What's wrong with Israel?

[dwinterfield]

It appears that the 3 or 4 preceeding posts are mostly in agreement. If, as we seem to more or less agree, the emerging Shiite majority forms a government and gently or not so gently invites the US to leave in a year or so, what's the next move for the Bush adminstration. I suspect they will not have the good sense to leave that part of the region alone and see if they can do anything constructive with the Palestinians and Isrealis. Are they nuts enough to provoke a shooting war with Iran? I hope not, but am worried.

Azalin - Naive is never an insult. I'm way too jaded to take offense.

[Jerry Freeman]

What I've seen so far of Ayatolla Ali Al Sistani has been reassuring.

He appears to be the greatest statesman involved, more so than Bush, in my opinion, or any other Iraqi. It appears to me that there's a good reason the Iraqis respect him so highly.

Sistani has stated repeatedly that clerics should remain separate and not hold positions of governmental power.

He agreed to an interim constitution that allows any three provinces to veto a proposed permanent constitution if it doesn't meet the needs of their constituitants. That means that any permanent constitution must be acceptable to both the Kurds and the Sunnis, since each group holds a majority in three or more provinces. That helps assure that no one group will unfairly dominate any other, even though the Sunnis will be under represented in the interim Parliament because of the suppression of Sunni voting in the election. That veto mechanism was a very wise balance to have written into the electoral power structure and may be key to the success of Iraqi self government. Considering that Sistani is the leader of the majority group in Iraq, it appears statesmanly that he has agreed to an arrangement that assures that his group will share power and not unfairly exploit their majority, even though they have been persecuted by a minority group with whom he has agreed to share power.

He has also agreed to a provision in the interim constitution that requires that women participate as members of government, and he has helped to moderate the behavior of Al Sadr, helping bring him towards the political process and away from violent uprising.

At this point, I'm not worried that Iraq will end up with an Iranian style theocracy. It's pretty clear that Iraqis don't want that, and by all appearances, Sistani doesn't want that, either.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[glauber]

All signs indicate that Iran won't be a theocracy for long either.

[Jerry Freeman]

All signs indicate that Iran won't be a theocracy for long either.

Could you elaborate?

Based on what I've seen, I've been pessimistic about that. Perhaps you've seen some more recent developments that I've missed.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[glauber]

All signs indicate that Iran won't be a theocracy for long either.

Could you elaborate?

Based on what I've seen, I've been pessimistic about that. Perhaps you've seen some more recent developments that I've missed.

I think after Iraq becomes stable, the US and a coalition of the willing will bring democracy to Iran.

[Roger O'Keeffe]

All signs indicate that Iran won't be a theocracy for long either.

Could you elaborate?

Based on what I've seen, I've been pessimistic about that. Perhaps you've seen some more recent developments that I've missed.

I think after Iraq becomes stable, the US and a coalition of the willing will bring democracy to Iran.

For a moment, I thought an American was doing irony, but then I noticed that it was one of the Boys from Brazil .

[Azalin]

Yeah, how can this guy be objective, c'mon!

[Phil Hardy]

I'll tell ya whats wrong.
I spent many years working all over Israel in the 90s.
It's the same everywhere,most of the people on both side are wonderful people but the few fanatical religious/political twats screw it for the rest.
Israel is a wonderful place ,full of peace-loving,non-racist people who just want to get on with life.
I would live there if I could,the food is great ,the weather is great ,the people are great,the history is GREAT.
The Israelis are more open minded than many europeans I know.
I JUST HOPE THEY SORT IT ALL OUT SOON,I WANT TO GO BACK.
Shalom
Phil

[s1m0n]

I think after Iraq becomes stable, the US and a coalition of the willing will bring democracy to Iran.

The US has been fought to a stand still by country of 25 million ethnically and religiously divided people, many--perhaps most--of whom hated their leader, and whose army had largely been defeated and starved for a decade.

Iran is a nation of 60 million, largely unified in religion and ethnicity, and whose military is well equipped.

If Iran gets attacked, their oil production will cease, which will drive the cost of energy through the roof--we already don't have enough oil on the world's market, and there's no excess capacity anywhere. Without the second largest supplier in the gulf, things will get ugly, quickly.

Bush has managed to spend down YOUR social security surplus to finance this war, but there aren't too many other such pots left unplundered.

Invading Iraq was a disaster, shortening the US stay as the world's sole power by a year or two. Invading Iran would be catastrophic, and will speed the US's decline by a decade. It's a really bad idea.

If the US does that, you will have given Osama bin Laden the victory he was looking for.

[Doug_Tipple]

I don't find the following a comforting thought with regard to a possible confrontation with Iran.

JACQUELINE CABASSO, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which focuses on nuclear policy, said today (2-7-05): "While the U.S. turns its sights on Iran, accusing that country of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, U.S. nuclear weapons spending has quietly grown by 84 percent since 1995 -- several years after the Cold War ended. This year the U.S. will spend nearly $7 billion to maintain and modernize nuclear warheads, usable for decades to come, and many billions more to operate and modernize its delivery and command and control systems. Altogether, the United States is spending about $40 billion annually on nuclear forces. Ten thousand nuclear warheads, with some 2,000 on hair-trigger alert, remain in the U.S. arsenal, each one many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped 60years ago."

[Roger O'Keeffe]

Altogether, the United States is spending about $40 billion annually on nuclear forces.

How many mosquito nets and tuberculosis vaccinations would that buy?

[ChrisA]

To try to address the original question, you have to understand the broad outline of Israel's history. Back at the end of World War 2, the maps of Europe, including the Middle East, were redrawn in roughly their modern outline (there have been some changes since then, however).

During this process, Israel was parceled out to be the 'Jewish State', but happened to already be occupied by Palestinians, who were displaced into neighboring territories, including present day Palestine and 'occupied territories'.

In the sixties, a coalition of Arab nations came together to support the palestinian cause, and basically attempted to take over or destroy Israel, but did not succeed. At the end of this conflict is where Israel starts occupying the West Bank and Gaza. The frequently used term 'pre-1967 borders' means the original borders for Palestine and Israel drawn at the end of WWII, which Israel expanded after the conflict.

Since that time, on the Palestinian side, we have a nation without an real military power or military allies, or for that matter any real government, fighting an insurgent war against an occupying force. It is inevitable that they would use guerilla tactics.

On the Israeli side, we have a nation in fear that the Palestinians will acquire real military power - a renewed alliance, covert support, whatever, and therefore feels a need for a buffer zone. That is, militarily occupied territory outside of their actual borders, ready to repel any invaders. The natural response to such an occupying military force to guerilla tactics is reprisal killings.

Iterate this through the decades, and both sides continue to amass grievances one against another, peace accords are broken, and there is an ever-present danger that any potential peacemaking leader will be assassinated by their own side to deliberately derail the process.

Underneath all of this, understand, the majority on each side actually want peaceful coexistence, for the violence to stop, and to get on with their lives. However, the majority are not the ones who actually make the decisions, and the leaders are influenced by the extremist groups.

Anyway, that's the rough outline of the root causes of the situation, but it's naturally vastly more complex than just that, and the grievances that I so casually glossed over are the core of most argument on the subject, (ie, which side is to blame, which side is sincere about peace, which side has 'just cause' to take more revenge.)

[s1m0n]

In the sixties, a coalition of Arab nations came together to support the palestinian cause, and basically attempted to take over or destroy Israel, but did not succeed. At the end of this conflict is where Israel starts occupying the West Bank and Gaza.

There is some revisionism at work here. The Isaeli invasion of the west bank and Gaza was the START of the war; not the end--Israel won the war by conducting a series of surprise attacks. In the current status of pro Israel propaganda, two entirely contradictory stories are told of the 1967 war: 1) they attacked us first, and 2) we won by attacking them first (ie, by surprise). These are mutually exclusive propositions. The latter is correct, the former a lie.

The various arab states were most certainly engaged in sabre rattling, and had amassed some troops on their own borders with Israel, but it is entirely arguable to what degree, if at all, they intended or expected to end up in a shooting war.

Their strategy is much more likely to have been an attempt at economic warfare--keeping the troops around in order to force Israel to keep its own army mobilised, which was causing economic hardship in Israel.

This might have been dirty pool, but it was not, under international law, an act of war. Any soveriegn nation has the right to conduct manouvers wherever it wishes in it's one territory or that of it's allies. Doing so is not a legal causus belli.

Israel was not attacked in 1967. Not a single battle during the entire war was fought on Israeli soil.

[jGilder]

glauber writes: "I think after Iraq becomes stable, the US and a coalition of the willing will bring democracy to Iran."

The last time Iran had a democracy -- the US took it away and installed one of the 20th Century’s most bloodthirsty dictators, the Shah (1953). The CIA also created and trained the Shah’s most feared secret police force, known as SAVAK, that could only be compared to Hitler's SS. This regime was hated across all religious lines in Iran and after 20 years of brutal repression and over 100,000 people being imprisoned and tortured resulting in the disappearance and murder of thousands -- the Iranian people did the only thing that could overthrow the Shah and backed the Ayatollah in 1979. The Iranian people have not forgotten about this, and even the idea that the very same country that overthrew their democracy and brought them the Shah and SAVAK is now going to bring democracy to Iran would be seen as nothing more than a sick joke.

[blackhawk]

There is some revisionism at work here.....

Israel was not attacked in 1967. Not a single battle during the entire war was fought on Israeli soil.

Talk about revisionism at work here...so you're saying all that fighting in Jerusalem during the 1967 war, including when the Israels finally fought their way through the Jordanian army to the Western Wall (the holiest site in Judaism, which the Arabs had been denying them for many, many years) didn't actually take place? And all the artillery shelling of the farms within Iraeli borders by the Syrians from the Golan heights, that resulted in the Israelis attacking and taking the heights, didn't really happen? Are you just inventing things here as you go along, the way you'd like them to be?