http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/world...amid.4118482.jp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-55
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_heights...the_Six-Day_War

Yeah, there shouldn't be any countries in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.


































Except Israel because Jeebus loves them sooooooopah much.

I agree and I don't agree. Sure, Israel's getting away with it because of the world's don't-ask, don't-tell policy, but at the same time, Israel is also the most stable and democratic nation in the entire region. I just wouldn't want to be overly reactionary about it.

I just think any time a nation that has a stockpile of nuclear weapons tells another country that they can't develop them, they're just not going to be listened to.


It's like if I started telling people that they should try to not be too cynical.

Actually I'd think that the stockpile of nuclear weapons would be a really good reason to listen to them...

... or a really good reason to agitate them to develop similar WMDs...

Iraq-check
Syria-check
Iran-5, 4, 3, 2...

Just to bring it up, the President of Iran has gone on record saying Israel should be whipped off the map. When the leader of a nation says that, you start to take their development of nuclear weapons seriously.

Although, to be honest, I wouldn't mind it if Iran got the bomb. MAD worked during the Cold War. It kept the conflict between the USSR and USA at a relatively peaceful level. When it did heat up it was in minor theatres without the use of nukes. MAD may be a major part of what brings peace to the region.

Besides, Israeli intelligence is top notch. They can afford to let the Iranians complete their bomb. If Iran ever decided to let it fly in Israel's direction Mossad would know about it well enough in advance for Israel to deal a preemptive blow.

Yeah but Mother Russia wasn't saying to the world that the US should be wiped off the face of the map and we recongized each other.

yea, it changes the scenario a little since he kind of told everybody he wanted to obliterate israel.
meanwhile israel kind of needs the bomb to keep everyone at bay. I mean look at their size and location.

Yeah, because Ahmadinejad actually has any power to do anything.....

True, but how many of Israel's citizens know that? if a big enough group of people don't know he is a figurehead, then the government has no choice but to have a huge gun, so to speak.

No, but the Soviet Union did say they wanted to rid the world of capitalism.
Now it can be argued that this was just rhetoric, that the USSR couldn't or wouldn't act on this pledge to drive capitalism from the face of the Earth. That would be an accurate assessment.

What makes this any different, however? Ahmadinejad may say he'll wipe Israel off the map, but what are the chances he'll act on that? No more then the USSR acting on their pledge to wipe out capitalism.

First off, consider this; Israel's a small country, both in terms of territory and population. If Iran nuked Israel it would be more then Israeli Jews who would be killed. Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon would also die. Given the Islamic concept of Jihad, as well as the Islamic concepts of warfare in general, this would make Ahmadinejad and Iran very unpopular, even hated, within the Islamic world.

Second of all, Haggisjin's 100% correct. Ahmadinejad may have been democratically elected, but he was only elected in an election where the religious leaders, the true leaders of Iran, approve the candidates.
Ahmadinejad is basically a democratically elected figurehead. His job is to spew rhetoric and raise support of the governing body and the Supreme Leader of Iran among the Iranian people.
One of the best, tried-and-true methods to do that is to rally people around a common enemy, Israel in this case. The actual legitimacy of his statements may be non-existent, and that's not really the point either.
By constantly attacking Israel through rhetoric Ahmadinejad attempts to legitimize the regime that he serves as the figurehead of by rallying the people around the regime's "enemy."

If the Assembly of Experts and the Supreme Leader of Iran want Ahmadinejad gone, he's gone.

And as much as I am loathe to defend Mahmoud, "wipe off the map" is a mistranslation, with no corresponding idiom in Persian. What he actually said was that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must [vanish from] the page of time" rather than stating that the nation or people of Israel should be obliterated. He has called for the dissolution of the state of Israel and its government, which he does not regard as legitimate or representative of the population, and for free elections in the region. He believes that the Palestinians need a stronger voice in the region's future.

WHILE I AM COMPLETELY OPPOSED TO AND HATE SUICIDE BOMBINGS ON INNOCENT CIVILIANS (I wanted to make that abundantly clear), the amount of suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israel is immense, and it does seem to be ignored from time to time by Western powers due to it's political inconvenience (much like Israel's nuclear programme).

He basically sees Israel as an illegitimate state forced upon the Arab world by the west (which it kinda was, but arguing that now if kind of redundant), and generally sees the Western view of Israeli/Palestinian negotiations being heavily skewed in Israel's favour.

I'll also add that he isn't exactly the King of Popularity within Iranian domestic politics either.

(and he's never illegally invaded and overthrown a sovereign government before )

Agreed 100%

Is that enough of a reason to deny the Jewish people a homeland, however? When talking about Israel's legitimacy you have to take into account the reason why it was created.
If we're going to talk about the Palestinians and Israelis, I'll come out and say that only reasonable solution, IMO....

-Israel withdraws from the West Bank and hands it over to the PLO.
-The IDF forcibly removes Israeli settlers out of the West Bank and compensates them with land and money in Israel-proper.
-After a five year "trial" period of the PLO running the West Bank as an autonomous region within Israel the West Bank is granted independence as a sovereign Palestinian state.
-The Gaza Strip is handed over to Egypt (having a Palestinian state split in two by Israel is asking for trouble down the road).
-The State of Israel moves its capital to Tel Aviv while the Palestinian state establishes their capital in Ramallah.
-Jerusalem is placed under the direct control of the UN. To ensure the sovereignty of the new "independent city" the UN HQ is moved to Jerusalem.
-The Muslim nations that have not already done so recognize Israel's right to exist under the new agreement.

Now that we're all clear on that....


True, but isn't that he's threatening to do when he says "this regime occupying Jerusalem must [vanish from] the page of time"?
I agree, the threat is meaningless, as he has no actual power, but he's still calling for the overthrow of a sovereign state.

not that the govt had ever been known to have killed thousands of innocents. its hardly comparable to china going into tibet. but that's another topic.

Ahmedinijad is a blowhard who's talking shit in order to increase his street cred in the region IMO. Not to mention that he isn't really ruling the country, and also not to mention that the Iranian people themselves aren't all that high on him. I think Iran is very well aware of the fact that there would indeed be MAD if they launched a nuclear strike against Israel. He's playing for regional influence, which is what Iran has been doing ever since we invaded Iraq and broke their stalemate with Iran.

Or support terrorist cells that work to our advantage.

Kinda hard to take The War Against Terror seriously when we gave half of them the weapons they used against us, isn't it.
(Not that the acronym helps much either)

WAT



lol

you forgot the T

The
War
Against
Terror

Sounds suspiciously like NOMA'AM...

And see I thought maybe this could become a discussion about missiles....



That's BS.



WEIRD!



Or maybe he has enough balls to say the thing that is in everyone else's mind in that region! You also forget that he KNOWS what happened the last time the US tried to attack Iran. They were so religion crazy it was like Japan all over again. That's why the US had Iraq attack them instead.

wat exactly is bs about it?

No one needs the bomb because of size or location. If that were the case, Luxemberg, Gambia and Rhode Island would have more nukes than anyone.

rly, RI is surrounded by countries 5X the size or more who want to end their existence and take the land due to a 5000 yr old sibling rivalry?

did not know that.

I'm sure there must be something worthwhile in Rhode Island... besides Hasbro HQ.

I fully support T.W.A.T.!
Or I'm against it being a complete waste of time, money, resources, and human and soldier lives, or anything remotely near that.

Places like Luxembourg, RI, or the Vatican are surrounded by friendlies who are more than enough

As far's I see it, the issue is not whether the Jewish people are not allowed to have a homeland, but that it was setup in entirely the wrong place at the expense of those who were living there. The US did not help with the problem with restricting the quotas of Jewish refugees after WW2. The entire "Sucks to be you, you have our sympathies, good luck with that problem" isn't really that offensive until you pretend that you actually care so much you go and farg up someone else's region in order to solve the problem.

The Palestinians had no probs living side-by-side with jewish refugees (so far's I'm aware), until Zionists declared their own sovereignty. Certainly it becomes an increasingly moot point, the more time passes, like with the native americans we ousted from this land. Ousting young Israelis who grew up not knowing of that BS isn't just. But that doesn't mean their presence was just to begin with.

I actually found this info about Ahmedinejad enlightening.. my opinion of him has actually improved by a tiny notch. I mean, while I still think he's a quack and that the political agenda he's pushing needs to be opposed, I prefer to give a fair appraisal to opponents. Ahmedinejad doesn't really seem like that much bigger of a quack vocalizing the views of his constituents than is Bush.

Ideally, I think it should be entirely a secular, democratic nation of Palestine, and if Jewish people wanna live there whether or not they are the majority of population or political power, so be it. That is, of course, a complete pipe fantasy in the Middle East. But I think Ahmedinejad actually does have a lot of fair criticisms against Israel.

That would be to completely undue to purpose of the creation of the State of Israel though. That being that after the Holocaust we (Jews) needed a homeland to call our own. To make a secular nation of Palestine would be to undue the existence of a Jewish state, and leave us again without a homeland.

Now Israel was chosen as that state's location because that's our ancestral homeland. I agree wholeheartedly that the situation in 1948 could have, and should have, been handled better then it was. In fact, ancestral homelands aside, I think the German state of East Prussia should have been handed over to the Jews as a Jewish homeland rather then given to the USSR.
I mean it was the Germans who carried out the Holocaust, right? Ideally they should have been the ones to fork over land for a Jewish state.

*A map of Germany in 1933 with East Prussia highlighted*
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b68/IC79...jewishstate.png

So in that regard Ahmedinejad does have that going for him. He is right when he says the people who carried out the Holocaust should have been the ones to pay for it.

None of that really matters though. Yes, we can sit around talking about how the handling of the situation in 1948 could have been done better, or where a Jewish state could have been placed instead of its present location. It doesn't address the reality of the situation. It doesn't address what actually happened.

We have a situation. The best course of action would be to discuss ways to relieve that situation, not talking about what could have been done 60 years ago to prevent the situation. It's all very nice, but it doesn't help with the actual problem.

Here's the way I see it. Demanding that the State of Israel cease to exist would be like saying to the US and Canada "ok, we're giving this land back to the natives, catch the next boat back to Europe."
It's not going to happen, nor should it happen.
Glue, you yourself said it would be wrong to punish Israelis who weren't alive during the 1948 creation of the state.
Fact is Israel is here. It's been established. Not only does it serve the purpose of a Jewish homeland, but in more practical terms it's a state that has existed for more then half a century. Generations of Israelis have grown up thinking of it as their home country rather then the various nations their great grandfathers left at the end of WWII.

Likewise you have the former occupants of that land, the Palestinians. They've also been cheated, robbed of their homeland.

Saying "ok, the whole thing belongs to Israel" isn't right because it robs a group of people, the Palestinians, of the right to self determination.
On the same note saying "ok, the whole thing belongs to the Palestinians" isn't right because 1) you would be destroying the only Jewish state in the world and robbing Jews of a safe haven and the right to self determination and 2) you would be punishing every Israeli who had no hand in how 1948 was handled.

So given that there's only one practical solution, a two-state solution. Let there be Israel for Jews and Israelis and let there be Palestine for the Palestinians.




Agreed. It should have been the Germans who would have had to pay. Even if not East Prussia there were a good deal of other places in the world where a Jewish state could have been established.

Again though, such speculation doesn't really mean anything. It's not like you can go to every Jew in Israel and say "ok, we're relocating the Jewish state. So pack your stuff and move here." The opportunity for a Jewish state elsewhere is long past.

I don't find a logical connection here.

We've been persecuted on and off for 5,000 years in pretty much every country we've settled in. The Holocaust was the final straw.
If the nations of the world want to continue to treat us as outsiders, regardless of how hard we try to assimilate, then that's fine. Just give us a place where we can live and call our home.

Because that's solved all of your problems?

Taking away land from people who are already predisposed toward not liking the Jews is possibly one of the worst decisions in modern history.

Not to mention that there are more Jews in New York than in the entire state of Israel, so it's not like the creation of that nation has accomplished that "homeland" purpose.

And it'd be a lot easier to get rid of the Jews if they're all in one place. NUKE'D

It was an emotional decision, and an astonishingly poorly thought-out one IMO.

well he did say it was a bad decision. but he's right "what is the thing to do now" is more important than "how did we screw that up then".

Kind of sucks then, since the entire Arab world sees "how did we screw that up then" as the issue.

I've already agreed that the handling of the situation 1948 was piss poor. Your attempting to debate me on something I agree with you about. This isn't the Presidential Debates

Taking away land from the Palestinians was both and stupid and morally unjustifiable thing to do. Like I said, if anyone should have been forced to give up land it should have been the Germans.

But again, complaining about 1948 doesn't really address the issues today. For better or worse there's a State of Israel in what was once the British Protectorate of Palestine. For better or worse there are Palestinians who also claim that that land. How do you fix the problem? I say two-state solution.

Furthermore what would you propose the world do with the millions of Jewish refugees recently freed from Hitler's death camps? Tell them to return home to the countries and neighbours that turned them over to the Nazis?
To a lot of people they considered themselves Germans, Poles, Austrians, Frenchmen/women, etc... first and Jews second. Many Jews proudly went off to fight for the German Empire during WWI.
To many of these people the Holocaust shattered the hope they had in their homelands and their sense of who they were.

You have a group of people who have been persecuted in every country they have attempted to settle in. The latest round of persecution involved using them as slave labour, starving them, and gassing them to death, based on an absurd religious and racist ideology. Why not give them a homeland?

As for the Jews in NY, well what are you going to do? You can establish a homeland but you can't force people to relocate.

Yes it does suck, but it's hardly a consensus.

To be honest, however, the mentality of the Arab leaders is part of the current problem. And you know what? So is the mentality of the Jewish leaders.

They're both pig-headed and stubborn. They both refuse to listen to reason and set up a solution where everyone can have a homeland. Both sides are run by fanatics that refuse to accept peace.

The question is, however, do you let those fanatics dictate how a solution is conceived?
Do you say "well the nutjobs who run Israel refuse to accept a two-state solution, so screw the Palestinians"?
Do you say "well the nutjobs who run the Arab world refuse to accept a two-state solution so screw the Jews"?

No, you treat nutjobs like nutjobs. Tell them they're both batshot insane and to get over what Nomolos called a five thousand year sibling rivalry. You tell them the world's getting tired of this crap, especially the people these nutjobs claim to be representing. The average Jew had no problem with the average Arab. They want to live in peace.
So it's just a matter of sitting both camps of nutjobs down and saying "you guy are going to get along, so put aside whatever problems you have with each other and make something work."

"Because it won't fix anything" would be my answer to that.

The thing is, there is no solution to the problem at this point. Tell the Palestinians that they're just S.O.L.? Not gonna work. Tell the Israelis to pack up and move? Not gonna work. Two-state solution? All that does is codify the reality that both sides have laid claim to the land. It's not going to resolve the issue, because both sides believe that they're entitled to it.

So, sure, we can talk all day long about "where do we go from here" but in this case, that fails to address the real issue IMO.

I disagree on that point. During Hitler's buildup to the Final Solution Jews attempted to flee to every western democracy the Nazis hadn't touched. And they were all denied.
Canada, a country I love dearly, was the worst.
"None is too many" were the words of Fredrick Blair, the head of Canadian immigration during WWII.

So the point of a Jewish homeland is to provide a safe haven. Something the western democracies failed to do.


Agreed.


Well that is the reality of the situation. You have two groups who claim the entirety of the land, and neither is going anywhere. So just split the land. The fanatics who claim their side owns it all will have to learn to deal with it.


So what is the real issue? What happened 60 years ago? Talking about how much the world screwed up back then isn't going to solve the current situation.

I think you're failing to understand that for the Palestinians (and everyone else in the region who isn't Israel), talking about how much the world screwed up back then and solving the current situation are inextricably linked.

I understand that. And I see where they're coming from.
I'm saying that it's a broken perspective, however. If you accept that the mistakes of 1948 and solving the current situation are linked, then there's only one solution, abolish the State of Israel.
Which you yourself said is not going going to work.

What I'm saying is reversing something that happened 60 years ago isn't going to happen. The best solution, IMO, is to take the current situation and try to work with it. You have two groups who claim the same piece of land? Let them split it.

What distinguishes Israel, AZ, from the native Americans in the US is that you'd be displacing more US citizens in some long-too-late apology for what happened in the first place. While there'd be a poetic "justice" to it, it's also impractical. It's also well past a few generations when the last natives were booted off. Even the generation as far back as the Depression, if not earlier, were not to blame for the ethical transgressions of their forebears.

Israel booted out people who still fully remember it. While I don't think any of it was your specific fault, AZ, I do think it's a tad early to be dusting your hands and arguing, "oh well, ancient history, time to move on". It's attitudes like that along with Israel's almost-fascist level of behavior at the higher levels, while almost understandable (given the Holocaust and their lack of cozy neighbors), are not attitudes/behaviors I find justifiable or defensible. How does "ancestral homeland" in any way trump the people who've been living there for thousands of years?

Sorry. I'm already not obligated to feel sympathy for any country/nation including my own. Why am I supposed to feel any for Israel? Much less to any greater degree than for its neighbors?

What I'm saying is that everyone is fucked.

And current Israelis are to blame for what happened 60 years ago?


So what's the solution? Transplant the State of Israel? Where to? How? How is telling an entire nation that they have to pick up and move justifiable?


Now listen up, 'cause I want to make this clear....

I'll be the first to agree that the State of Israel needs to find a new way of dealing with things. Fascist like behaviour does exist, and it needs to stop. Israel needs to respect the autonomy of the Palestinian people and work toward creating a situation whereby Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side.
Personally I think a two-state solution's the best way to go.

So yes, I agree that the fascist-like behaviour is unjustifiable. To me that says "Israel needs to change the way they do things" not "Destroy the State of Israel."


You seem to be bent on debating me when I already agree with you. I've already said that putting the Jewish state where they put it was a mistake. If anyone should have had to fork over land it should have been the Germans.
I'm just pointing out the ancestral homeland thing as a reminder for why they ultimately went for the plot of land that they did (as much of a mistake as it was).

Again, I agree with you the 1948 was a mistake. I'm saying that it shouldn't matter though, because complaining about what happened back then won't solve the current problem.
The current problem is that there's a Jewish state in this region. I don't think you can justifiably pick up and move it, especially after 60 years.
So what's the solution? Try and work out some plan for everyone to coexist. Neither the Israelis or the Palestinians are going anywhere.


You assume I'm asking for your sympathy. Which is funny, but besides the point.

Anyway I'm not asking for sympathy, and I don't know where you got that from. I'm asking for a logical solution to the current situation (as logical as you can get given the circumstances, anyway). Picking up and moving a country isn't a logical situation.


Ah, ok. Well that's an other viewpoint I can respect.

Read it again, AZ..

... you do realize you need to stop taking everything so personally, do you?


You (and understandably, a lot of the United States) are assuming that that's what Ahmedinejad meant.

Turnabout is fair play...

I'm not taking anything personally. When I say "I'm not asking for any sympathy" I'm saying in regard to Israel. As in "I'm not asking you to feel sympathy for Israel."

Which is what I got from your quote "Sorry. I'm already not obligated to feel sympathy for any country/nation including my own. Why am I supposed to feel any for Israel? Much less to any greater degree than for its neighbors?"


Didn't Ahmedinejad suggest moving Israel to Alaska or the Canadian tundra? I would say that counts as picking up and moving a country.

You yourself said....

While I agree that there could have been better places to put Israel 60 years ago, it's a moot point. Picking up the state and moving it isn't going to happen.

And I do know what Ahmedinejad was getting at, in between his craziness. He wants to abolish Israel and set up a democratic government there. While an ideal secular government in the region where Jews and Muslims can live in peace is a good idea it's not practical.

First of all this would amount to abolishing the Jewish homeland, which I maintain we need as a haven should a society ever decide to persecute us again.

Second of all, you have to convince Israelis and Palestinians to coexist in the same society and not trample the rights of the other group. You're dealing with two groups of people that believe the entirety of the land belongs to them. Do you really think they can coexist in the same, secular state?

No, I say let them split it. Palestine (the West Bank) for Palestinians and Israel for Israelis. It's far from perfect, but it's the most logical solution I can see, IMO.

And again, I agree Israel's fascist like behaviour is unjustifiable. It should be rectified. That's no reason to say "oh, Israel shouldn't exist" though.


Pardon? We've already picked up and moved. The Diaspora.

You know that forcing the Israelis to leave isn't a piratical solution. So why bring it up, after you yourself said that telling the Israelis to pick up and move isn't going to work? Just to be argumentative?

I was referring to the Palestinians having to pick up and move.

But, you know, we're talking about a country that hasn't existed (prior to 1948) since 70 A.D. If anyone needs to "move on," I'd think it would be the Jewish people. The diaspora? geez dude, that's about as relevant to modern global politics as... well, anything else from 2000 years ago.

To preface this, neither Ahmedinejad nor Iran hate Jews. Jews are a constitutionally protected people and religion in Iran (which is probably about as good as it's gonna get for a minority group in a near-dictatorship) as opposed to Hindis or Bahai followers. And I'm sure you're aware the Neturei Karta are a Jewish group who also oppose the state of Israel, even if for their own purposes.

The responsibility for coming up with a solution isn't mine. Sure, I'd love to be able to offer or furnish solutions to Israel and anyone else. But I really don't care that Jews have a homeland. I care that they don't take away somebody else's country. And I still care that neither Jews nor anyone else get GENOCIDE'D. But outside those two concerns, Jews having a homeland is the problem of the Jews (those who insist on needing one, anyway).

If they found/created a homeland without breaking those other two concerns, awesome. I'm happy for them. They didn't. So why should I care? I'm not saying transplanting Israel to the arctic or wherever is The Best Solution. I'm saying if they were transplanted tomorrow, I wouldn't have sympathy for them. You say Israel isn't asking for anyone's sympathy, but they're the ones who require the help of others to maintain their government's and nation's existence there.

They could probably move to Montana... I don't think anyone would mind.

Zappa'D