baha'i.They certainly deserve a nuclear-armed national homeland in view of their persecution in Iran. "<<<
That's your opinion. I've already read stranget things.

>>>"Israel is not the most "normal" country in the Middle East."

Whatever. It all depends on your definition for a state's "normality".

>>>"The stunting of Arab political development is the result of colonialism, Ottoman and Western, followed by hegemony, mostly US and current US Imperialism. "<<<

Again, you introduced an erstwhile external force that is no longer responsible for Arab political hardship into an account of the present. I do, however, agree that the US has been among the forces that have been impeding Arab political maneuvers for quite some time.

>>>" Israel is the most prominent symptom of this neo-colonial disease."<<<
Whatever.

>>>"As Lord Sydenham said in 1922: "What we are doing by concessions, not to the Jewish people, but to an extreme Zionist sect, is to start a running sore in the East, and who knows how far it will spread." "<<<

I'll dismiss this pronouncement as bollocks. Back then there was no extreme Zionist sect.

>>>"Now we know how much damage that infected splinter, inserted in the very heart of the Arab world, could do."<<<

Whatever.
Many certainly know what damage the Trojan Horse a.k.a the '93 Oslo Accord has done, not to mention what a Palestinian state could inflict.

If you want to call the assistance the US has given Egypt and Jordan in return for ceasing their state of belligerence with Israel as bribery, suit yourself.

>>>" The 1948, 1956, 1967, 1978 and 1982 Arab-Israeli Wars were all started by Israel.I don't wish to argue about all of them.Pick one."<<<

1. There was no 1978 war (and you know exactly what I mean).
2. You claim Israel began even the 1948 war? Hah!...

Up until this point I thought you were overall a serious debater. Evidently that was too good to be true. I've seen your laughable allusion to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon as non-occupation and the common lie originating from Syrian propaganda claiming it was invited by Lebanon. Equally laughable is you contention that a Syrian invasion of the Golan Heights wouldn't constitute an illegal act of aggression (as if invasion of another country suddenly isn't illegal and an act of war). Your pitiful support for naked, unprovoked aggression, imperialism and colonialism has been exposed. You support and apologize for Syrian aggression, yet you wouldn't condone Israeli even self defense, not even as in its 1948 war of independence. Talk about unadulterated and unmitigated gall!

I don't know what to think about your failure to point me to the exact source of Sharon's alleged demand that the PLO be sent back to Jordan from Lebanon. Given your current behavior, I doubt your claims on it. I'll have to look this issue up in a Sharon bio.

Go play with someone else who shares your utterly hypocritical, ugly, double standard, pro-aggression, pro-occupation and pro-colonialism value system.

The Camp David Accords were in 1978. The one point in recent history when there was more than just talk when it came to a peace process.

Three things about Middle East history that seem to always be forgotten.
1. 1948-1998 fell during the Cold War so most regional conflicts during that period were at least somewhat tied to superpower relationships.
2. 1948-1967 fell during a period of rapid deColonization. European colonizers were being kicked out of countries all over the world. 1947 was when India was partitioned and Rhodesia fell in 1979.
3. The Ottoman empire was only divided up in 1918 and it was followed by several decades of colonial rule in most regions.

To Israelis 1948 is seen in the light of WWII and German (rather than really Nazi) sympathies by countries that had just thrown off Western European colonial rule. Arab opposition to a Jewish state is therefore seen in a context that made fighting the Arabs symbolic for fighting antiSemitism and the Nazis.

To Palestinians 1948 is seen in the light of a rebirth or Arab culture and the possibility for Arab independence in an area freeing itself from Turkish and then European domination. Fighting Israel was therefore fighting a European colony and seen in that context.

Arguing about who was right in 1948 or 1967 is pointless. Depending on whose history you are reading it looks quite different. Reading the history of Israel from the perspective of the antiColonial struggles post WWII and ignoring WWII, the Palestinians are clearly in the right and until several generations had passed it was logical to see people calling for an end to Israel's existence. Reading the history of Israel from the perspective of WWII and the various alliances and mass migrations happening in other areas, Israel's creation looks pretty innocuous (in terms of violence and population displaced compared to other conflicts at the time) and even positive (in terms of righting a historical wrong).

Taking a snapshot of the world today and ignoring history, Palestinians are the ones living under occupation and fighting for freedom. So taken in a modern context (where the underdog is always glorrified) and with a move away from an idealization nonviolence by most right and left wing activists, who do you expect the world to back? Unfortunatley for everyone, people like to turn any complicated conflict into a struggle between good and evil, antiSemites and Jews or racists and people of color. Making the future better cant be a matter of compensating for a past wrong when the meaning of past history can never be agreed upon. The future must be based on how things are now and what will make things better for Palestinians and Israelis, by overlaying historical analogies things are complicated and its impossible to move forward.

>>>"Reading the history of Israel from the perspective of the antiColonial struggles post WWII and ignoring WWII, the Palestinians are clearly in the right"<<<

This logic strikes me as bizarre, since the Zionist anti-British struggle in the Land of Israel can certainly be viewed as an anti-colonial one (even though such a viewpoint wouldn't have been popular for quite a long time). In addition, the local Arabs were allotted a portion of the land for an independent state, but rejected the plan along with their Arab brethren and turned to violence culminating in a genocidal war against Israel.
In light of such facts I can't see how the Palestinians were the ones in the right.

They're not facts.

Ah yeah...I now recall you don't even exist, just as you yourself have said any number of times.

"Zionist anti-British struggle in the Land of Israel can certainly be viewed as an anti-colonial one "
Sure, but it wouldnt by the people of the Middle East since to them the Zionists were European colonizers (since at that point most were immigrants from Europe)
My point in the previous post was to try to open a discussion of why Israel was attacked after it declared itself a state. Was it support for the Palestinians? Was it antiSemitism? Or was it part of the broader wordwide movement to kick out colonial powers and Europeans from former colonies (independent of whether it should have been seen as such). One could also perhaps view it more locally as part of an emerging Arab nationalism that was caused by the gradual breaking away from Europe of the puppet kingdoms the European powers put in place at the end of WWI.

It is my belief, that If Israel had been Christian or even Muslim in terms of religion, it probably wouldnt have made a difference; opposition to its existance in 1948 was more tied to it being seen as a European colony composed of nonArab people. If Israel had been Christian opposition to its existance may have been even stronger since Europeans not tied to a state claiming land in Palestine would have been even easier to relate back to the period before Süleyman retook the region from European adventurers.

To put what Im trying to argue in context, I think attacks on Israel from WWII through the lat 70s were tied to antiColonialism and Arab nationalism rather than antiSemitism. But, I dont think that these forces are operating much today. The Second Gulf War is in a way the final victory of a stateless fundamentalist ideology over Arab nationalism, not just in the fall of a Baath leader but more as a result of how the other countries in the region reacted. One already saw this trend in Israel with nationalist and Socialist Palestinians groups losing power and the fundamentalists gaining support and power. As a larger and more centrally located country, the Iraqi resistance appears as if it could shape antiAmerican and antiIsrael views in the decades to come.

What happened to my earlier comments?

At any rate, I offered to debate Critical Thinker, not Wikipedia.To refute all of Wikipedia's points seriatum would require more time than I've got, however I couldn't help but notice a general pro-Israeli bias in their description of the 1967 War.

For example, it mentions Palestinian attacks on Israel's Central Water Carrier project, and cites Syria's plan to divert water from upsream of "Israel" as if that were a provocation.It does not mention that Israel's Central Water Carrier was itself stealing the waters of the Jordan River from the West Bank and Jordan, and that the CWC was a violation of the Johnson water sharing agreeement which the Arab states had adhered to (and still do) since the Eisenhower era.

Wikipedia also fails to note that the many border incidents between Israel and Syria were provoked by Israel in almost every case. If you had gone to the UNISPAL site and checked the comments of the 1960s UN Truce Supervisor Odd Bull, and his predecessor (with an unfortunately less-memorable name) you could confirm the veracity of that comment.

Maybe you will take Moshe Dayan's word regarding who started the series of provocations thast led to the1967 War:

"After all, I know how at least 80% of the clashes there started.In my opinion, more than 80%, but let's say 80%.It went this way:We would send a tractor to plow someplace it they weren't supposed to be, in the demilitarized area, and we knew in advance the Syrians would start to shoot.If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and start to shoot.And we would use artillery and later the Air Force also, and that's how it was.I did that, and Laskov and Chara"(Gen. Zvet Zur)", and Yitshak" (Rabin) "did that, but it seems to me that the person who most enjoyed these games was Dado."( General David Elazar, Israeli OC-Northern Command, 1964-69)

That quote is from a 1976 Dayan interview with Avi Shlaim.

Jordan also suffered from similar attacks, particularly the late 1966 raid on the town of Samu, in which Israel invaded Jordan without warning and killed dozens of Jordanian citizens and soldiers. That's in the UNTSO reports, too.

UNTSO reports, UNMAC reports, and the recollections of General Dayan, are considered original sources.To me they carry more weight than Wikipedia's unsourced and patently biased screed.

Wikipedia also had its blinkers on when it composed its account of Nasser's behavior before the 1967 War, but seeing that I already demonstated their innaccuracy regarding Syria, I won't go into detail refuting it.

The 1978 Arab-Israeli War to which I referred was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of that year.You didn't think 1982 was the only time Israel invaded Lebanon, did you?

I gave my source for Israel's 1982 attempt to send the PLO back to Jordan and thereby cause King Hussein to fall.To repeat the sources are Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, as quoted from "The Iron Wall", by Avi Shlaim, an author who knows the facts in considerably greater depth than Wikipedia.

Lord Sydenham's quote is almost verbatim from the 1922 debate in the House of Lords on whether to include the terms of the Balfour Declaration in the so-called League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.If you do a keyword search for "Lord Sydenham""and "running sore", I'm sure you will find it.

If you are dissappointed in my style of debate, CT, let me assure you that my distaste for people who can't graciously admit that they were wrong, who haven't assimilated enough facts to argue in their own words and who resort to reposting long propaganda screeds knows no bounds.

Is CT playing dumb? Any book on the Mossad, Israeli intelligence or Iran-israel cooperation will mention Nimrodi's role in creating the Shah's SAVAK.I would recommend "Every Spy a Prince" by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman.

Also, I just had to laugh when CT mentioned Reagan's "dual-containment strategy" for Iran and Iraq. That was an all-time classical example of Orwellian "double-speak" on their part.

The dialogue between CT and "Re:" or "history" or whoever turns out to be full of gems.

The Zionist struggle against the British was an anti-colonialist struggle....?!!!!

Maybe "history" will listen to Professor Arnold Toynbee, who was not only one of the last century's pre-eminent historians, but who, in his youth, actually worked as a British foreign service officer in the Middle East:

"All through the 30 years (1918-1948), Britain admitted into Palestine, year by year, a quota of Jewish immigrants that varied according to the strength of the respective pressures of the Arabs and Jews at that time.These immigrants could not have come in, if they had not been shielded by a British 'cheveux-de-frise'. If Palestine had remained under Ottoman rule or if it had become an independent Arab State in 1918, Jewish immigration would never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people's own country."

The so-called League of Nations Mandate was a British colonialist project from the beginning. The legitimate rights of self-determination of the indigenous population of Palestine, of which over 90% were not Jewish , were put on hold for thirty years, while an alien population of European Jews, including Jews who the racist anti-immigration parties of Britain wanted to be rid of, entered the country and established their separate military and governmental institutions under colonialist protection.The British and Zionist immigrants, fighting together, killed thousands of truly anti-colonial Palestinians in the 1930s.The slaughter was enough to make the British reconsider the entire Palestinian question in 1938-39, but then the Zionists simply began transferring their dependence to the next imperialistic power in the Middle East, the US.The Zionist terrrorist campaign against the British and Palestinians in the 1940s was not anti-colonial, it was to punish Britain for setting aside the obligations of its colonialistic alliance with the Zionists, and to prevent the success of the binational plan which Britain hoped to implement with the help of moderate Jews and Arabs.

Since 1948 further legitimate rights of the Palestinian people were picked off one by one, in disregard of the fundamental principles of the League of Nations, the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, until today, when the Palestinians are reduced to their present state of near-total degradation and subjugation.

If you think wikipedia is missing something you can dispute articles and even help change that page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Six-Day_War
I'm not an expert on the six day war and have no real way of knowing if you or CT are arguing based off agreed upon facts or disputed facts (ie do you disagree on the interpretation of the history or on the history itself), but on the discussion page for wikipedia you can argue with people who are hopefully experts on the history.... If you can back up what you believe the page can be changed or there can be two seperate versions of the history on wikipedia

Maybe this person is hard of understanding, couldn't grasp what I told him at the end of my last response to him and needs to be told explicitly:
I refuse to dialogue with a person who starts off as a pretty serious debater, only to end up lying that Israel started wars in 1948, 1973, and then justifying and apologizing for blatant acts of aggression, occupation, colonialism. I don't care whether he tried to antagonize or if he's talking out of deep conviction.

al-Askari, my discussion with you is OVER.

How on earth can someone be pro-Palestine and not pro-Kurd? Where is the outrage at the flagrant hypocrisy? Why shouldn't the Kurds get help from anywhere they can-- like the Palestinians? or for that matter, like the Israelis?

The only logical explanation for such denial and willful ignorance is that some people are so blinded by their hatred of Israel, that all of their thinking must be reduced to the purposes of the polemic.

I think that's the single best proof that all this "anti-zionism" is really verging on mental illness, at least on the part of its harshest adherents. The Palestinians feeling that way, I can understand. But Americans? As if Americans have *any* moral currency to spend for or against other nations' freedom at this particular moment in history.

Anything that reduces its otherwise-intelligent believers to such simplemindedness and hostility deserves the greatest of skepticism by people who would be free.

I wouldn't look at the 1948 genocidal attack of the 5 neighboring Arab states against Israel as part of emerging Arab nationalism. Of all the forces that attacked Israel, only Palestinian nationalism was at some starting point - barely at the tip of a beginning (after all, a distinct Palestinian nationality wouldn't appear until after 1977, as proven by PLO executive committee Zuheir Muhsein's admission that year that a Palestinian people didn't exist). The emergence of Palestinian nationalism was linked to the Zionist movement's fortunes in the Holy Land and the Hashemites, not to British or French colonialist jockeyings. The neighboring Arab states had already gained independence or been made independent some time prior to invading Israel to annihilate it.

I would agree that starting from 29 Nov '47, all but a scant number of Arabs considered the pre-state Yishuv and then Israel an alien corn within the Arab expanse. They were riled by the thought that a non-Arab political entity - especially a non-Muslim one - would have a territory where they would call the shots rather than Arabs. While most Arabs viewed Israel as a European colonial implant (I'm in accord with you on this), they weren't about to tolerate *any* sort of non-Arab independence in the midst of the Middleastern Arab expanse. The fact the local Jews reached their greatest '47 and '48 political successes working in opposition to the British colonial occupation rather than being assisted by it can be seen, in my opinion, as a factor that compounded the sense of insult the Arabs felt.

While not exclusively existent, anti-Semitism was an important variable in the wars of 1948, 1967, 1973 and other attacks on Israel.

>>>"The Second Gulf War is in a way the final victory of a stateless fundamentalist ideology over Arab nationalism,"<<<

I gather you meant what you see as al-Qaeda's victory over Arab nationalism?

>>>"...not just in the fall of a Ba'ath leader but more as a result of how the other countries in the region reacted. One already saw this trend in Israel with nationalist and Socialist Palestinians groups losing power and the fundamentalists gaining support and power. "<<<

There's no telling whether the secular Arab forces will emerge victorious over the Muslim fundamentalist ones. As I see it, the future within the political arenas of the Mideast is up for grabs. This statement goes even for Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

"I wouldn't look at the 1948 genocidal attack of the 5 neighboring Arab states against Israel as part of emerging Arab nationalism"

Why not. Arab nationalism in former Ottoman areas cant be much older than the 1920s...
In the case of Iraq

"The British government laid out the institutional framework for Iraqi government and politics; the Iraqi political system suffered from a severe legitimacy crisis; Britain imposed a Hashemite monarchy, defined the territorial limits of Iraq with little correspondence to natural frontiers or traditional tribal and ethnic settlements, and influenced the writing of a constitution and the structure of parliament. The British also supported narrowly based groups -- such as the tribal shaykhs over the growing, urban-based nationalist movement, and resorted to military force when British interests were threatened, as in the 1941 Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani coup. This coup led to a second British conquest of Iraq, a very rapid defeat for the Iraqi army in May 1941. .... In 1945, Iraq joined the United Nations and became a founding member of the Arab League."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iraq#The_Iraqi_Monarchy

So at least in the case of Iraq 1948 is pretty close to the time of both colonial wars and official independence.

In the case of Syria:

"In 1920, an independent Arab Kingdom of Syria was established under King Faisal of the Hashemite family, who later became King of Iraq. However, his rule over Syria ended after only a few months, following the clash between his Syrian Arab forces and regular French forces at the battle of Maysalun. French troops occupied Syria later that year after the League of Nations put Syria under French mandate. With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of the Vichy Government until the British and Free French occupied the country in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence in 1941 but it wasn't until January 1, 1944 that it was recognised as an independent republic. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalist groups forced the French to evacuate their troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria

So the historical point Syria was at in 1948 is similar to Iraq.

Egypt was at a slightly early stage in its anticolonial struggle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Modern_Egypt
Nasser rose to power because of Egypts loss to Israel but Egypt was at a point where the government was seen as beholden to Britian and there seems to have been many antiBritish movements that were reaching their peak strength in the preiod immediately before 1948.

I ended my dialogue with al-Askari but must set the record straight for the readers regarding some of his newest assertions:

1. >>>"It [Wikipedia] does not mention that Israel's Central Water Carrier was itself stealing the waters of the Jordan River from the West Bank and Jordan,"<<<

* The truth: an Oakland, Calif. based, independent, nonpartisan think-tank studying issues at the intersection of development, environment, and security called Pacific institute - not a pro-Israeli propaganda vehicle - states "Israel begins construction of its National Water Carrier to transfer water from the north of the Sea of Galilee out of the Jordan basin to the Negev Desert for irrigation. Syrian military actions along the border and international disapproval lead Israel to move its intake to the Sea of Galilee." (Scroll down to 1953 in the leftmost column on http://www.worldwater.org/conflict.htm. See also http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80859e/80859E06.htm).

2. >>>"the CWC was a violation of the Johnson water sharing agreeement which the Arab states had adhered to (and still do) since the Eisenhower era."<<<

* The truth: the CWC wasn't, in and of itself, a violation of the Johnston (folks interested in searching the websearches, note this is the correct spelling) agreement which both Israel and the Arab parties concerned pretty much adhered to up to 1964. Since 1964, there have been violations from *both* sides. See http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80859e/80859E07.htm . (Note Nasser's pioneered scheme to divert water from Israel.)

3. >>>"the many border incidents between Israel and Syria were provoked by Israel in almost every case."<<<

There was more to it. The Syrians had actively backed Palestinian terrorists in their operations since the early 1960s. See for example http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/ArabIsra_The1967War(TheSix-DayWar).asp.

>>>"Maybe you will take Moshe Dayan's word regarding who started the series of provocations...that quote is from a 1976 Dayan interview with Avi Shlaim."<<<

Even if that quote from Dayan is accurate and bona fide, there's another side to this story: I dealt above in clause #2 with the Nasser-instigated Arab attempt at diverting the tributaries of the Jordan river located in their territories; Syria resisted Israel's attempts to increase use of the dimilitarized zone, which was the result of the terms of the Israel-Syria armistice signed on July 20 '49 for Israeli agriculture. Since 1964 Syria launched attacks on Israeli farmers cultivating land in the demilitarized zone and on Israeli fishing boats and other craft in the Sea of Galilee, shelling from the commanding Golan Heights that rise dramatically to the east of the border areas. Syria's attacks along the DMZ grew more frequent in 1965 and 1966. Syria's attacks on Israeli kibbutzim from the Golan Heights provoked a retaliatory strike on April 7, 1967, during which Israeli planes shot down six Syrian MiGs. Israel followed up by re-introducing military forces to the DMZ.
At the same time, and unknown to the Israelis, the Soviet Union mounted a disinformation campaign pushing Egypt to join Syria against Israel. On May 13, 1967 a Soviet parliamentary delegation visited Cairo and informed the Egyptian leaders that Israel had concentrated eleven to thirteen brigades along the Syrian border in preparation for an assault within a few days, with the intention of overthrowing the revolutionary Syrian Government. This was a complete fabrication designed by the Soviets to destabilize the Middle East. The build up and aggressive intent were denied by Israel. UN Secretary General U Thant reported that UNTSO observers on the Syrian border: "... have verified the absence of troop concentrations and absence of noteworthy military movements on both sides of the [Syrian] line. " By May 18 '67, Syrian troops were prepared for battle along the Golan Heights.

4. >>>"Jordan also suffered from similar attacks, particularly the late 1966 raid on the town of Samu, in which Israel invaded Jordan without warning and killed dozens of Jordanian citizens and soldiers. That's in the UNTSO reports, too. "<<<

* The truth: some have yet to learn the difference between killing and wounding. The relevant UNTSO report states:

"27. Taking into account other casualties for whom no medical certificates were issued, and the death of the Jordanian major whose dead body was subsequently handed over by Israel authorities (see para. 31 below), the apparent total of casualties would be as follows:

(1) Killed: 3 civilians and 15 military personnel

(2) Wounded: 97 civilians and 37 military personnel"

(http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/af3bf4fc576922b60525672e0050bea5!OpenDocument)

For more on the Samu incident see http://www.historyguy.com/arab_israeli_border_wars.html

5. >>>"UNTSO reports, UNMAC reports, and the recollections of General Dayan, are considered original sources."<<<

Too bad he sees me as a nitpicker when he deviates from a genuine UNTSO report and can't even tell the difference between "killed" and "wounded".

6. >>> Wikipedia also had its blinkers on when it composed its account of Nasser's behavior before the 1967 War... I won't go into detail refuting it."<<<

Even if Wikipedia is playing somewhat loose with these facts, there are plenty other reliable sources, like the NYT (at least on this matter), to prove that Nasser's real intention was illegal aggression and genocide.

7. >>>"The 1978 Arab-Israeli War to which I referred was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of that year."<<<

Very clever, turning every military operation to ever have occurred into wars. By this logic, anyone can dub even a raid of several hours a war.

8. >>>"Professor Arnold Toynbee: "If Palestine had remained under Ottoman rule or if it had become an independent Arab State in 1918, Jewish immigration would never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people's own country.""<<<

That's no more than his own opinion. How could he know for sure? Note that he didn't say what constitutes "large enough [Jewish] numbers", not to mention that numbers often aren't the decisive factor in tilting the balance. Remember that in late '47 there were almost 600,000 Jews as opposed to more than 1,300,000 Palestinians (some pro-Palestinian sources claim there were 600 tousand Jews already by 1946, like http://members.fortunecity.com/911/palestine/facts.htm).

9. >>>"The British and Zionist immigrants, fighting together, killed thousands of truly anti-colonial Palestinians in the 1930s."<<<

Neglecting to mention the time and the reason: this happened during the bloody '36-'39 Arab uprising in which supposedly bona fide anti-colonial Palestinians - Arab terrorist gangs - launched many many unprovoked attacks against Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist alike. As a consequence, some Zionist para-militaries joined forces with the British occupation government to quell this Arab revolt.

>>>"...British reconsider the entire Palestinian question in 1938-39, but then the Zionists simply began transferring their dependence to the next imperialistic power in the Middle East, the US."<<<

As if the USSR weren't to be another imperial power in the Mideast.

>>>"The Zionist terrrorist campaign against the British... in the 1940s was not anti-colonial, it was to punish Britain for setting aside the obligations of its colonialistic alliance with the Zionists,"<<<

This interpretation is very sound and holds water, yet it doesn't invalidate my interpretation.

>>>"...the binational plan which Britain hoped to implement with the help of moderate Jews and Arabs."<<<

Virtually all moderate Zionist Jews in the land wouldn't support such a plan.


In sum, I advise you the reader to be wary of the spin machine.

""I wouldn't look at the 1948 genocidal attack of the 5 neighboring Arab states against Israel as part of emerging Arab nationalism"

In terms of spin, your "genocidal" and the common view of 48 put out by supporters of Israel is a pretty bad distortion (although I doubt I disgree with you on the facts). In the context of the anti-colonial struggles in the Middle East at the time and with Egypt still under a monarchy regarded as a British puppet, it doesnt look nearly as clear-cut or simple. Just looking at the politics of the neighboring countries, and trying to read the history of those countries as a narative (which admittedly isnt the best way to analyze history), one doesnt get the malicious feel to the attacks that one gets when reading the conflict with the usual Israeli narative. In terms of later coflicts you yourself mention how the USSR helped trick Egypt into fighting in 67. Suddenly the view of irrational Arabs who either just hate Israel or want revenge for Palestinians doesnt look like the best interpretation of the history.

Moving forwards with peace negotiations in the region, this matters since the issolated view of the Israeli-Arab conflict seen outside of antiColonial and Cold War struggles is part of what keeps the paranoia level up in the Israeli public. Unfortunatley the rise of stateless fundamentalism could change this since it carries with it a nasty sort of real antiSemitism. The conflict in Iraq will determine Israel's relations with its neighbors. Saddam used hatred of Israel as a propaganda tool but probably held no personal hatred himself. With Iraq's fall, and no clear opposition movement to US and Israeli influence aside from the stateless (non-nationalistic) fundamentalist movement, those who are merely upset with US policy could be pushed into other views of this movement. Its likely this wont mean a growth in Bin Laden's Wahhabist group but instead new groups which take inspiration from Bin Laden, Hamas, Islamic Jihad ...(it could even result in fundamentalist groups with Shiite and Sunni support) Fundametalist opposition to Western domination seems to have been building since the nationalistic and Socialist movements of the 60s and 70s failed, and its in many ways a fatalistic movement (tied to repression of Socialism and the military defeat of the nationalists). The US overthrow of Mossadeq was the beginning of the end of secular opposition in the larger region. Iraq's fall and the marginalization of Arafat and the PA could turn into the end of the end.

I'd be among the first to admit labeling the Arab invasion of Israel in May '48 "genocidal" not only sounds, but is extremely harsh. Yet, there's a big distance between a harsh description and a distortion. The 5 Arab states in question sent their armies into Israel in order to kill all the Jews they could and banish the rest from Israel. That objective, which was shared by many local Arabs, indicated a genocidal intent. I don't know whether you're under some kind of influence of political correctness; if you're reluctant to accept such facts, you have my sympathies.

>>>"In the context of the anti-colonial struggles in the Middle East at the time and with Egypt still under a monarchy regarded as a British puppet, it doesnt look nearly as clear-cut or simple."<<<

This depends on whether the British had influenced the Egyptians behind the scenes. Do any declassified secret British documents refer to any explicit or implicit British attempts to goad King Farouq into invading Israel as some sort of way to avenge their losses at the Zionist para-military organizations' hands?

>>>" Just looking at the politics of the neighboring countries, and trying to read the history of those countries as a narative, one doesnt get the malicious feel to the attacks that one gets when reading the conflict with the usual Israeli narative."<<<

By no means do I rely on the supposedly usual Israeli narrative alone. I deviate from it whenever necessary. But I sure as hell won't relate history from patently dubious sources like pro-Palestinian revisionists just to make some folks happy.

>>>"In terms of later coflicts you yourself mention how the USSR helped trick Egypt into fighting in 67. Suddenly the view of irrational Arabs who either just hate Israel or want revenge for Palestinians doesnt look like the best interpretation of the history."<<<

You seem to be somewhat exaggerating the importance of the Soviet role in Nasser's decision to make war on Israel. However malicious, the Soviet role was secondary in this affair. Surely you can recognize that. While the Soviet meddling certainly counted in the region's destabilization, it didn't detract from the Arab leaders' irrational attitude toward Israel .

>>>"The conflict in Iraq will determine Israel's relations with its neighbors."<<<

It may be quite long until we get to know the outcome of the Iraq mess.
In the meantime, one aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflicts that I think has been impacted by the American invasion and occupation of Iraq is the amount of attacks Hizballah launches on northern Israel. There has been a marked decline in these attacks, probably since the Syrians have been far less enthusiastic about giving the Hizballah a rather free hand in this regard due to apparent Syrian concern about the possibility of American military action aimed at Syrian targets.

>>>"With Iraq's fall, and no clear opposition movement to US and Israeli influence aside from the stateless (non-nationalistic) fundamentalist movement, those who are merely upset with US policy could be pushed into other views of this movement."<<<

The Syrian Ba'athist regime (that controls Lebanon) cooperates with Teheran. These two regimes who control Hizballah register as such an opposition movement.

"Do any declassified secret British documents refer to any explicit or implicit British attempts to goad King Farouq into invading Israel as some sort of way to avenge their losses at the Zionist para-military organizations' hands?
"
I was more just implying that it is strange that in European histories of the conflict Egypt was an independent state wheras in Egypt itself British influence was played up to the point that many didnt see it as independent. Its is possible that some British soliders really hated the Zionists due to some of the more nasty conflicts in the years before 48, but its more likely that Britian could have stopped Egypt (through their influence) but didnt.

"You seem to be somewhat exaggerating the importance of the Soviet role in Nasser's decision "

Yeah, but I was more just trying to stress that there were outside factors not that there were only outside factors.

"The Syrian Ba'athist regime (that controls Lebanon) cooperates with Teheran. These two regimes who control Hizballah register as such an opposition movement."

Would you see Hizballah as part of a movement that traces itself to Arab Nationalism, Nasser, the original Baath movement etc.. Syria is sortof in opposition to the US and a state, but from recent history I get the feel of a lack of control comming form Syria with external actors and groups holding the power not the other way around. Bashar al-Assad just doesnt give off a feeling of nationalistic power in the way one got with his father, Saddam, and Nasser did.

Iran is closer to being a state based opposition to the US. But, in Iran there are two power structures and its only the less statelike clerical power structure that is the group in opposition to the US. Iran's Shia religious form of government could spread to Iraq, and as a form of government it seems more popular in Iraq than Iran. Sadr seems closer to what type of leader one should expect in the future. He may become a mainstream politician but the example he and al Qaeda gave to the world is that the only way the US can be defeated (whatever that really means) is when its by nonstate actors who cant easilly be bombed and must be fought in urban combat where US technology provides less of an advantage.

>>>"I was more just implying that it is strange that in European histories of the conflict Egypt was an independent state wheras in Egypt itself British influence was played up to the point that many didnt see it as independent."<<<

Formally, Egypt was independent but in some respects it was still a British colony. Some also contend Israel hasn't been really independent for many years now. But in Israel's case, I think it's practically more independent than Egypt had been until Nasser's '52 takeover.

>>>"Would you see Hizballah as part of a movement that traces itself to Arab Nationalism, Nasser, the original Baath movement etc.. Syria is sort of in opposition to the US and a state, but from recent history I get the feel of a lack of control comming from Syria with external actors and groups holding the power not the other way around. Bashar al-Assad just doesnt give off a feeling of nationalistic power in the way one got with his father, Saddam, and Nasser did."<<<

I don't claim Hizballah can be traced back to original Ba'athism, pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism. I would say Hizballah, Iran and Syria form a movement in that they make up a somewhat loose alliance that is united in their obstructionism, which is expressed in their constant attempts to foil development of peace processes between Israel and more moderate Arab parties; they share at least a little bit of opposition to the US, and they surely try to work against US and Israeli influence in the region.

>>>"Iran is closer to being a state based opposition to the US. But, in Iran there are two power structures and its only the less statelike clerical power structure that is the group in opposition to the US."<<<

I don't agree that the more practical element - whose power was pretty much nullified early on by the clerics in power - isn't in opposition to the US. It's just that they're a whole lot more practical about this matter.