Reply #81: a short history of "arab agression" [View All]

[StandWatie]

Leaving aside 1948 because the motivations of Israeli acceptance, Arab resistance, and exactly what this would have meant to Jews and Arabs in the wrong area they were partitioned into make it too complex a subject to assign a category of "aggressor, you can start with the Suez War where Israel not only clearly was the agressor but an eager agent of the French and British vs. Egypt.

1967 was also an instant where Israel attacked first, you can argue that it was "pre-emptive" but there is contradictory evidence including a Soviet ambassador who led Nasser to believe that he be cut off if he attacked Israel and gave Nasser assurances that Israel was being given the same message by his American counterpart.

1973 was without a doubt aggressive but it's a very misunderstood war. Yom Kippur or the Rammadan war was viewed in Egypt as a great victory because in the aftermath Israel and the US revised their calculus that Egypt and the rest of the Arab states wishes could be written off because the Arabs couldn't fight.

Lebanon was without a doubt a particularly nasty piece of Israeli aggression and it's widely speculated that it was motivated by a hysterical fear that the PLO would be able to hold it's two year long ceasefire and Israel would have to negotiate with the Palestinians it had thus far claimed didn't exist and wasn't party to the conflict in the middle east.

Since your premise is that non-violence would be successful (and I'm not really arguing, I don't know the answer to that question) take a look at the last two wars. Egypt didn't get anything out of Israel by being nice, they made their point with force and later on completely discredited the Egyptian intellectuals and columnists who were completely behind a peace agreement because Israel just used as a wedge to seperate Egypt from the rest of the region and attack Lebanon without a worry from Egyptian force so they could crush the new, more dangerous PLO for the sin of being passive.

As far as why they just don't leave for other Arab nations, that's precisely the position of Hamas: The Jews came from Europe, there are many European nations, they were the ones who created Hitler, let them take care of their fellow europeans. It's a measure of insane pro-Israeli bias in this country that Hamas are insane fanatics but the position you have taken would be seen as quite moderate.