Back on May 1, I linked to this Michael Totten post from Israel, titled Everything Could Explode at Any Moment”;
Last year I drove down from Beirut into Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon along the border with Israel. Aside from Hezbollah’s other miniature state-within-a-state in the suburbs south of Beirut, the border region is the craziest place in the country.
The Lebanese government doesn’t control it and cannot police it. The army is not allowed to go down there. Soldiers I’ve talked to refer to the southern-most checkpoint before the Hezbollah-occupied zone as “the border.” Psychotic road-side propaganda shows severed heads, explosions from suicide-bombs, and murderous tyrants from Iran and Syria.
Lisa Goldman and I decided to drive up there and take a look from the Israeli side.
“I should warn you,” I said in the car. “Something is wrong on the border. Something bad is going to happen.”
“Why do you say that?” she said.
I told her what I knew, what had recently happened when I tried to visit the border again from the Lebanese side just two weeks before.
[…]
“I say this to my guys every morning: Everything could explode at any moment. Just after I said it this morning a bus load of pensioners showed up on a field trip. An old woman brought us some food. It’s crazy. They shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here.”
“What’s happening here is very unusual,” Zvika, the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman, said. But he wouldn’t tell me what, exactly, was so unusual. Shortly after I left the country, a story broke in the Daily Telegraph that explained it.
Iran has moved into South Lebanon. Intelligence agents are helping Hezbollah construct watch towers fitted with one-way bullet-proof windows right next to Israeli army positions.
Here’s what one officer said:
This is now Iran’s front line with Israel. The Iranians are using Hizbollah to spy on us so that they can collect information for future attacks. And there is very little we can do about it.
If you didn’t read it then, do so now. Complete with lots of original photos.
If all out war erupts at the Lebanese border, try to remember just who it is that Israel is fighting. It’s not Lebanon.
More
Bill Roggio has more on the Iranian angle.
The sophistication of this attack [in which 8 Israeli soldiers were killed and 2 captured] indicates Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah’s chief of military operations was directly involved. Mugniyah has a long history of successful military and terrorist operations across the globe. Mugniyah has a history of conducting similar snatch and grab operations against the Israelis. He was responsible for capturing three Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, and the abduction of an Israeli colonel in Kuwait in 2000.
Mugniyah began his career in terrorism in the 1970s with Force 17, the personal bodyguard detachment for Yassar Arafat, and later joined Hezbollah. His more infamous terror attacks include the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63; the October 1983 simultaneous truck bombings on the U.S. Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 58 French soldiers; the hijacking of TWA 847; the kidnappings and murders of U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel in Beirut; the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1992, killing 29 people; the bombing of an Israeli cultural center in 1994, killing 86 people. He is suspected of direct involvement in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. servicemen.
Mugniyah has extensive links with the Iranian intelligence services, and has been directly linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and recently deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mugniyah is on FBI’s list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. U.S. Special Forces aborted a raid to capture Mugniyah in the Persian Gulf in 1996. He was believed to have visited Syria in January of 2006, attending a meeting with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Assad.
Drudge is collecting MSM items on world reaction, while you can count on Instapundit and Pajamas Media for other developments and commentary around the blogosphere.
Stingray has thoughts on the potential implications for Hezbollah plans to transport the two abducted Israeli soldiers to Iran.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran all want Israel ‘wiped off the map.’ Syria is the conduit to supply materiel.
Nastiness is coming, of this there is little doubt.
Israel has already declared the kidnapped soldiers as an “act of war”.
The boiling point is at hand.
No way!! Apparently Israel has been constructing similar towers in Palestine for 50 years… we knew it would happen…one day…
Yes way. Simultaneous bombings in Mumbai, India are obviously attempts to destabilize Pakistan and India. So far they are not biting.
Now you have Gaza and Lebanon erupting at the same time. This is an orchestrated attempt by those supporting geopolitical destabilization on a variety of fronts to provoke a hot war response.
All this comes at a time when Iran is supposed to come to heel on the issue of nuclear power with respect to the EU offer and now referral to the UN Security Council.
All of this squirrely behaviour, in my view, points in one direction. Someone is quite obviously trying to ‘let loose the dogs of war’.
To choose not to see it, is willful ignorance. Geopolitical sabre rattling at its finest.
Perhaps this is the point we get serious with Iran & Syria.
There the seedbed of most of the trouble. With Pakistan playing both sides.
With the bombings in India today plus Israelis just response to these provocations, will people finally realize this is a world war?
This is a new war with an altered face, dancing to the same old tune of totalitarianism . We know though its the same vampiric Despotic barbarians that try to bring down every civilization. For there own greed & power.
The moon bats keep trying to shut out reality. Time to wake up kiddies . The party is over.
Co-ordinated….likely.
Remeber that the day before 9/11 there was the assasination the Afghani northern alliance leader.
Al Queada is not a stupid org and they tend to work on multiple, seemingly diconnected levels. I would think it is fair to assume an Iranian and Syrian involvement.
It is an ugly region with unnatural alliances working together. Yes I believe Pakistani intelligence is stirring pots as are the Iranians
Revnant Dream said: “Perhaps this is the point we get serious with Iran & Syria”.
We? WE? Unfortunately, even with Mr Harper as PM, there is no ‘we’; there’s the US, Britain & Australia, but I fear that the majority of Canadians believe it’s Israel’s war in the ME, and America’s ‘War on Terror’internationally.
This country has been protected and oblivious for too long, and our media and/or ‘educators’ like it just fine that way.
Revnant Dream said: “Perhaps this is the point we get serious with Iran & Syria”.
We? WE? Unfortunately, even with Mr Harper as PM, there is no ‘we’; there’s the US, Britain & Australia, but I fear that the majority of Canadians believe it’s Israel’s war in the ME, and America’s ‘War on Terror’internationally.
This country has been protected and oblivious for too long, and our media and/or ‘educators’ like it just fine that way.
Revnant Dream said: “Perhaps this is the point we get serious with Iran & Syria”.
We? WE? Unfortunately, even with Mr Harper as PM, there is no ‘we’; there’s the US, Britain & Australia, but I fear that the majority of Canadians believe it’s Israel’s war in the ME, and America’s ‘War on Terror’internationally.
This country has been protected and oblivious for too long, and our media and/or ‘educators’ like it just fine that way.
There goes the (Lebanese) neighbourhood. Bye bye airport…
Seems Totten is somewhere other than blogging? But where is he?
Callimachus is posting at this time. His post re BS detectors is relevant to blagh, though.
BS Detectors
By Callimachus
more…
Noam Chomsky=Good American.
Nasrallah (allah… shudder)=Hezbollah …Good.
Bad Americans= ????
Is Chomsky a doubledubya agent?
It’s all explained here:
“The old man says that if the visitors are American he will not let them enter. “Yes, the visitors are American, but they are good Americans,” I explain.”
Noam Chomsky in Beirut [His advice to Hizbollah and the media]
ZMag ^ | 7-13-06 | Assaf Kfoury
May 11, Sabra-Shatila camp. There is a plot of land of perhaps less than a half acre, surrounded by a wall with a large iron gate, where the victims of the 1982 massacre are buried.[4] The land is mostly flat and covered by grass, with a few mounds here and there, the locations of mass graves which we can see through the gate’s vertical bars. On the outside wall there are large, slightly fading, poster photos of those found dead after the rampage of Phalangist militiamen that were sent in by the Israeli army that had surrounded the camp in 1982. The gate-keeper is an old Palestinian, with half of his teeth missing, sitting under the shade of the tree near the gate and selling flowers. We ask him to open the gate and let us enter the ground. The old man says that if the visitors are American he will not let them enter. “Yes, the visitors are American, but they are good Americans,” I explain. Then pointing to Noam a few steps away, I say that he, in particular, is the most indefatigable defender of Palestinian rights in America. The old man stares at me with a skeptical look for a few seconds, as if to gauge the truth of what I just said, then gets up and opens the gate.
May 11, Hizbullah headquarters, Beirut. We meet Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hizbullah, in a heavily fortified compound. Hizbullah has widespread popular support, with representation in the Lebanese parliament and the council of ministers, largely the result of its role in the successful resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in the 1990’s. Nevertheless, American government officials — from Condoleezza Rice, David Welch, Elliott Abrams, Jeffrey Feltman and on down — routinely visit other Lebanese politicians and dignitaries, never Nasrallah, and they portray Hizbullah as a band of terrorists. The value of this meeting with Noam is as much in what Nasrallah has to say as in the public recognition by a public American, admittedly the most dissident of them, of Hizbullah’s role in Lebanon and the Middle East at large. Nasrallah recognizes the value of trying to break the official American embargo: He has no objection to Noam quoting him on anything he has said, and his last question to Noam is a request for advice on what Hizbullah can do to counter the pernicious propaganda in the US. …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1664909/posts
War on Iran Has Begun
BY DAVID TWERSKY
July 13, 2006
TEL AVIV, Israel — The war with Iran has begun.
Just last Friday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad warned that Israel’s return to Gaza could lead to an “explosion” in the Islamic world that would target Israel and its supporters in the West. “They should not let things reach a point where an explosion occurs in the Islamic world,” he said.
“If an explosion occurs, then it won’t be limited to geographical boundaries. It will also burn all those who created [Israel] over the past 60 years,” he said, implicitly referring to America and other Western nations who support Israel.
Years from now, the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit will be regarded like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Against the backdrop of Kassam rocket fire on Israelis living within range of the Gaza Strip, it was the fate of Corporal Shalit that triggered the Israeli return to Gaza, which in turn brought the Hezbollah forces into the game.
Israel is fighting two Iranian proxies on two fronts. It may, or may not, open a third front against a third Iranian proxy, Syria. …-
new york sun
http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=35990
I agree – with a caution that I hardly have the data base to come to much of a conclusion other than speculation.
But, I don’t think this is about Lebanon. As pointed out, Lebanon doesn’t control Hezbollah, which is practically a ‘state within a state’, even with its own army. Aligned with Syria and Iran.
My speculation is that this has little to do with Al Qaeda which is a terrorist branch of Islamic fascism. I don’t think it has anything to do with the Mumbai bombings.
It has to do with national power. Of Iran in particular, aligned with Syria. Both states might use islamic fascism to assist them, but it’s really about national power. Iran wants to control the ME. That means it wants to control Iraq, and Lebanon. Syria is already aligned with it.
I’d wonder about Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Jordan; are they against Iran and Syria’s agenda of control?
This has all the markings of the really BIG ONE.
55C heat and a 3 prong assault on Israel. Syria, Lebanon and Iran on the very same page for the first time ever. All with insane leadership.
The cat and mouse game as we know it is over.
“Lebanon doesn’t control Hezbollah, which is practically a ‘state within a state’, even with its own army” – ET
Lebanon => Canada
Hezbollah => First Nations
own army => Warrior Society
Why does it all seem somehow familiar???
by the way, http://www.americanfuture.net has a good analysis, I think.
As I said, this is pure speculation, but I think it’s not so much about Israel-Palestine, it isn’t about a Palestinian state (the Arab world isn’t interested in a Palestinian state); it isn’t about ‘wiping Israel off the map’ which the Arab States know would be impossible.
It isn’t about islamic fascism, which is a ‘ground roots’ pathology of people operating within repressive tribalism.
It’s about Iran’s desire to rule the Arab states of the ME.
This is pure speculation, but, there are multiple rather than single catalysts going on here.
1) Israel’s being ‘plopped down’ in 1948, by external Western forces, into a societal zone that was living in the 18th-19th c. mode of tribal peasant agriculture was a catalyst. Not because of the religions – Jewish/Islamic. But more because of how it was done (by external authority) and above all, because Israel was set up as a civic governance, ie a democracy and within an industrial economy. Disastrous. Because the other nations were all tribal hereditary governance and peasant agriculture. To insert such a different ‘organism’ into an environment has disastrous effects. Like putting a foreign species into an env’t. It’s disastrous.
2)The tribal nations, rather than themselves moving into civic democracy, retrenched into military dictatorships to hold onto tribalism.
Oil enabled them to feed their increasing population but oil also enabled an increased population – but one without any power in a tribal mode. That led to islamic fascism.
3)The answer to islamic fascism, was, correctly, to introduce democracy into the region. Taking out Iraq, giving it back to the people rather than Saddam’s tribe, and enabling them to set up a democracy was vital.
But, the other states don’t want to lose tribal power. particularly – iran and syria. They are behind the insurgents in Iraq.
4) Now, Iran is moving to define itself as the dominant (tribal) power in the ME. It was unable to get the US to attack it over nuclear arms. For some reason, and I may be very wrong, my assumption is that Iran wants a war in the ME. It is continuing to make trouble in Iraq, it is now moving to force Israel into that war.
Again, I don’t think it’s about Palestine and Israel. Most Arab states don’t care and are primarily using Palestine as a front-excuse for their own agendas of power.
I think it’s about Iran.
nemo2 has said it like it is. Because we do not have an informed population, reasoned discussion and descisions will never take place. I wonder if the CBC will host a bbq to celebrate Israeli deaths. I think I’m becoming cynical.
melwilde:
If the CBC were in charge of geopolitical analysis the BBQ would already be at 10 million degrees Celsius.
Yep, those Iranians just want to turn the desert sands into a giant glass factory. How big did you want those windows to let the sunshine in?
Oh but Boris dahling, don’t provoke me.
Israel’s being ‘plopped down’ in 1948, by external Western forces
Love that terminology, ET. The Jews were just “plopped down” out of nowhere. Johnnies-come-lately, were they? No Jews in the area prior to then, huh?
External Western forces also tried to plop down a Palestinian state, but we all know what happened there.
maybe we can get lucky and Kneel McDonald (mr .toady) and Peter Pansbridge (neverneverland anchor) will be along the border when it erupts.
send the whole CBCpravda news team in!!!
As usual, Mark Steyn has a great opinion on this:
city-journal.org/html/1 6_2_iran.html
Essentially he thinks the US or coalition has to immediately blow the shit out of Iran. Forget about negotiation – forget about student democracy. Just flatten it, but don’t occupy it. He believes the future absolutely depends on it.
The problem is that Bush has been so beaten up by the suicidal left that he may have lost his nerve. Maybe Israel will do it. What do they care what the UN and the socialists think?
The 21st century is a little overwhelming for the dimmer bulbs (i.e. the left wing) to grasp. Back in the 90s the Oxford Book of Modern War described the future of war on a crowded high-tech planet. They forecast that no sane enemy is going to dress up in uniforms and march onto a traditional battlefield to confront anyone armed with modern technology. 21st century warfare would be covert and widespread, the underdog will conceal itself within the civilian population.
Not to sound hysterical but the book was right and it sure looks like a world war is upon us. If we become harsher with left wing lunatics it’s because we’re all on the front lines, anywhere on the planet. Neutrality is usually an illusion, the reality is you are on one side or the other.
In rare times of peace and prosperity one can be more tolerant of degenerate intellects such as McClelland, Dawg etc, they’re just utopian cultists dreaming of a transformation of human nature, society has to look after those whose brains have been touched by the Great Spirit. There is a war on now, this one will continue until long after most of us are dead and gone, there’s no guarantee which ideology will prevail (a primitive brutal Talibanesque culture can stagnate for a thousand years and out-wait the modern world), so it is time to deal harshly with those who support the enemy and actively try to weaken us. Choose a side, and, yes, once the reality of world war sinks in, society and its civil liberties are going to evolve and progress to accomodate reality. Sooner or later “function defines form”.
Right on, Kate. Iran is the driving force behind much of the activity against Israel.
Want to see some of our warriors? Here’s a short,very harsh, amateur documentary produced by American soldiers in Iraq, it’s probably not suitable for a work computer… for the link insert (http://) in front of this address…
http://www.filecabi.net/video/aintalltherestfu.html
mississauga matt – you may dislike the terminology, but you don’t understand my meaning.
I didn’t say ‘Jews plopped down’. I said Israel plopped down. There’s a strong difference. ‘Jews’ refers to members of a religion. Israel is a state. I wasn’t talking about the religion.
What you missed or misunderstood was the disastrous results of inserting an entity, ie a state, (understand is as a closed system akin to an organic species) which is organized and exists in a mode that is utterly foreign to its ecological env’t.
Ecologically, to insert a species that is organized and operates in a completely different mode than any of its ecological env’t – is disastrous. Israel was, right from the start, a civic or democratic system with an industrial economy. Every state/organism around it was tribal or non-democratic with a peasant agriculture. The two don’t mix. Energy wise, an industrial economy is ‘high energy’; while a peasant agriculture is ‘low energy’. The two don’t mix.
No, Palestine wasn’t ‘plopped down’ (inserted – excuse my terminology if you don’t like the metaphor). The mode of political organization was tribal. No change. The economic mode was peasant agriculture. No change. That mode fits into the whole ME ecology.
Inserting a political-economic mode into an area that uses a completely different mode can have disastrous results. Colonization, for example, brought what I call a ‘late rainfall’ socioeconomic mode to hunter-gatherer and horticultural socioeconomic modes. The latter collapsed.
The problem of this conflict between these two modes, the industrial-civic and the peasant agric-tribal is at the root of islamic fascism. The ME has no choice but to move into an industrial-civic mode, because of its population explosion – but, it is fighting to retain the old tribalism.
If all out war erupts at the Lebanese border, try to remember just who it is that Israel is fighting. It’s not Lebanon.
I’m sure the Lebanese people living close to the scene of aerial bombings far from the border will ‘try to remember’ to just that.
It would give them something to do, for instance, as they wait for civilian infrastructure like bombed bridges to be rebuilt, rather like the Palestinian people in Gaza, who surely remembered that the attack on their power plant (necessary for minor conveniences like pumping sewage and purifying water) was not aimed at them.
IIRC, Secretary of State Colin Powell toured this area with PM Sharon just before the Iraq War and Sec. Powell described that tour as “eyeopening” and warned of the terrible threat posed by about 1000 Katusha rockets gathered on the “Lebanese”/Israeli border.
This new attack is not a surprise to anyone who has been following the news from that area of the world.
As for me, I will never forget the over two hundred US Marines killed in their beds in Beirut by Hezbollah, and I bet President Bush will never forget them either.
I think the time for their justice will come someday.
IMO, there is NO statute of limitations for their mass murder.
You can educate a people in a generation but it takes many more to civilize them. When a civilization is stalled by a 10th century religion the Arab states of today are the outcome. They unfortunately understand one thing and one thing only, sheer brute force. Until those states are defeated totally the terror will continue for centuries to come. Until the West defeats the Muslim religious fanatics totally by whatever means necessary the carnage will continue. My feeling is that until the West faces up to the fact that this is to a large degree, a religious war, nothing will ever be resolved.
rather like the Palestinian people in Gaza, who surely remembered that the attack on their power plant (necessary for minor conveniences like pumping sewage and purifying water) was not aimed at them.
Yes, because the Pals were just a bunch of boyscouts sitting there doin’ nuthin’, hmmm?
The sheer genius of the Pals is that they made a rocket attack on the Israeli town that produces most of their electricity. So the Israelis cut off the power. Genius I say, genius!
Fox News has said that Hezbollah is attempting to transfer Israeli soldiers to Iran.
Shades of 04 Nov. 1979: Hostages.
Seriouser and seriouser.
On a lighter note:
Jimmah will be speaking soon. What will be Dhimmi Jimmy’s message?
Oh I think I DO understand your meaning, ET.
You’re just making another attempt to de-legitimize Israel (“‘plopped down’ in 1948, by external Western forces”).
Stephen – Hezbollah/Iran/Syria are, in all likelihood, behind these attacks. They are the basic cause of the harm done to civilians in Lebanon. It isn’t that Israel is involved without cause. It has been attacked by Hezbollah. The Lebanese gov’t can’t control that area.
I have to admit I’m speculating but, in my view, Iran has been desperately wanting the West to attack it for some time. The nuclear taunts, the holocaust denials and taunts; they and Syria were involved in the cartoon riots; they and Syria are behind the insurgency in Iraq to prevent the Iraqi people from taking control within a democracy. They are not the ‘root cause’ of islamic fascism but they have linked themselves to it as a ‘handy strategy’. So far, the West simply hasn’t ‘bitten’; it has referred Iran to the UN which, like all bureaucracies, is big on talk and does nothing else.
What does Iran want? The only thing I can think of, is control of the ME. Akin to setting up an empire there, where it controls all the states. To do this, it certainly has to prevent democracy. I think that is the key agenda.
I don’t think it is so much about Israel-Palestine. My view is that most of the arab states consider the Palestinians ‘lowest class peasants’ and aren’t interested in them; they don’t want them in their own country; they really aren’t interested in helping them. Using them to start a ME war, however, is another thing.
If Hezbollah gets Israel to attack Lebanon, then, will Iran and Syria assist Lebanon? The key question is, however, what does Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq feel about Iran’s empire building ambitions?
Typical Israeli signature move: collective punishment. But it’s ok, because it’s Israel right? Pathetic.
No, mississauga matt – you don’t understand my meaning. You obviously don’t know anything about different sociopolitical structures or about ecological structures and are reducing the argument instead to a simplistic one of ‘feelings’. The ‘plopping down’ of Israel as a civic, democratic state with an industrial economy. You dislike the word. So? You can use another. The image remains – a system that does not emerge from within the infrastructure of a larger area but is instead inserted by an external agency. That is, a system that is not self-organized by externally organized.
That is disastrous in any realm – chemical, biological AND social. Why? Because a system is connected to its surroundings and to insert a system with an infrastructure operationally unlike those of its surroundings – is harmful. Bringing rainfall agriculture to the new world destroyed the hunting and horticultural societies already there. These systems are organized differently, they interact differently.
The fact that you are ignoring this – there’s nothing I can do about it. My analysis has nothing to do, as I said, with religion. It has nothing to do with ‘Israel’ as your ideology. It is strictly about a civic democratic industrial system inserted, by external authority, rather than self-organized emergence, into a set of systems that ooperate by tribal, non-democratic, peasant agricultural modes.
western canadian – I see your point. I always consider that it takes three generations to change an ideology. The ME is indeed trapped in a 10th c – and earlier, ideology. Islam is less a religion than it is a socio-political ideology but its self-definition as a religion means that it puts its axioms as inviolate Pure Truths, and doesn’t critique and develop them.
The west has to win this; the Islamic mode is only operative in a tribal system and a peasant agriculture. It can’t enable an industrial economy and it can’t enable innovation and dev’t. Therefore, it can’t support the world population. Only democracy, industrialism, and a focus on the freedom of the individual to think, can do that.
Oh ET, you’re boring me. You have these ideas and you repeat them ad naseum in an attempt, I believe, to convince yourself. Take your “Israel-Palestine has nothing to do with Islamofacism” angle. You really could trim down your posts.
Now, the Jews have lived in the area for eons, wanted a state of their own, fought for and continue to fight for a state of their own.
And along the way they set up a civilized state.
Got that? Locals set up their own civilized state.
And you’re saying the response should have been “sorry chaps, I know you’re a decent lot, but you see, you’re surrounded by barbarians, and the mix of the two just won’t do. Sorry, the onus is on you decent people, not the barbarians. I’m afraid you’ll just have to live in dhimmitude. Sorry, no state for you.”
j said: “Typical Israeli signature move: collective punishment. But it’s ok, because it’s Israel right? Pathetic”.
I don’t believe that a formal Declaration Of War is currently de rigueur, but, back when it was in fashion I really don’t think it contained listings of individual names……simply ‘enemy belligerents’……..is that ‘collective’ enough for your emotional sensitivites?
mississauga matt – obviously, my posts are meaningless to you.
No, the locals did not set up their own state. Israel was set up by an external mandate, by the UN, it was not self-developed within the region; it was populated by massive immigration, by people who were already accultured in a civic democratic mode and in an industrial economy. Israel did not self-emerge as such in the ME. If it had, so would the other states of the ME also have self-developed a civic political and an industrial economy. They didn’t. The entire area was tribal and a peasant economy.
Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian situation has nothing to do with islamic fascism, which has emerged in the last two decades and not in the 1950s. The fact that you don’t understand the basic causes of islamic fascism – is obviously not something that I can do anything about.
Kindly explain ‘civilized’. It has both popular and analytic meanings, but the analytic one is 19th century; i.e., it’s out of date when used today. So- what do you mean?
If by ‘civilized’ you mean ‘civic mode/democratic’ then, this didn’t happen ‘along the way’. Israel was set up right from the start as a civic democracy. It didn’t exist, as a state, before that time, before 1948.
ET: If you haven’t you should read Spengler.
Demographics and Iran’s imperial design
He’s written on this since. A list of links here.
From Steyn’s article: h/t Irwin Daisy
Or as the Daily Telegraph in London reported: “Iran’s hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.”
Perhaps j is suggesting that some western city just sit back and wait until the Iranians get their bomb program up and running and live a life of quiet incineration.
http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/2006/07/_apocalyptic_signals_from_iran.html#more
Apocalyptic signals from Iran worry U.S. intelligence
The U.S. intelligence community has not been surprised by Iran’s refusal to respond to a Western incentive package to suspend its uranium enrichment. Intelligence sources said Iran, following North Korea’s model, intends to delay any response or negotiations for as long as possible.
The European Union and the United States demanded that Iran reply to the Western incentive package of nuclear technology, fuel and aircraft by June 29. But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Teheran would submit an answer by Aug. 22.
eyes_of_iran2.jpg
The U.S. intelligence community has been trying to figure out why Ahmadinejad chose that date. Sources said the community was stumped until some Islam experts translated the Gregorian date to that of the Muslim calendar.
Then came the surprise that has the intelligence community worried.
Aug. 22 corresponds to Rajab 27 on the Muslim calendar. The date is called Lailat Al Israa, when Mohammed ascended to heaven from the Al Aqsa mosque to receive the five daily prayers. Later, Al Aqsa came to represent Jerusalem.
The Muslim commemoration is meant to be a night of struggle, accompanied by thunder and lightening, resembling the story of Moses ascending Mount Sinai to receive the Old Testament.
Ahmadinejad could be hinting to the West that he is preparing a major attack on Israel. Or, the Iranian president could be warning that unless the West caves in, he would escalate tension in the region. The lightening in Mohammed’s story could represent Iranian missiles.
What is clear is that Ahmadinejad does not see himself as an Iranian leader, but a Muslim prophet, using imagery to portray himself as a messiah for both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.
So there you have it folks “Blitzkrieg” Islamic facist style. Donner und Blitzen (Thunder and Lightning) I gather this is the analogue to the US Shock and Awe campaign in Baghdad.
Oh boy.
The region was populated by both Jew and Arab – Jews for much longer, but that’s beside the point – and there was “massive immigration” on both sides. Yasser Arafat was an Egyptian.
If you think the Jews were johnnies-come-lately, you have to ask yourself how a million ended up in the surrounding Arab states before emigrating to Israel when that state was created. Bad directions?
The U.N. did not create Israel. They declared their own state and fought for it.
I don’t really have to define civilized for you, do I? I mean I know that that’s a favourite rhetorical device of yours, but it’s getting old.
greenmamba – thanks, I’ve read Spengler. I don’t agree with his ‘determinism’, or his ‘cycles’. His theories seem to me, to be mythic rather than factual.
mississauga matt – I guess we’ll have to ‘agree to disagree’. You seem determined to ignore my points.
I’m not talking about religion, i.e., Judaism vs Islam. Your ‘Jew and Arab’ doesn’t mean anything to me; one is a religion, the other is an ethnic group. I’m talking about differing socioeconomic and political modes – and you don’t seem to understand that.
The UN did create Israel; the land was released from the League of Nations/British governance in 1948 and handed over to the new ‘state of Israel’. Israel didn’t exist before then. It was not an internal self-generated development.
Yes, you ought to define the term ‘civilized’. I don’t know what you mean by it. Are you defining some people as ‘civilized’ and others as ‘uncivilized’? Explain. If I ask people to define terms, it’s because definitions are important.
You don’t seem to understand the difference between a civic democratic governance aligned with an industrial economy – and its effect when imported into a region dominated by a tribal non-democratic governance aligned with a peasant agricultural economy. The two don’t mix.
Civilized: “Socially, politically and technologically advanced”.
There, now it should be a simple operation to differentiate between A) the Israelis, and B) those who strap bombs to their children.
nemo2 – your definition is not relevant. You didn’t use it in the first place. And sorry, but it’s a useless definition.
What does ‘socially advanced’ mean? What does ‘politically advanced’ mean? I didn’t know that societies were on some linear scale of evolution; that went out with the dust of colonial 19th century Theories of Social Evolution.
A) ‘Socially Advanced’? How about ‘not some screaming rabble who would rather tear things down than build them up’?
B) ‘Politically Advanced’? Those who would prefer to live sociably with their neighbors within a democratic framework rather than be ruled by thugs who…….see ‘A’ above.
And…although you might subscribe to the ludicrous idea that “All ‘cultures’ are equal”, and “everyone has a valid opinion”, there ARE degrees of social evolution, and many in the Arab world prove daily that they continue to lag behind.
This is difficult to understand: Heil Herr Doktor Josef Mengele: Incoming. …-
Daily Kos: Imagine a World Without Israel
More blatant antisemitism at Daily Kos: Imagine a world without Israel. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
Or is that not allowed?
Muslims, Jews, and Christians could live in peace without fear of mutual destruction. …-
LGF
Ha’aretz Daily has a nice article on the failures of the ‘three attempts’. The End of the Third Way.
First way was to settle the entire land, occupy the land, don’t recognize the Palestinians. That didn’t work. The Palestinians didn’t disappear but ‘morphed’ from a population of about 500,000 in 1945 to about 4 million now.
Second way, acceptance of them. I find this puzzling; this could only have come with the end of the occupation, the removal of the settlements – and – the end of both Arafat and Sharon. After all, Arafat had no intention of a Palestinian state as he would lose power, and Sharon was busy settling the land. Possibly the author is referring to the Oslo Accords but they were only about municipal self-governance, and not about recognizing a Palestinian state.
Then, the Third way – complete separation. Leave, build a wall, forget they are there.
That also isn’t working.
So- what is the Fourth Way? He doesn’t know, but I think that it must involve the mov’t of the rest of the ME states out of tribalism and into democracy. Note that at the moment, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are silent. I can’t imagine they like what Syria and Iran are doing.
Captain’s Quarters has a nice analysis that, as Kate also pointed out, Iran has set the whole thing up deliberately. The agenda is to somehow establish Iranian dominance in the ME. He is suggesting that the whole idea might be to start a regional war. Maybe, just maybe, this might be a catalyst for the enforced change to democracy.
any bets when Isreal will “plop” something down in Iran.
or will Iran fly something over Isreal first and get “plopped”
am I happy I did my mideast tour last year. oddest place Ive ever been, guarded borders but peoples of every race and creed on every side of every border.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Point of launch not given.
If so, Iran has taken off the glove. …-
Missile Attack on Haifa
A barrage of Katyusha rockets has been launched at northern Israel, and for the first time one has reached the city of Haifa: One dead in Katyusha barrage in Nahariya and Safed.
CNN has reported that at least one of the weapons was a long-range ballistic missile (not just a Katyusha rocket), fired by Iranian guards. …-
LGF
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Thursday night that, “We expected Hizbullah to break the rules, and now we intend to break them.
“We do not mean for this event to end when the situation returns to how things were a few days ago,” he said.
The IDF is not amused and will be breaking open a can of whoop ass. I would not want to be on the receiving end.
LGF
A CF Airbus? Let me clear: PM is not aboard a Challenger jet. Where are those albatrosses? The Librano$ snucked ’em out of Bombardier; 3 at a time. PM fundamentally does not use them. Tsk, tsk.
Clearly, PM is snuck into London; there to consort with you-know-who. He is snucky, clearly. …-
“Israel has the right to defend itself,” the prime minister told reporters aboard a Canadian Forces Airbus en route to London, where he’s starting a week-long diplomatic mission. …-
free republic