LH:

Very interesting post, LH. In the days leading up to the Six Day War, I remember a profound sense of isolation. Somewhere along the line I picked up a story sort of relvant and at-odds with your viewpoint, and I don't know how to check up on it. But what I picked up was that Israel had all their men at arms in this period, and were asked NOT to respond yet by President Johnson (this in the period where UN GenSec U Thant pulled UN troops from the Sinai at the request of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian dictator who was fomenting the whole thing. The Israelis were citizen soldiers, so while they were standing at arms, the crops weren't being harvested.

Again, I think you are up front and I have no question of your motives, but making a significant error in forcing the comparison between German methods and German aims of the war. German military methods such as blitzkrieg are just that, significant 'improvements' in methods of warfare. Intelligent armed forces have been paying attention to such items since before the Egyptians sent an army of bronze swordsmen against an army of iron swordsmen (Hittites?) (The Egyptians learned two lessons from this encounter: Go over to iron and lie about who won).

Y'know, if Hitler said two and two are four, that don't make it wrong.

I was never raised to believe that Arabs are less than human. If that were Israeli policy, as you are comparing it with Nazi German policy, and if the Israelis were as efficient as you seem to think, then there woudln't be a Palestinian problem. The very essence of the difference is the Israeli policy of bulldozing homes. It is a crushing blow to a family that produced an accused terrorist or killer, but it is NOT the Nazi German response, which would have been to kill ten people for every victim (Or, in the case of the assadination of Heydrich, the utter destruction of one town from people to pilaster).

Contrast that with the habit of Palestinians burning their own people in public who were accused of being collaborators (without trial).

I remember 1973, where the Israelis were caught by surprise by an attack on the Holiest Day of the Jewish calendar. They did not come off as expert stromtroopers to those who were paying attention.

How about 1976, when Arab terrorists commandeered a jet plane, flew it to Uganda, and in league with one of the bloodiest dictators of the era isolated out the Jewish passengers and held them hostage? Do you remember what the French pilot said when he heard the sound of gunfire? "I knew the Israelis had arrived."

"How did you know they were Israelis?"

"Mais qui d'autre?" (Who else?)