Worm Was Perfect for Sabotaging Centrifuges

[Elok]

Yup. Nothing at all.

Israel would be attacking Iran if Iran was filled with Jews as well, right?

Do you mean followers of the Jewish religion, or people of Jewish ethnicity?

[Asher]

Yeah, if those Jews were trying to destroy Israel they would.

Are you slowing seeing the point?

Why does Iran "want Israel destroyed"?
Why does Israel "want Iran destroyed"?

Answer is...?

[Asher]

Do you mean followers of the Jewish religion, or people of Jewish ethnicity?

It doesn't matter.

[Elok]

Are you slowing seeing the point?

Why does Iran "want Israel destroyed"?
Why does Israel "want Iran destroyed"?

Answer is...?

...COMPLICATED! AFAICT, Iran talks about wiping Israel off the map (or at least their President does, who knows what the hell the clerics want) because it's what pretty much everyone else in the region, aside from Israel itself, would like to do. That, and it's extremely inflammatory and stupid, so it gets good press. The reason everybody else hates Israel is also complicated, but appears to be a general result of the country being founded extremely rapidly on land whose ownership status was ambiguous at best. Oh, and then just-as-rapidly populated by large numbers of foreigners belonging to an ethnicity that had been regarded with suspicion for centuries. Then there were a series of clumsy attempts to drive out the new neighbors, and the new neighbors responded with increasingly hamhanded retaliations of their own. This has been going on for about sixty years now, so everybody's good and pissed.

Or so it seems to me. Religious differences do a lot to exacerbate the problem, of course, but they're hardly the whole story.

[Elok]

It doesn't matter.

For the sake of the present argument, yes it does, because many people of Jewish descent do not observe their ancestral religion.

[Asher]

...COMPLICATED! AFAICT, Iran talks about wiping Israel off the map (or at least their President does, who knows what the hell the clerics want) because it's what pretty much everyone else in the region, aside from Israel itself, would like to do. That, and it's extremely inflammatory and stupid, so it gets good press. The reason everybody else hates Israel is also complicated, but appears to be a general result of the country being founded extremely rapidly on land whose ownership status was ambiguous at best. Oh, and then just-as-rapidly populated by large numbers of foreigners belonging to an ethnicity that had been regarded with suspicion for centuries. Then there were a series of clumsy attempts to drive out the new neighbors, and the new neighbors responded with increasingly hamhanded retaliations of their own. This has been going on for about sixty years now, so everybody's good and pissed.

Or so it seems to me. Religious differences do a lot to exacerbate the problem, of course, but they're hardly the whole story.

They are undoubtedly the root of any story involving Israel.

It was founded where it was because of religion. It's surrounded by other religions hostile to its religion.

[Asher]

For the sake of the present argument, yes it does, because many people of Jewish descent do not observe their ancestral religion.

No, it doesn't matter because you and I both know Israel would not attack another country of Jews -- religion or not.

Just listen to HC talk. It's Arabs vs Jews, not necessarily Israel vs Iran.

[Elok]

Well, Iranians aren't Arabs in the first place, and last I checked you were arguing that religion is THE reason behind the Israeli conflict, so whether you're talking about the belief system or the ethnicity is extremely relevant. Are you just trolling now?

[Asher]

Well, Iranians aren't Arabs in the first place, and last I checked you were arguing that religion is THE reason behind the Israeli conflict, so whether you're talking about the belief system or the ethnicity is extremely relevant.

Religion is the root cause, so much so that ethnicity no longer matters. The conflict started with religion and has spread to a hatred of the people.

Are you just trolling now?

Always.

[rah]

I actually think it's more Israel vs those that proclaim in public that they want Israel removed from the map. That would make me defensive a touch also. Unfortunately Israel has taken that paranoia to such an extreme that they thing think they're justified to do almost whatever they want. Not always the brightest thing. While Yes, I believe they should tone it down to see if it would help, as long as the opposite side spends it days vowing to eradicate all of them, it makes being reasonable quite difficult.

[Asher]

Iran can vow all it wants, we all know nothing will happen. It's all just political posturing.

Same reason politician vow to balance the budget, but never do.

[Al B. Sure!]

So I guess HC has no response to Israel's Lebanese activities? Are we all in agreement that Israel has been wrong for three decades of ****ing with tiny little Lebanon which is also the only successful democracy and religiously pluralistic nation in the Arab world?

It should be noted that Lebanon was an issue in which the US did NOT back Israel and that there were high diplomatic tensions between the US and Israel over Israeli activities in Lebanon.

[dannubis]

Dude... was you mean...

[Elok]

Well, at least you're honest about trolling. Guess I'll bite a little longer.

They are undoubtedly the root of any story involving Israel.

It was founded where it was because of religion. It's surrounded by other religions hostile to its religion.

It was founded where it was because where it was, was the historical site of the Kingdom of Israel about 2K-odd years earlier. It was founded when it was because Hitler had just finished exterminating six million people of Jewish ethnicity. Not religion, ethnicity. Israel was founded as a homeland for the Jewish race, the idea being that if they were no longer a people without a country, they wouldn't be so helpless in the future. The statement that it was founded there "because of religion" seems to have nothing backing it up.

Antagonism to Hebrews is a longstanding thing in the ME. Check out the Arabian Nights, Jews there are like bastards in Shakespeare. Every single one is a sleazy cheat, and I don't think it's because they call their Allah "Jehovah." It's because, like many modern Arabs (I've talked to a few Arabs--albeit Christian Arabs I know through church), they thought Israelites were intrinsically dishonest slimeballs.

[Al B. Sure!]

In February, the understanding with the Israelis over boundaries and the conduct of patrols--which was thought to be a settled matter--was found to be not so clearly understood as originally thought. The single-most notable demonstration of this lack of understanding occurred on 2 February, when three israeli tanks attempted to go through Captain Charles B. Johnson's Company L position.

At about 0800, from his observation post, Captain Johnson, together with the advance party of the British MNF contingent,27 observed an Israeli patrol coming up Old Sidon Road from the south. This was normal. Half an hour later, he spotted a north-to-south patrol, which also was normal. It consisted of three tanks, two armored personnel carriers (APCs), and dismounted troops. "Again, we're seeing them about 3,000 meters off. We could see that far, all the way down the Sidon Road."28

The only thing that was unusual about this patrol was that the troops ere dismounted, for the Israeli patrols in the previous two weeks had all been mounted. Captain Johnson] then went on to say:

. . . sometime between 0830 and 0900, one of my surveillance people . . . spotted three additional tanks coming on the road . . . the one they had built along the railroad tracks, and then they [the tanks] broke off the road and they continued up the railroad tracks right up to the edge of the university grounds. . . . That's when I knew something was up. There were three tanks road. . . There was no tactical reason for them to do that. . . . They brought tanks right through the middle of Shuwayfat, which is a Muslim area and it's relatively dangerous to do that.29
What Captain Johnson had spotted were three tanks ng from the north and three tanks coming from the south. He couldn't see them when they were in the town, but they were spotted shortly after as they left it and broke through the orchard on the western side of the Sidon Road into the buffer zone between the road and the university. The tanks were heading for a section of the fence where Captain johnson had confronted an APC-mounted Israeli patrol on 20 January. The COmpany L commander quickly got in his jeep and went to the spot the tanks were approaching. Captain Johnson didn't think that:

. . . they would actually try to come through a joint Marine-lebanese checkpoint like that. But once it developed, I was very concerned that if the tanks were allowed to move forward, there was a very dangerous situation, because the road they were on . . . went right through the heart of the
--45--
university . . . divided the Marine company and the Lebanese company.30
Johnson feared that if the tanks attempted to pass, a firefight might erupt between the Lebanese and the Israelis. If a fight ensued, the Marines would have to support the lebanese. He wasn't worried about the Marines' fire discipline, but he was concerned about that of the Lebanese soldiers.

As the Israeli tanks approached the fence, Captain Johnson jumped out of his jeep, ran up to the tanks, and stood in the center of the road. The lead tank stopped about six inches in front of Johnson, would told the Israeli lieutenant colonel in the lead tank, "You will not pass through this position." After a short pause, the Israeli dismounted, spoke with Johnson, and then climbed back aboard the tank, saying that he was going through. Johnson later stated that he replied, "You will have to kill me first."31 He drew his pistol, chambered a round, and held the weapon at the ready position. There was another pause as the Israeli officer apparently spoke over his radio to his headquarters. The lead tank then pulled slowly to the side of the road with Captain Johnson walking alongside and then the two others suddenly revved up their engines and whipped forward toward the fence.

The young Marine captain jumped on the lead tank, grabbed the Israeli officer, and yelled at him to order his tanks halted. The tank commander complied and then purportedly told Johnson, "One thing we don't want to do is kill each other." Johnson answered, "Yes, but if you keep doing things like this, the likelihood is going to occur."32

While the local Arab radio stations were telling and retelling the story of the American who stopped the three Israeli tanks singlehandedly, the Israeli press was accusing Captain Johnson of having liquor on his breath and being drunk. Worse, they called the whole affair a misunderstanding on the part of the Marines. Confronted by evidence, among other things, that Johnson was a teetotaler, the Israelis quickly toned down, and finally stopped such comments when they saw they were not going to be given credence.

On March 14, 1983, then Commandant of Marine Corps, General R. H. Barrow, sent a letter to the secretary of defense in which...

There was, he wrote, a systematic pattern of harassment by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that was resulting in “life-threatening situations, replete with verbal degradation of the officers, their uniform and country.”

Barrow’s letter added: “It is inconceivable to me why Americans serving in peacekeeping roles must be harassed, endangered by an ally...It is evident to me, and the opinion of the U.S. commanders afloat and ashore, that the incidents between the Marines and the IDF are timed, orchestrated, and executed for obtuse Israeli political purposes.”

Israel didn't appreciate that the Multi-National Force in Lebanon was a peace-keeping force working with the Lebanese Army and evacuating PLO members, the second time in which the US supported the evacuation of PLO members out of Lebanon when the IDF was seeking to kill them.


You know that Israel is really ****ing up when the US takes a stand against Israel