BS: Six Day War 50 Years On

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 05:22 AM

Every country in the world has social issues and most worse than Israel's, so I question your motive for singling out Israel.

The poorest Arab in Israel would not be tempted to move to any nearby Arab country where Arab poverty is much worse, so I question your motive for singling out Israel.

Egypt's Bedouin have a far worse existence than those in Israel, so again I question your motive for singling out Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 12:41 PM

I was in a hurry. I could have mentioned much lower life expectancy, much higher infant mortality, the fact that over a half of Arab families in Israel are defined as living in poverty, then there's the workplace discrimination based on the fact that Arabs haven't done military service, even in jobs unrelated to the military. And don't get me started on the tens of thousands of Bedouin Arabs living in "unrecognised villages" in the Negev (most of which predate 1948) who endure lack of water, electricity, sanitation and medical facilities. There have been no new Arab townships since 1948 despite a massive increase in population and the existing Arab areas generally endure poor infrastructure such as unmade roads and lack of medical facilities. Contrast that with those lovely new settlements exclusively for Jews.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:14 AM

"Arabs, who are about 20% of Israel's population, enjoy, without any exception, the same rights and opportunities in all fields as their Jewish fellow citizens"

You forgot to mention the fact that unemployment among Israeli Arabs is far higher than among Jews, that Arabs are far more likely to be stopped at checkpoints for hours or even days, that school buses won't go through Arab areas forcing the kids to walk miles to the edges of the towns, that school achievement is far lower, that housing is much poorer, that the average pay of Arabs is far lower than that of Jews, that the wall has robbed many Arab families of large portions of their farms. And so on. We've been here before.

So, as Arabs don't seem to be doing anywhere near as well as Jews in Israel, there can only be one of two explanations:

(a) Israeli Arabs are feckless, lazy people who bring all their problems on themselves (the exact argument used to defend white domination in Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa).

Or (b) Arabs in Israel are discriminated against.

Which is it, boobs?

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 05:14 AM

The Israeli Arabs Bobad refers to are by definition "Palestinians."

Persecuted people have declining populations and victims of ethnic cleansing migrate.
That does not apply to Israeli Arabs, or West Bank Arabs, except the Christians that used to be part of the West Bank population but have been persecuted out.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 02:29 AM

"I note that bobad's post does not contain the word "Palestinian"."
That's because he believes they don't exist or have no claim to land they have occupied for millenia
The also believes that to criticise Israel is "antisemitic, (which is Israel's main defence of its atrocities which is antisemitic by definition.
All revised definitions of the term condemn associating the acts of Israel with the Jewish people, yet Bobad and his ilk believe themselves o be above all rules and definitions.
The 'neuclear option' during the six-day war was confirmed in an article in yesterday's Irish Times
It is often forgotten that Israeli offered to assist Apartheid South Africa TO GO NUCLEAR.
Faced with the possibility of the downfall of the regime there, the South Africans turned the offer down as they didn't want such weapons "falling into the hands of the 'blecks'"
Birds of a feather
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 01:01 AM

I note that bobad's post does not contain the word "Palestinian".

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: bobad
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 09:06 PM

To call Israel an apartheid state is an expression of ignorance, anti-Semitism, and malice.

Israel is by far the most racially mixed and tolerant nation in the entire Muslim Middle East. Arabs, who are about 20% of Israel's population, enjoy, without any exception, the same rights and opportunities in all fields as their Jewish fellow citizens. The total equality of all Israelis is assured in Israel's founding document. All non-Jews (which means primarily Muslim Arabs) have full voting rights. At present, seventeen Arabs sit in Israel's Knesset (parliament). Arabs are represented in Israel's diplomatic service all over the world. Arab students may and do study in all Israeli universities. All children in Israel are entitled to subsidized education until graduation, without any restrictions based on color or religions. In short, Muslim Arabs and other non-Jews are allowed everything that Jews are allowed, everything that non-Whites were not allowed in apartheid South Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 07:46 PM

" It is apartheid, pure and simple, and it must stop."
I's gone beyond that Mike - it has reached the level of ethnic cleansing now
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: michaelr
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 07:08 PM

Al, to your earlier post: to be critical of Israel's policies is not to "begrudge the Jews one country". The issue was and remains Israel's systematic maltreatment of the Palestinian population. It is apartheid, pure and simple, and it must stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 03:40 PM

Good job it didn't 'go wrong'.
Though I suppose that depends on which side you're on.

If it had gone wrong - Israel would n't be anywhere near Sinai. They would have been in the Mediterranean. That remains the ambition of their opponents, I believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 03:22 PM

Thanks, Jim. That is the NYT article to which I was referring.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 17 - 02:45 PM

"except for Tom Clancy's novel: "
From The Times of Israel - maybe Tom Clancy works for that paper
Jim Carroll

THE LAST SECRET OF THE 1967 WAR'
Report says Israel planned atomic detonation in Sinai if Six Day War went wrong
New York Times, quoting newly released interview, says the display of nuclear strength was a 'doomsday' scenario not needed after IDF victory
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF June 3, 2017, 11:31 pm 21
One the eve of the Six Day War, with the country surrounded by enemies and unsure of its future, Israel developed a "doomsday" plan to detonate an atomic bomb in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as a warning to the Arabs, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The report was based on an interview conducted by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov, who reportedly oversaw the plan.
"It's the last secret of the 1967 war," Cohen told the paper.
The full interview is set to be published Monday, as the region marks the 50th anniversary of the war in which Israel defeated the combined Arab armies in just six days.
According to Yaakov, who oversaw weapons development for the Israel military and gave details of the plan to Cohen in 1999 and 2000 interviews, Israel was deeply fearful ahead of the war.
"Look, it was so natural," Yaakov said, according to the Times, which quoted a transcription of a taped interview. "You've got an enemy, and he says he's going to throw you to the sea. You believe him."
"How can you stop him?" Yaakov asked. "You scare him. If you've got something you can scare him with, you scare him."
Yaakov, who died in 2013 at age 87, detailed in the interview with Cohen how Israel developed a plan code-named "Shimshon," or Samson, to have helicopters and commandos fly an atomic device to a mountain top site about 12 miles from an Egyptian military complex at Abu Ageila.
"The plan, if activated by order of the prime minister and military chief of staff, was to send a small paratrooper force to divert the Egyptian Army in the desert area so that a team could lay preparations for the atomic blast," the report said.
"Two large helicopters were to land, deliver the nuclear device and then create a command post in a mountain creek or canyon. If the order came to detonate, the blinding flash and mushroom cloud would have been seen throughout the Sinai and Negev deserts, and perhaps as far away as Cairo."
Israel has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons, maintaining a policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity, neither publicly confirming nor denying the existence of an atomic arsenal. However, several top US officials have seemed to confirm it, most recently former secretary of state Colin Powell who wrote in a leaked private email that he believed Israel has some 200 nuclear weapons.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the report or on Yaakov's role, The New York Times said.
If Israel had detonated a device, it would have been the first use of a nuclear weapon in a war situation since the US dropped the two bombs on Japan to end World War II.
On Monday, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington — where Cohen is a fellow — is releasing on a special website a series of documents related to the Israeli atomic plan.
In the transcripts, Yaakov describes a helicopter flight he made to the site with Israel Dostrovsky, the first director-general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, that had to be aborted after the Egyptians scrambled fighter jets.

If Israel had detonated a device, it would have been the first use of a nuclear weapon in a war situation since the US dropped the two bombs on Japan to end World War II.
On Monday, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington — where Cohen is a fellow — is releasing on a special website a series of documents related to the Israeli atomic plan.
In the transcripts, Yaakov describes a helicopter flight he made to the site with Israel Dostrovsky, the first director-general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, that had to be aborted after the Egyptians scrambled fighter jets.
"We got very close," Yaakov reportedly said. "We saw the mountain, and we saw that there is a place to hide there, in some canyon."
As it turned out, Israel's victory was swift and decisive and there was no need for any doomsday plan, but Yaakov still believed Israel should have gone ahead with it and openly declared its nuclear prowess.
"I still think to this day that we should have done it," he told Cohen, who is the author of "Israel and the Bomb" and "The Worst-Kept Secret."
In 2001, some 2 years after his conversations with Cohen, Yaakov was arrested in Israel and charged with passing secret information with intent to harm state security. The charges related to memoirs he wrote, the Haaretz daily reported in its obituary of Yaakov in 2013.
Yaakov was acquitted of the main charge but found guilty of the unauthorized handing over of secret information, Haaretz said, noting that he received a two-year suspended sentence.
The obituary hinted at the exploits in the Sinai Desert, saying that "Yaakov was one of Israel's leading officers in the field of weapons development during the build-up to the Six Day War and afterwards. During the war he was appointed to command a complex and unprecedented operation in the Sinai Peninsula, where he was to command both IAF pilots and a special ops unit. The IDF's rapid success in defeating the Egyptian army made the operation redundant and it was cancelled."
According to Cohen, he promised Yaakov he would find the right time to publish the information and now, on the 50th anniversary, he believed the time was ripe.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 09:26 PM

Being interested in, obviously, the Mideast, and also the history of nuclear arms, I saw the article in the New York Times addressing the topic of a newly released tale of Plan Samson, which was to arrange for the detonation of a nuclear device as a demonstration should the Arab countries around Israel: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, succeed in their invasion plans.
Not all fantastic stories are false. This one may be true, but some observations:

It is not settled history. This has just come out, and Israel is unlikely to provide technical information to flesh this story out.
1967 seems to be way early for Israel to have working nukes. In particular, the wording is "device" which means it was not weaponized (can't be carried in an airplane, for instance).
Israel has never detonated a muclear weapon. So in this story they would have have had no way to know it would work. Would you leave nuclear fixin's out in the open if you didn't know they'd work and the enemy was winning?

Remember that only six years later Israel was successfully invaded by Egypt (going into Israeli occupied Sinai) and there were no nukes evident (except for Tom Clancy's novel: "Sum of All Fears" which made the very point of a nuke falling into hostile hands).

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: michaelr
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 03:27 PM

You don't have to believe me, Keith. Will you believe The Times of Israel?

"The report was based on an interview conducted by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov, who reportedly oversaw the plan."

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 03:24 PM

it was a war. stuff happens.
as the English soldiers they killed in the 40's could tell you. Israel plays hardball. always does . always did.

the Israel victory came as a surprise to everyone. Particularly to the surrounding states , who had been threatening to kick Israel into the sea for years.

I get anti-Israel e-mails with every post nowadays. Some are sent to me by good friends. Recently I heard Leon Rosselson call Israel 'a criminal state' from the stage.

I can't help but wonder if these vociferous critics ever take into account the many years and the two invasions made with the intention of destroying Israel.

I cannot see why they begrudge the jews one country. There are many muslim nations - none of which seem well governed or ruled humanely. if it were a case of enlightenment versus darkness, i could understand why the liberal left hate Israel and spend so much time cataloguing their shortcomings.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 12:33 PM

"Deny that Jim?"
As usual, just the convenient bits Keith
I was referring to the forcing of prisoners to carry out executions and bury other captured prisoners, as evidenced in statements by Israeli soldiers' statements (among other things)
Plenty more in the press over the last few days
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-nuclear-bomb-six-day-war-sinai-egypt-use-weapon-syria-jordan-iraq-a7774921.html
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 10:58 AM

"Did Egypt a lot of good too, didn't it?"

Well actually Shaw, yes it did - Egypt no longer had to finance Nasser's pan-Arabic dreams and bankroll wars aimed at the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish populace.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 09:34 AM

Ah yes, the great Sadat sellout to the West. A little later, a terrorist was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dumped on the Palestinians too. Long shadows, eh? Did Egypt a lot of good too, didn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 07:39 AM

Israel held Sinai for years after the 1967 war.
The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in stages beginning in 1979 as part of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty.
Deny that Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 06:09 AM

"michaelr, you must be very gullible to believe shit like that!"
Lorra lorra fresh and forgotten information for the deniers to deny
And it's started already
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jun 17 - 03:52 AM

michaelr, you must be very gullible to believe shit like that!
Is there anything you would not believe Israel capable of?

The war was over so quickly they didn't have time to put the device in place.

They held the Sinai for many years after that war ended, so your claim is absurd bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: michaelr
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 06:58 PM

I just read that Israel had plans to detonate an atomic bomb on a Sinai mountaintop as a deterrent to its enemies. The war was over so quickly they didn't have time to put the device in place.

Can you imagine what the Near East would be like now if they had done that?

Subject: RE: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 03:43 PM

Fifty years on from most wars it's a matter of getting together with people on the other sides, and being sad for the past mistakes that brought about the war, and being happy things have moved on so it,s hard to imagine how it could have happened.

Pray that when it's the 100th anniversary that's how it will be with this one.

Subject: BS: Six Day War 50 Years On
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 03:29 PM

On this day 50 years ago the Israeli Army secured the Old City of Jerusalem, which had been in Jordanian hands since the War of Independence in May 1948.

In the 1970s I was a high school student lucky enough to make it on a student trip abroad. We were in Rome, getting a tour of some, well, ruins. Among them was the Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman conquest of the remains of old Israel. Among the engravings on its side is a menorah (6 armed candelabra) being carried among the war booty. I don't know where I picked up the apocryphal story that no Jew would walk under the Titus Arch. It was a moot point when I was there as those ruins in particular well cordoned off.
Anyhow, our tour guide was an excellent Italian lady who at one point on the march mentioned that Rome on its own contained 400 churches. "How many synagogues?" I asked. With no pause whatsoever she answered "Four". Now I'm from Boston, which already had a wide ratio of churches to synagogues, but a 100 to 1 is impressive. I asked for the location of the biggest, and during my free time in the city I made it over. Noticed the police (or soldiers) with the submachine guns guarding it, we were already in the age of terrorism. It was a large building, I wasn't able to tell if it was in use for its original purpose or even if there was enough of a population left who knew what to use it for. But it was quiet and cool and had a gift shop. The woman behind the counter was pleased to chat with an American who knew no Italiano, and at one point I repeated to her my factoid that no Jew would walk under the Arch of Titus. With no pause whatsoever she said: "We can walk under it now. We have Jerusalem back!"

Fifty years ago today. Mazel Tov!