Steve Shaw - 12 May 17 - 11:56 AM

1: Well Shaw as you know of the existence of Haganah you should also know when it was formed and why it was formed - direct result of attacks by the Arabs of Palestine in 1920 and the failure of British Forces to protect the Jewish communities.

" After the Arab riots against Jews in April 1920, the Yishuv's leadership saw the need to create a nationwide underground defense organization, and the Haganah was founded in June of the same year"

Irgun came into being in 1931 as a direct result of the Arab riots in 1929. It was a splinter group that was formed by Haganah members who believed that the best defence is a good offense - Haganah were constrained by the instruction to only defend communities and not initiate counterattacks against Arab gangs or their communities.

Haganah and Irgun assisted British Forces during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and formed a Jewish Brigade Group that fought the Nazis during the Second World War (Arafat's Uncle on the other hand sat the war out in Berlin as a guest of Adolf Hitler's and raised a Muslim SS Unit - there are photographs of him inspecting it in the Balkans)

On the declaration of independence Haganah and Irgun units formed the IDF. The experience they had gained during the Arab Revolt and during the Second World War proved invaluable to Israel in the 19948/1949 Arab War, which as previously stated was initiated by the Arabs who rejected the 1947 UN Two State Plan - IDF came about as a direct result of Arab aggression.

Lehi or Stern Gang was an extremely small group that split from Irgun in 1940. The split was caused by the British restricting Jewish immigration after the Arab Revolt. The groups aim was to drive the British out of Palestine by force. During it's operational life it was responsible for 48 assassinations (More than Haganah and Irgun combined). Those assassinated were, for the most part, Jews they considered to be traitors with the remainder being specifically targeted British Army and Police Officers. The ONLY time members of Lehi fought and killed Arabs Shaw was during the 1948 Arab/Israeli War that the Arabs had started.

2: What gratuitous aggression on the part of the IDF with regard to Sabra/Shatila Shaw?

3: As Keith A has stated use of cluster bombs was not illegal at the time and their use by the IDF to deny ground to Palestinian and Hezbollah "fighters" firing into Israel IS in direct response to aggression by an enemy. Funny you seem only to condemn the Israelis yet fail to condemn the Argentinians for recklessly mining the Falklands without recording positions, numbers or type, or the Russians for indiscriminately sowing millions of landmines and using cluster bombs in Afghanistan to deny ground to the Mujahideen.

4: Mordechai Vanunu as far as Israel was concerned was guilty of disseminating State Secrets, a traitor. Tell me Shaw where is your condemnation of the U.S.S.R. for the thousands of traitors they executed?

5: Could you please explain how a state can be held in defiance of a Treaty that it is not a signatory of? Could you please explain how it would be possible for a state who acquired it's nuclear capability in 1966 to be in defiance of a Treaty that did not come into existence until 1970?

6: What villages have been razed by bulldozers? Would they be "unrecognised settlements"? If so then the Israeli government has bulldozed illegal settlements of Jews and Arabs alike. If you decided entirely off your own bat to build a house on land you own down in Cornwall Shaw without proper planning authority, the Council would order you to tear it down, if you refused to do so they would come along and bulldoze it down then send you the bill for it. What's the difference? How does a Helicopter gunship raze a village to the ground and where and when was this done?

7: The schools deliberately targeted in Gaza. Were they the ones being used to fire rockets and mortars from? Or the ones being used to manufacture and store the rockets?

8: No condemnation of Egypt for this supposed deliberate impoverishment by blockade of a million and a half civilians Shaw? The solution is simple and has been on the table for rather a long time. Stop the attacks and recognise the right of the State of Israel and it's population to exist free from attack, or threat of attack. The second that that is done all restrictions are lifted.

9: The only people here nakedly "cleaning up" history Shaw are yourself and Carroll who consistently single out Israel for condemnation while ignoring the actions of others and who steadfastly refuse too accept, mention, or condemn acts of aggression and provocation directed against Israel and it's civilian population.

10: Funny how you can never, ever, manage to disprove, counter or refute any of those historical "facts" that that I keep coming out with to explode the myths, half-truths and clichéd misrepresentations that you and Jom are so fond of reeling out.