Can somebody give me the Cliffs Notes of what's going on in the ME?

[Squatch]

Hit me.

[rainy]

1. israel on the offensive from the nation mag

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/bishara


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israel On The Offensive
by MARWAN BISHARA



The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has exploited the capture of Army Corporal Gilad Shalit to restore the country's diminished deterrence against militant Palestinian factions, to break the elected Hamas government and to impose its unilateral territorial solution on the West Bank. But when the dust finally settles, Israel's offensive against the besieged territories--and now Lebanon--will have left the region with more destruction and death and the Israeli government with the same strategic deadlock. That's why instead of lashing out against their neighbors, Israelis must end the vicious cycle of provocations and retaliations, and pursue meaningful negotiations to end the occupation.

The Olmert government bases its campaign against Palestinian civilian infrastructure on three fallacies: that Israel does not initiate violence but retaliates to protect its citizens--in this case a captured soldier; that its response is measured and not meant to harm the broader population; and that it does not negotiate with those it deems terrorists.

But Israel's offensive did not start last week. The three-month-old Israeli government is responsible for the killing eighty or more Palestinians, some of whom were children, in attacks aimed at carrying out illegal extrajudicial assassinations and other punishments. Hamas has maintained a one-sided cease-fire for the past sixteen months, but continued Israeli attacks made Palestinian retaliation only a question of time. (Palestinian factions not under Hamas's control had been firing home-made rockets across the border off and on during this period--almost always with little or no damage or casualties--but these factions maintained that the attacks were in response to Israeli provocations.)

Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, repeated Israeli bombardments and targeted assassinations against Palestinians have aggravated the violence and led to Israeli deaths. In fact, according to the US academic Steve Niva, who has been documenting the intifada, many major Palestinian suicide bombings since 2001 have come in retaliation for Israeli assassinations, many of which occurred when the Palestinians were mulling over or abiding by self-imposed restraint.

To give three examples: On July 31, 2001, Israel's assassination of the two leading Hamas militants in Nablus ended a nearly two-month Hamas cease-fire, leading to the terrible August 9 Hamas suicide bombing in a Jerusalem pizzeria. On July 22, 2002, an Israeli air attack on a crowded apartment block in Gaza City killed a senior Hamas leader, Salah Shehada, and fourteen civilians, nine of them children, hours before a widely reported unilateral cease-fire declaration. A suicide bombing followed on August 4. On June 10, 2003, Israel's attempted assassination of the senior Hamas political leader in Gaza, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi, which wounded him and killed four Palestinian civilians, led to a bus bombing in Jerusalem on June 11 that killed sixteen Israelis.

Although Israel's provocations don't justify suicide bombings, they demonstrate how its deterrence has lost its effectiveness and why the source of terrorism lies first and foremost in its aggression and occupation. In this context, affected Palestinian civilians see themselves not as "collateral damage" but as victims of state terrorism.

As for the nature of its "retaliation," one could hardly refer to Israel's destruction of the civic infrastructure of 1.3 million Palestinians as "measured." The Israeli army began last week's offensive on the Gaza Strip by bombing bridges, roads and electric supplies, and by arresting nearly one-third of Hamas's West Bank-based parliamentarians and ministers (according to the Israeli press, the security services are holding the elected Palestinian officials as bargaining chips with Hamas).

The nature of the Israeli offensive is to punish, overwhelm and deter with disproportionate force, regardless of the suffering of the general public. Cutting off basic services of the Palestinians is not only unjustified, it is collective punishment of a civilian population--illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian firepower mustn't be translated into asymmetry between the value of Israeli and Palestinian life. The Palestinians have captured one Israeli soldier, but Israel holds more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners, about 900 of whom are under "administrative detention," i.e., without trial. It has held some of these prisoners for longer than three years. Those in the international community calling for the IDF soldier's release need to address, at minimum, the ordeal of Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails.

The Israeli government, like any other, has the right and indeed the duty to protect its people, but not at the high expense of the Palestinians, whose government's credibility also rests on defending its people. The use of military force to scare and overawe a civilian population for political ends--in this case, to pressure the Palestinian Authority or undermine the Hamas government--is the very definition of state terrorism.

In its thirty-nine years of occupation, Israel's attempts to tame or intimidate the Palestinians have instead led to their incitement and radicalization. Isn't it time for Israel to change course? After all, in a minuscule territory where the longest distance separating an Israeli and Palestinian area is no more than nine kilometers, Israelis will never be secure if the Palestinians are utterly insecure.

That's why Israel's harsh responses to Palestinian militancy have generally increased, not reduced, the threat to Israelis. While from 1978 to 1987 eighty-two Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, that figure jumped to more than 400 the following decade. And in less than two years of the second intifada (September 29, 2000, to May 29, 2002), more than 450 Israelis and 1,250 Palestinians were slain, mostly civilians on both sides.

Lastly, regarding its refusal to bargain with "terrorists," Israel's previous dealings with Lebanon's Hezbollah paint a different picture. Israel's bombardment of Beirut's electric generators and its Operation "Grapes of Wrath" in 1996, which led to the Qana massacre, failed, like many other operations, to deter the Lebanese resistance, which eventually forced Israel to negotiate through a third party with those it deemed "Islamist terrorists" and release hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners from its jails in exchange for the remains of dead Israeli soldiers.

The ongoing saga has once again demonstrated the absurdity of unilateralism as a viable and secure solution. And yet, the Olmert government is using the kidnapping of the soldier to undermine the historic agreement Hamas has reached with PA President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party over a unity government and de facto recognition of and negotiations with Israel, its sworn enemy.

Whether we like it or not, Hamas, like Hezbollah, is mostly a byproduct of an oppressive occupation, not the other way around. That's why refraining from excessive use of force and concentrating all efforts on a negotiated end to the occupation is paramount. Otherwise, Israel will only increase Hamas's popularity and push it back to clandestinity and war.

[Terran1212]

13. Great article nt

[WiseButAngrySara]

23. Excellent! K & R for this post alone! Thanks. ....n/t

[dubeskin]

2. Missles are flying, Israel's pissed, and Lebanon has their soldiers.

I guess that's it. Well, we invaded Iraq, are thinking about invading Iran, and have destroyed Afganistan.

[underpants]

6. Hezbollah is trying to open up another front

Looks like it might work too

[RobertSeattle]

3. Never Forgive, Never Forget

eom

[Lerkfish]

4. k...first there was the big bang, and then the earth cooled, then

along came the dinosaurs and .....

ok, sorry. Here's the deal: every group is a pawn for the people who sell weapons. If there is no conflict, they make no money.


that's it in a cynical nutshell.

[SoCalDem]

5. Ehud Olmert does not want to be seen as a wimp?..n/t

[Jacobin]

7. There was this dude Abraham, a long long time ago

:banghead:

[Master Mahon]

8. Story in Short

1. Most powerful country in the world elects a multiply addicted moron with crazed puppet handlers.
2. They shroud themsleves in Christianity.
3. Israel fully backs their cause disregarding Christianity because they know they are 'the chosen people'. They have a crazed leader too.
4. Both nations rush as fast as they can to prep for Armmegeddon by invading just about anyone they can.
5. The US awaits their 'rapture'.
6. Israel unites the world into complete Annihalation.
End of story :+

[kevinmc]

9. KABOOM ..... N/T

[dflprincess]

10. I got you last!

No! I got you last!
No! I got you last!
No! I got you last!
No! I got you last!
No! I got you last!

and so on and so on.

[rug]

22. Best synopsis to date.

[applegrove]

11. Follow the money sweetheart. ME oligarchies need Israel to keep

their population angry and obtusely religious. So no democracy. No worry about ever being taxed or grandchild ten times removed ever working. USA, Canada and Europe decided to hit Palestine where it hurts.. and pushed the aid need towards Iran and Saudi Arabia who should step in and support that economy. Terrorists just figured it out. Using tricks worked out in Iraq. They try and terrorize Israel... into ... something other than peace. Something other than the West no longer funding Palestine's struggle all the while the Saudis pay only for Wahabiism and terrorism.

Dam.. that cash cow. Dam that cash cow. Lack of democracy in the middle east assured radical islam neverending support (cheaper for Iran and Saudis to support terrorism & wahabism outside of their own countries than to actually do democratic and responsible governance within). Dam them to hell. Why isn't the West building the school district in Palestine we will then blow up or have blown up by Israel in retaliation for some terrorism?

Darn! Dang! Dam! Darnet! Doggonnet! dddddddddddddddddffdstysda!!!

[baldguy]

12. The Cliff Notes go back 5000 years.

The mythical biblical Patriarch Abraham and who was is favorite son...The Jewish Diaspora in the 9th to 6th century BCE...The Jewish Revolt against the Romans and the destruction of the First Temple...The birth & rise of Christianity...The fall of the Roman Empire...the birth & rise of Islam and it's conflict with Byzantium...the Islamic invasion of Europe (on two fronts)...The fall of Byzantium & the beginning of the Cursades...The birth of the Ottoman Empire & it's conflicts with the rest of the Islamic world...the beginning of Zionism as a political movement...WW I, the defeat of the Ottoman Empire & the British Protectorate in Palastine...WW II, the Holocaust, the partition of Palestine & the founding of Isreal...The Arab-Israeli conflict over the last 60 yrs.

some people hold a grudge for a very long time

[Roland99]

14. Soldier kidnapped, Boom, Pow, Boom, Whoosh, Boom

[lonestarnot]

15. Last I heard this a.m the people in Beruit who kidnapped 2 more

soldiers were trying to move them to Iran, and Israel says no dice, blows up the airport and covers all escape routes into Iran. Are they still holding onto all the escape hatches?

[in_cog_ni_to]

16. Israel is defending herself after being attacked by Hezbollah and

having their soldiers kidnapped. Hezbollah lobbed missiles into Israel.

It's all Israel's fault though.



The 1948 Arab-Israeli War is referred to as the "War of Independence" (Hebrew: מלחמת העצמאות or as the "War of Liberation" (Hebrew: מלחמת השחרור by Israelis. For Palestinians, the war marked the beginning of the events referred to as "The Catastrophe" ("al Nakba," Arabic: النكبة . After the United Nations partitioned the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, the Arabs refused to accept it and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the newly established State of Israel. It was the first in a series of open wars in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a result, the region was divided between Israel, Egypt and Transjordan.




The Six-Day War (Hebrew: מלחמת ששת הימים transliteration: Milkhemet Sheshet HaYamim, Arabic: حرب الأيام الستة transliteration: ħarb al-ayam as-sita), also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Six Days War, or June War, was fought between Israel and the nearby Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. Egyptian aggression initiated the war as Egypt formed a blockade of Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran, removed the UNEF peacekeeping forces from the Sinai, and deployed a large military force in the Sinai on the Israeli border. <1> <2> <3> Responding in an act of defense, Israel launched a preemptive attack against Egypt. <4> <5> <6> <7> Jordan in turn attacked the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Netanya. <8> <9> At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.



War of Attrition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from 1970 War of Attrition)
Jump to: navigation, search
This is about the Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition. For the military strategy, see Attrition warfare, for the game theoretical model see War of attrition (game).
Arab-Israeli conflict
1920 riots · Jaffa riots · 1929 riots · 1936-1939 uprising · 1948 Arab-Israeli War · 1956 Suez Crisis · 1967 Six-Day War · War of Attrition · 1973 Yom Kippur War · 1982 Lebanon War · First Intifada · al-Aqsa Intifada · 2006 Arab-Israeli War
The War of Attrition was a limited war fought between Egypt and Israel from 1968 to 1970. It was initiated by Egypt as a way to recapture the Sinai from Israel, which had controlled it since the Six-Day War. The war ended with a cease-fire signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers at the same place as when the war started.




The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War (Hebrew: מלחמת יום הכיפורים; transliterated: Milkhemet Yom HaKipurim or מלחמת יום כיפור, Milkhemet Yom Kipur; Arabic: حرب أكتوبر‎; transliterated: ħarb October or حرب تشرين, ħarb Tishrin), also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab nations led by Egypt and Syria. The war began on the day of Yom Kippur with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria. They invaded the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively, which had been captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War.<2>

The Egyptians and Syrians advanced during the first 24–48 hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel's favor. By the second week of the war, the Syrians had been pushed entirely out of the Golan Heights. In the Sinai to the south, the Israelis had struck at the "seam" between two invading Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (where the old ceasefire line had been), and cut off an entire Egyptian army just as a United Nations cease-fire came into effect.

The war had far-reaching implications for many nations. The Arab world, which had been humiliated by the lopsided defeat of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance during the Six-Day War, felt psychologically vindicated by its string of victories early in the conflict. This vindication paved the way for the peace process that followed, as well as liberalizations such as Egypt's infitah policy. The Camp David Accords, which came soon after, led to normalized relations between Egypt and Israel—the first time any Arab country had recognized the Israeli state. Egypt, which had already been drifting away from the Soviet Union, then left the Soviet sphere of influence almost entirely.


as well as a number of lesser conflicts. A major theme in the history of the conflict has been the refusal of Arab nations to create a Palestinian state that would not involve the destruction of Israel. In the course of the conflict, many Arabs were displaced from what is now Israel, and many Jews were displaced from what is now Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen (see Palestinian refugees and Jewish exodus from Arab lands). The conflict has also been the source of two major Palestinian intifadas (uprisings). Al-Qaeda, a largely Arab organization, has cited the conflict among its justifications for attacks on targets in the West.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict

Wow. Israel has been outrageously agressive, haven't they?

[baldguy]

17. But Israel isn't attacking Hezbolla - they're attacking Lebanon.

It's akin to killing your neighbors' dog because someone - not your neighbor or the dog - kicked over your garbage can.

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. Right. Lebanon and Hezbollah have NOTHING to do with each other.

They aren't connected. :eyes: Is Hezbollah a country now? What did I miss?

[baldguy]

27. What did you miss?

The 57 non-combatant Lenanese civilians killed by Israel today. Killing people who haven't attacked you doesn't bring peace.

[Just Me]

19. A few Israeli soldiers have been kidnapped. Israel bombing the fuck,...

,...outta' people.

Short, concise synopsis.

[ComerPerro]

20. Israel defends itself, Lebanon is commiting terrorist acts

that's how its being covered, thats how its spun, and nothing else will matter

[Selatius]

21. Hezbollah started it. Israel goes overboard reacting to them.

A bunch of civilians are dead now in the firestorm.

[Just Me]

24. PNAC move. eom.

[Ron Green]

25. When the stronger nation acts the bully, there are problems. (See "U.S.

foreign policy.")

[sandnsea]

26. FUBAR

brought to you by the imperial powers of Britain, France and the US since the Red Line Agreement in 1928.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/Petroleum/redline.htm