P01135809 goes after "Liberal Jews" on Jewish New Year

[Dill]

(09-26-2023, 05:30 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Of course, you ignore that this war was started by the other side, with the intent to destroy the state of Israel (a goal still claimed by the current terror state of Iran).  Hence you are flat out lying when you label Israel as the "aggressor nation".  Comparing Israel to the Axis powers in this regard is peak disingenuous behavior from you.  And I'm not a fan of Israel's foreign policy, at all.  

Then the whole world is "flat out lying"--except for Israel and the US right.

I've found people who come of the gate on issues like this shouting "liar" usually don't know much about
Middle East history, or international law, or how the latter applies to cases in the Israeli-Arab conflict,
though they may have strong ideological investments in one side.

The 1982 UN Resolution on Golan definitely labels Israel the aggressor--
a state which has seized territory by war, retained it against international law and annexed it.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/21/world/un-resolution-on-golan.html

Axis violations of sovereign states' integrity defined the post war legal framework for addressing
war instituted by the UN and supported by other international bodies like the International
Red Cross and the International Criminal Court. The statutes involved in the Golan situation are
same ones currently invoked in the international condemnation of Russia's aggression in Ukraine.

I don't "ignore" anything about the Six-Day, which began with a surprise attack on Egypt.
But it would not matter if Egypt, or Syria, had struck first.

When the war is over, it is illegal to continue occupying
another state's territory, and then to annex it. End of story. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(09-26-2023, 07:48 PM)Dill Wrote: Then the whole world is "flat out lying"--except for Israel and the US right.

I've found people who come of the gate on issues like this shouting "liar" usually don't know much about
Middle East history, or international law, or how the latter applies to cases in the Israeli-Arab conflict,
though they may have strong ideological investments in one side.

The 1982 UN Resolution on Golan definitely labels Israel the aggressor--
a state which has seized territory by war, retained it against international law and annexed it.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/21/world/un-resolution-on-golan.html

Axis violations of sovereign states' integrity defined the post war legal framework for addressing
war instituted by the UN and supported by other international bodies like the International
Red Cross and the International Criminal Court. The statutes involved in the Golan situation are
same ones currently invoked in the international condemnation of Russia's aggression in Ukraine.

I don't "ignore" anything about the Six-Day, which began with a surprise attack on Egypt.
But it would not matter if Egypt, or Syria, had struck first.

When the war is over, it is illegal to continue occupying
another state's territory, and then to annex it. End of story. 

In modern day terms, the Arab nations FAFO'd.  This kind of thing will happen when you use proxies to attack your enemies without declaring war.  Also mobilizing your military and expecting the defender to sit on their thumbs is a poor strategy.  You're firmly on record as excusing any excesses by the Muslim majority nations in this conflict, so your biased opinion is noted and safely relegated to inconsequential.  

Odd that you continue to ignore the stated objective of eliminating Israel as a nation.  I'm sure that's just an innocent omission on your part.

[Dill]

(09-26-2023, 08:05 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: In modern day terms, the Arab nations FAFO'd.  This kind of thing will happen when you use proxies to attack your enemies without declaring war.  Also mobilizing your military and expecting the defender to sit on their thumbs is a poor strategy.  You're firmly on record as excusing any excesses by the Muslim majority nations in this conflict, so your biased opinion is noted and safely relegated to inconsequential.  
Odd that you continue to ignore the stated objective of eliminating Israel as a nation.  I'm sure that's just an innocent omission on your part.

Sounds like you are, obliquely, admitting that Israel did strike first (but that was ok!!),
without denying the consistency of the UN condemnation with international law,
though you nevertheless dismiss the factual record I reported as inconsequential "biased opinion,"
because I am supposedly "on record" somewhere "as excusing any excesses by Muslim majority nations."

Perhaps the claim then is that these points cannot therefore be "consequential" or even factual:
1) that international law forbids annexing land taken in war,
2) that Israel annexed land taken in war, and 
3) that the UN condemned Israel for just that, naming it an "aggressor."

You aren't calling the reported legal application a "flat out lie" anymore. Maybe it never was?   

Odd that the UN condemnation omitted any "stated objective of eliminating Israel as a nation" as well.
Surely an "innocent omission" on their part, because recognizing that would surely have changed  . . . what?

My guess is--nothing concerning the application of international law.  

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(09-27-2023, 11:07 PM)Dill Wrote: Sounds like you are, obliquely, admitting that Israel did strike first (but that was ok!!),
without denying the consistency of the UN condemnation with international law,

Actually, no.  I specifically mentioned the irregular forces being used against Israel prior to the military mobilization of their neighbors with obvious hostile intent.  Here's a source for you.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War

Prior to the start of the war, attacks conducted against Israel by fledgling Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan had increased, leading to costly Israeli reprisals. 

These are the irregular forces I mentioned.  Putin didn't invent the "little green men" strategy.  So, no, Israel did not start the conflict, those directly aiding the irregular forces and those forces themselves did.  

As for Israel formally striking first, I'd compare that to if the US knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance and ambushed the Japanese navy en route to Hawaii.

Quote:though you nevertheless dismiss the factual record I reported as inconsequential "biased opinion,"
because I am supposedly "on record" somewhere "as excusing any excesses by Muslim majority nations."

Perhaps the claim then is that these points cannot therefore be "consequential" or even factual:
1) that international law forbids annexing land taken in war,

When is Poland returning Danzig and East Prussia to Germany then?  Is this why Obama did almost nothing when Russia annexed the Crimea?

Quote:2) that Israel annexed land taken in war, and 

They did indeed.  I have gone on record in this very forum stating that it would have been better for them long term if they had not.  But claiming that Israel started the conflict is 100% wrong.  They were constantly provoked by overtly hostile neighbors who specifically stated their intent.

Quote:3) that the UN condemned Israel for just that, naming it an "aggressor."


You aren't calling the reported legal application a "flat out lie" anymore. Maybe it never was?   

That happened in 1981, fourteen years after the war.  You make is sound like Israel was labelled the aggressor during the six days war.  This must be a mistake, because you would never do something so disingenuous.

Quote:Odd that the UN condemnation omitted any "stated objective of eliminating Israel as a nation" as well.
Surely an "innocent omission" on their part, because recognizing that would surely have changed  . . . what?

Is such an omission by you and them proof that that goal wasn't and still is, proclaimed by Israel's enemies?

Quote:My guess is--nothing concerning the application of international law.  

The funny thing is I'm not a huge fan of Israel or their foreign policy.  But you're so amazingly biased towards them that anyone with a sense of basic fairness would feel the need to set the record straight on their behalf.

[Dill]

(09-28-2023, 05:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Dill Wrote: Sounds like you are, obliquely, admitting that Israel did strike first (but that was ok!!),
without denying the consistency of the UN condemnation with international law,
Actually, no.  I specifically mentioned the irregular forces being used against Israel prior to the military mobilization of their neighbors with obvious hostile intent.  Here's a source for you.https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War
Prior to the start of the war, attacks conducted against Israel by fledgling Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan had increased, leading to costly Israeli reprisals.
These are the irregular forces I mentioned.  Putin didn't invent the "little green men" strategy.  So, no, Israel did not start the conflict, those directly aiding the irregular forces and those forces themselves did. 
As for Israel formally striking first, I'd compare that to if the US knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance and ambushed the Japanese navy ute to Hawaii.

Had the US driven hundreds of thousands of Japanese from Hawaii and then occupied it? Until you can factor that into your counter-history, the analogy is pretty one-sided.

EB says "Prior to the start of the war." Then clearly identifies Israel's "pre-emptive attacks" against Egypt and Syria as the start. You want to argue that "irregular forces/fledgling Palestinian guerilla groups" really started the war, even though Israel clearly struck first. But if you are correcting the record out of "basic fairness," can you explain why should those fledgling guerillas want to do that? What was their motivation? Israeli provocation doesn't count?

Your defense of Israel always been decidedly Israel-centric, according Israel a right to take and occupy land belonging to others that is generally denied every other nation. For defenders of international law based on human rights derived from a presumed natural equality, the fact that some Arab nations and Iran want to destroy the state of Israel is an effect of the right-to-occupy that you grant Israel, not a cause.  That's why I so often seem to "omit" discussion of that as a driver of Arab-Israeli conflict. 

The consensus of professional historians since the '90s has been that none of the major belligerents' leaders actually wanted the war. But a series of miscues and incompetent diplomacy and poor to non-existence intel lead all actors to react the way they did.

E.g., there is Richard Parker, who was a U.S. official in Egypt when the war started, but is also an actual historian.

Richard B. Parker. The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Indiana University Press, 1993) and The Six Day War: A Retrospective (University Press of Florida, 1996).
A short cut: Before The Politics of Miscalculation, Parker wrote this essay which goes over the range of conspiracies about who started the war--The US, Syria, The Soviets, Israel, and Egypt. It's shorter than a book and covers a wide range of "causes" seen from different sides. Why read about "conspiracies"? As the conspiracies are book-based and dredge up a great deal of factual information, the essay gives one a comprehensive introduction to all the factors/lines of force that went into the "provocations" assumed by all sides and the actions which followed the very same logic. (E.g., Egypt's belief, thanks to a communique from the Soviets, that the Israeli's were massing for an attack. Perhaps they were thinking of Pearl Harbor too.) https://www.palquest.org/sites/default/files/The_June_War_Whose_Conspiracy-Richard_B._Parker.pdf

As time has proven the consequences of the war ever more problematic for Israel, Israeli historians have offered sterner assessments of their own leadership. E.g., Tom Segev's 1967 (2007) and Guy Laron's Six-Day War: Breaking the Middle-East (2017), place much more responsibility on the Israeli general staff for provoking the war (without letting Syria off the hook either) . (All books I've mentioned are on Amazon.)

(09-28-2023, 05:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: When is Poland returning Danzig and East Prussia to Germany then?  Is this why Obama did almost nothing when Russia annexed the Crimea?

Obama certainly wasn't going to invade a nuclear power. But he did lead the EU in organizing a sanctions regime and began the diplomatic isolation of Russia. Only NK and Syria have recognized the annexation. He did more about that violation than the US has done about Israel, for sure. It's not only Dems in the House and Senate.

Did Poland seize Danzig and East Prussia in an aggressive war? There are Israeli apologists who make a similar argument, hoping to construct a false equivalence. I think their intended audience is not people familiar with the legal principle actually applied to these rather different cases. These are generally the same people who argue that the occupation of the West Bank cannot be an occupation because the Palestinians were not previously a sovereign people etc. Meantime they are still human beings under brutal control of a hostile state, still settling their land by force.  But Iran . . .!

[Dill]

(09-28-2023, 05:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:2) that Israel annexed land taken in war, and

They did indeed.  I have gone on record in this very forum stating that it would have been better for them long term if they had not.  But claiming that Israel started the conflict is 100% wrong.  They were constantly provoked by overtly hostile neighbors who specifically stated their intent.

I don't see how it can be "100%" wrong if 1) Israel struck the first blow and, as I note in the previous posts and your source agrees, 2) there is no consensus even among Israeli historians that they did, because Israel was also constantly provoking it's neighbors before it also struck the first blow.

But your insistence it is 100% wrong arises from your "basic sense of fairness" and "need to set the record straight"? Whatever record that is, it doesn't seem to reflect the consensus of historians about the Six-Day War.  

(09-28-2023, 05:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You aren't calling the reported legal application a "flat out lie" anymore. Maybe it never was?  

That happened in 1981, fourteen years after the war.  You make is sound like Israel was labelled the aggressor during the six days war.  This must be a mistake, because you would never do something so disingenuous.

Is such an omission by you and them proof that that goal wasn't and still is, proclaimed by Israel's enemies?

I responded to LSUfan's statement on the annexation of the Golan Heights, explaining why the annexation violated international law, and why Israel is viewed as the aggressor there by the rest of the world. Fourteen years after the war it still did that.

You decided that my clear factual statement of the legal decision was a "flat out lie," and all "disingenuous"  and "amazingly biased" if not buttressed by reference to "Palestinian guerrillas" and a "but Iran!" Like the UN, I "omitted" factors could which play no role in the 1981 decision. If you know what Iran thinks, then you exempt Israel from the law?

None of which makes what I said a "flat out lie" since the law is what it is and Israels actions were what they were and the UN correctly assessed the annexation according to law, knowing full what what Iran thinks. Yet you appear to have decided something is "disingenuous" about this factual reporting of facts, because in your view Israel was not an aggressor, regardless of the law. 

So where are you on this now. Do you still say I just "flat out lied" when I described the UN decision as it is without mentioning Iran?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(09-29-2023, 09:46 PM)Dill Wrote: Had the US driven hundreds of thousands of Japanese from Hawaii and then occupied it? Until you can factor that into your counter-history, the analogy is pretty one-sided.

First off, congratulations on finally getting your post right on the seventh try.  Truly impressive.  As usual, your counter question is typically disingenuous.  Who once occupied the land doesn't change whether a sovereign nation was being attacked.  You're trying to justify aggression after being correctly called out for incorrectly labeling the aggressor nation(s).

Quote:EB says "Prior to the start of the war." Then clearly identifies Israel's "pre-emptive attacks" against Egypt and Syria as the start. You want to argue that "irregular forces/fledgling Palestinian guerilla groups" really started the war, even though Israel clearly struck first. But if you are correcting the record out of "basic fairness," can you explain why should those fledgling guerillas want to do that? What was their motivation? Israeli provocation doesn't count?

Uh, yeah.  This question wasn't needed because I said exactly that.  Israel's enemies were directly using and aiding irregular forces to attack Israel, constantly.  The motivation for the irregular forces is entirely irrelevant and just further evidence of your desire to justify the attacks on Israel in the first place.  Hence you being correctly labeled an Israel hater and your desire to label them as the aggressor when they clearly were not.  You even lied about the UN resolution, making it sound like it labeled Israel the aggressor in the war when it was passed fourteen years later.  In short, you have nothing but lies and deliberate obfuscation.

Quote:Your defense of Israel always been decidedly Israel-centric, according Israel a right to take and occupy land belonging to others that is generally denied every other nation. For defenders of international law based on human rights derived from a presumed natural equality, the fact that some Arab nations and Iran want to destroy the state of Israel is an effect of the right-to-occupy that you grant Israel, not a cause.  That's why I so often seem to "omit" discussion of that as a driver of Arab-Israeli conflict. 

Actually, my defense of Israel is solely in response to your entirely biased attacks on them and your lies about the war.  You lie, I call out your lies.  In this case that amounts to defending Israel as they were the ones you lied, and continue to lie, about.

Quote:The consensus of professional historians since the '90s has been that none of the major belligerents' leaders actually wanted the war. But a series of miscues and incompetent diplomacy and poor to non-existence intel lead all actors to react the way they did.

E.g., there is Richard Parker, who was a U.S. official in Egypt when the war started, but is also an actual historian.

Richard B. Parker. The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Indiana University Press, 1993) and The Six Day War: A Retrospective (University Press of Florida, 1996).
A short cut: Before The Politics of Miscalculation, Parker wrote this essay which goes over the range of conspiracies about who started the war--The US, Syria, The Soviets, Israel, and Egypt. It's shorter than a book and covers a wide range of "causes" seen from different sides. Why read about "conspiracies"? As the conspiracies are book-based and dredge up a great deal of factual information, the essay gives one a comprehensive introduction to all the factors/lines of force that went into the "provocations" assumed by all sides and the actions which followed the very same logic. (E.g., Egypt's belief, thanks to a communique from the Soviets, that the Israeli's were massing for an attack. Perhaps they were thinking of Pearl Harbor too.) https://www.palquest.org/sites/default/files/The_June_War_Whose_Conspiracy-Richard_B._Parker.pdf

Cool story.  If the Arab nations didn't want a war then they should have stopped aiding and directly assisting the irregular forces attacking Israel from within their own borders.  If their goal was to avoid war then they did a horrifically shitty job of it.

Quote:As time has proven the consequences of the war ever more problematic for Israel, Israeli historians have offered sterner assessments of their own leadership. E.g., Tom Segev's 1967 (2007) and Guy Laron's Six-Day War: Breaking the Middle-East (2017), place much more responsibility on the Israeli general staff for provoking the war (without letting Syria off the hook either) . (All books I've mentioned are on Amazon.)

Oh, if one book said it then it's true, right?  I mean I'm sure there no books that take the opposite opinion.  Not that you'd bother ever searching for or reading them.  Regardless, here is a much better book with a much more balanced view of things, hence your not mentioning it.

https://www.amazon.com/Six-Days-War-Making-Modern/dp/0345461924

Quote:Obama certainly wasn't going to invade a nuclear power. But he did lead the EU in organizing a sanctions regime and began the diplomatic isolation of Russia. Only NK and Syria have recognized the annexation. He did more about that violation than the US has done about Israel, for sure. It's not only Dems in the House and Senate.

So nothing, go it.  I mean he did so much that Putin couldn't wait for another Dem in the White House to invade the whole country this time.  Obama really put him on his heels.

Quote:Did Poland seize Danzig and East Prussia in an aggressive war?

Before the war they weren't part of Poland, after the war they were.  Germany lost, Poland gained territory from Germany.  I guess consistency is not your strong suit.

Quote:There are Israeli apologists who make a similar argument, hoping to construct a false equivalence. I think their intended audience is not people familiar with the legal principle actually applied to these rather different cases. These are generally the same people who argue that the occupation of the West Bank cannot be an occupation because the Palestinians were not previously a sovereign people etc. Meantime they are still human beings under brutal control of a hostile state, still settling their land by force.  But Iran . . .!

Your entire premise is based on deliberate misrepresentation.  Your posts are so poor in this regard it takes you multiple times to get your BS straight before you don't delete what you just posted.

(09-29-2023, 09:54 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't see how it can be "100%" wrong if 1) Israel struck the first blow and, as I note in the previous posts and your source agrees, 2) there is no consensus even among Israeli historians that they did, because Israel was also constantly provoking it's neighbors before it also struck the first blow.

Nope, the irregular forces striking from Palestine, Joran and Syria struck the first blows.  Your constant ignoring of this point doesn't make your argument stronger.

Quote:But your insistence it is 100% wrong arises from your "basic sense of fairness" and "need to set the record straight"? Whatever record that is, it doesn't seem to reflect the consensus of historians about the Six-Day War.  

Your perception of these events is so flawed, as illustrated above, I'd be concerned if you agreed with me.

Quote:I responded to LSUfan's statement on the annexation of the Golan Heights, explaining why the annexation violated international law, and why Israel is viewed as the aggressor there by the rest of the world. Fourteen years after the war it still did that.

Then why did you frame it as the UN condemning Israel as the aggressor in the Six Days War?  Because you are disingenuous and hope you won't get called out.  These conversations tickle me as they consistently melt away at your façade of impartial intellectualism.  

Quote:You decided that my clear factual statement of the legal decision was a "flat out lie," and all "disingenuous"  and "amazingly biased" if not buttressed by reference to "Palestinian guerrillas" and a "but Iran!" Like the UN, I "omitted" factors could which play no role in the 1981 decision. If you know what Iran thinks, then you exempt Israel from the law?

Did I ever say Israel was above the law?  

Quote:None of which makes what I said a "flat out lie" since the law is what it is and Israels actions were what they were and the UN correctly assessed the annexation according to law, knowing full what what Iran thinks. Yet you appear to have decided something is "disingenuous" about this factual reporting of facts, because in your view Israel was not an aggressor, regardless of the law. 

You're disingenuous as you consistently ignore the aggressive vitriol directed against Israel, all the while trying to spin them as the aggressors.  I have to reiterate, I'm not even a fan of Israeli foreign policy, but your arguments against them are so flawed and biased that any fair minded person would feel compelled to correct them

Quote:So where are you on this now. Do you still say I just "flat out lied" when I described the UN decision as it is without mentioning Iran?

A lie by omission is a lie.  You consistently omit provocations against Israel, hence you are lying by omission.  So yes, deal with it.  Take another seven attempts at a response before finally getting it right.  I'll still be here.

[Dill]

(09-29-2023, 10:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: The consensus of professional historians since the '90s has been that none of the major belligerents' leaders actually wanted the war. But a series of miscues and incompetent diplomacy and poor to non-existence intel lead all actors to react the way they did.
E.g., there is Richard Parker, who was a U.S. official in Egypt when the war started, but is also an actual historian.
Richard B. Parker. The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Indiana University Press, 1993) and The Six Day War: A Retrospective (University Press of Florida, 1996). 
As time has proven the consequences of the war ever more problematic for Israel, Israeli historians have offered sterner assessments of their own leadership. E.g., Tom Segev's 1967 (2007) and Guy Laron's Six-Day War: Breaking the Middle-East (2017), place much more responsibility on the Israeli general staff for provoking the war (without letting Syria off the hook either) . (All books I've mentioned are on Amazon.)

Oh, if one book said it then it's true, right?  I mean I'm sure there no books that take the opposite opinion.  Not that you'd bother ever searching for or reading them.  Regardless, here is a much better book with a much more balanced view of things, hence your not mentioning it.

https://www.amazon.com/Six-Days-War-Making-Modern/dp/0345461924

I mention three historians there. And I originally included the Oren book too, along with some others, but thought my post was getting too long. How would you know whether it was more "balanced" than the other books? 

Here's why I would include Oren in the CONSENSUS I mentioned above that none of the major belligerents wanted war. 
The Revelations of 1967: New Research on the Six Day War and Its Lessons for the Contemporary Middle East (jhu.edu) In this article from Israel Studies, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer 2005, pp. 1-14, for example, he traces the causes of the war to missed exchanges between Israel and Jordan which lead to an unnecessary patrol into Jordan and the deaths of 14 Jordanian soldiers on Jordanian soil, who happened upon the patrol. From that follow other miscues and hardening positions and disinformation from the Soviet Union. He never describes the causes of the war in your black/white Israel good guys/Arabs bad guys terms. 

I know about this consensus because I do bother ever searching for and reading other views. And I understand how scholarly consensus works in these matters, rather like it does for scientists. As some questions are considered settled, historians move on to new debates, which often open up with access to new information--as occurred in the case of Middle East scholarship when, after 30 years, scholars were granted access to previous closed files in Russia, the US, GB, Egypt and Israel. Also the late '90s saw a surge of memoirs and published interviews of participants. Like this interview with Moshe Dayan, who ordered the assault on the Golan Heights in 1967. He describes how they would illegally send farming equipment into the de-militarized zone to provoke Syrian "aggression," to which they could then respond with disproportionate force.

It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.'' General's Words Shed a New Light on the Golan - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

So it is not accurate to impute to me what you are actually doing: find a book you think confirms your "opinion," and then DONE. Perhaps without actually reading the book. Call all the rest "lies" as if the calling alone were proof.  My goal is rather to read a wide range of views on topics like this and compare them to develop the most accurate view possible of the historical events in question. You seem to be starting from what you "know" to be true and then arranging your reading and argument around that--dismissing all challenges as "lies," regardless of evidence. If you are unwilling to review this history, then it seems like you don't want an open discussion of the Golan annexation at all, but to shut down such discussion as risky to a preferred ideological consensus on the right. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(09-30-2023, 04:40 PM)Dill Wrote: I mention three historians there. And I originally included the Oren book too, along with some others, but thought my post was getting too long. How would you know whether it was more "balanced" than the other books? 

Here's why I would include Oren in the CONSENSUS I mentioned above that none of the major belligerents wanted war. 
The Revelations of 1967: New Research on the Six Day War and Its Lessons for the Contemporary Middle East (jhu.edu) In this article from Israel Studies, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer 2005, pp. 1-14, for example, he traces the causes of the war to missed exchanges between Israel and Jordan which lead to an unnecessary patrol into Jordan and the deaths of 14 Jordanian soldiers on Jordanian soil, who happened upon the patrol. From that follow other miscues and hardening positions and disinformation from the Soviet Union. He never describes the causes of the war in your black/white Israel good guys/Arabs bad guys terms. 

I know about this consensus because I do bother ever searching for and reading other views. And I understand how scholarly consensus works in these matters, rather like it does for scientists. As some questions are considered settled, historians move on to new debates, which often open up with access to new information--as occurred in the case of Middle East scholarship when, after 30 years, scholars were granted access to previous closed files in Russia, the US, GB, Egypt and Israel. Also the late '90s saw a surge of memoirs and published interviews of participants. Like this interview with Moshe Dayan, who ordered the assault on the Golan Heights in 1967. He describes how they would illegally send farming equipment into the de-militarized zone to provoke Syrian "aggression," to which they could then respond with disproportionate force.

It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.'' General's Words Shed a New Light on the Golan - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

So it is not accurate to impute to me what you are actually doing: find a book you think confirms your "opinion," and then DONE. Perhaps without actually reading the book. Call all the rest "lies" as if the calling alone were proof.  My goal is rather to read a wide range of views on topics like this and compare them to develop the most accurate view possible of the historical events in question. You seem to be starting from what you "know" to be true and then arranging your reading and argument around that--dismissing all challenges as "lies," regardless of evidence. If you are unwilling to review this history, then it seems like you don't want an open discussion of the Golan annexation at all, but to shut down such discussion as risky to a preferred ideological consensus on the right. 

Classic Dill logic.  Incidents in which "farming equipment" was used to provoke an armed response completely cancels out all the other blatant acts of aggression by non-standard forces against Israel.  Where were these forces based out of?  Who was supplying and aiding them?  Nah, that's not important, what is important is that farming equipment is a provocation that literally anyone would be compelled to shoot at.  And that negates absolutely everything else.

Sorry, Dill, your bias is extreme on this issue.  But this isn't new information. 

[Dill]

(09-29-2023, 10:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Had the US driven hundreds of thousands of Japanese from Hawaii and then occupied it? Until you can factor that into your counter-history, the analogy is pretty one-sided.
.... As usual, your counter question is typically disingenuous.  Who once occupied the land doesn't change whether a sovereign nation was being attacked.  You're trying to justify aggression after being correctly called out for incorrectly labeling the aggressor nation(s).

According to international law, it does matter. Especially if "who once occupied the land," the original owners, were driven from it by force. 

(09-29-2023, 10:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: EB says "Prior to the start of the war." Then clearly identifies Israel's "pre-emptive attacks" against Egypt and Syria as the start. You want to argue that "irregular forces/fledgling Palestinian guerilla groups" really started the war, even though Israel clearly struck first. But if you are correcting the record out of "basic fairness," can you explain why should those fledgling guerillas want to do that? What was their motivation? Israeli provocation doesn't count?

Uh, yeah.  This question wasn't needed because I said exactly that.  Israel's enemies were directly using and aiding irregular forces to attack Israel, constantly.  The motivation for the irregular forces is entirely irrelevant and just further evidence of your desire to justify the attacks on Israel in the first place.  Hence you being correctly labeled an Israel hater and your desire to label them as the aggressor when they clearly were not.  You even lied about the UN resolution, making it sound like it labeled Israel the aggressor in the war when it was passed fourteen years later.  In short, you have nothing but lies and deliberate obfuscation.

Was Moshe Dayan an "Israel hater"? in post #28 above I quote his account of how the IDF provoked Syians into "aggression" so they could respond with air strikes. He seems to think Israel was the aggressor there. 

The motivation of the "irregular forces" in this case is rather like that of the Sioux at the Little Bighorn. In 1876, the US government clearly viewed THEM as the aggressors, though not everyone agreed. They were defending their land from an aggressor who was taking it. In such cases, motivation is only irrelevant to the aggressor, but not to international law. You complain of "lying by omission," but this is a pretty big omission. The Palestinians had been driven from their homes by force. Anyone who buys a gun for home defense should understand their motivation to regain their homes.

(09-29-2023, 10:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:Did Poland seize Danzig and East Prussia in an aggressive war?
Before the war they weren't part of Poland, after the war they were.  Germany lost, Poland gained territory from Germany.  I guess consistency is not your strong suit.

So you are saying it doesn't matter if Poland didn't seize Danzig and East Prussia? The case is the same as Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan? 

Of course, no one else sees it that way. Poland didn't decide what territory it gained. The US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union did. Well, mostly the Soviet Union as both the Anglo countries protested at Potsdam, but couldn't really challenge it given the Soviet's de facto control of the territory. There was no UN yet. In any case, the cession of territory was not permanent until 1990, when Germany, finally fully independent, assented to its permanence. (Article 1
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201696/volume-1696-I-29226-English.pdf.)

Your conflation of these very different cases in defense of Israel's illegal seizure is a very common defense of Israeli aggression--listing all the times and places where countries have seized other's territory and gotten away with it. So just let Israel ignore the law too. But you ARE arguing against international law when you do that--either in principle or in pleading that Israel be excepted from it. 

What you call "deliberate misrepresentation" is just insistence on a broader comprehension of both historical fact and the framing of international law in opposition to a narrow, Israel-centric view of the Golan which accepts the Israeli version of the war without question and excludes all injury to Arab victims.

[Dill]

(09-30-2023, 04:53 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Classic Dill logic.  Incidents in which "farming equipment" was used to provoke an armed response completely cancels out all the other blatant acts of aggression by non-standard forces against Israel.  Where were these forces based out of?  Who was supplying and aiding them?  Nah, that's not important, what is important is that farming equipment is a provocation that literally anyone would be compelled to shoot at.  And that negates absolutely everything else.
Sorry, Dill, your bias is extreme on this issue.  But this isn't new information. 

You didn't get it. 

Dayan was explaining the cause of "blatant aggression" on the Heights--Israeli provocation, especially of the Syrian Army. 

He says he considered that Israel might be forced to return land seized by war, but thought that could be forstalled if enough Kibbutzim settled it
quickly. The goal was to expand Israeli territory by taking Syrian. That would displace Syrian farmers and create more "irregular forces," which he did not consider a serious threat. He didn't even consider the Syrians a threat. Dayan says:

''You don't strike at the enemy because he is a bastard, but because he threatens you. 
And the Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.''

"Aggression" by Palestinians seeking to get their homes back was eve more negligible in this context--though it appears to be the primary driver of everything for you.

An Israeli general tells us he provoked attacks on the Golan with an eye to seizing land, and you frame out any recognition of Israeli culpability in the ensuing violence as "extreme bias."  Looks to me like your views on the war and the annexation are impervious both to historical evidence and the law. 

[Dill]

(09-26-2023, 05:30 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Of course, you ignore that this war was started by the other side, with the intent to destroy the state of Israel (a goal still claimed by the current terror state of Iran).  Hence you are flat out lying when you label Israel as the "aggressor nation".  Comparing Israel to the Axis powers in this regard is peak disingenuous behavior from you.  And I'm not a fan of Israel's foreign policy, at all.  

(09-29-2023, 10:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: First off, congratulations on finally getting your post right on the seventh try.  Truly impressive.  As usual, your counter question is typically disingenuous.  Who once occupied the land doesn't change whether a sovereign nation was being attacked.  You're trying to justify aggression after being correctly called out for incorrectly labeling the aggressor nation(s).
Uh, yeah.  This question wasn't needed because I said exactly that.  Israel's enemies were directly using and aiding irregular forces to attack Israel, constantly.  The motivation for the irregular forces is entirely irrelevant and just further evidence of your desire to justify the attacks on Israel in the first place.  Hence you being correctly labeled an Israel hater and your desire to label them as the aggressor when they clearly were not.  You even lied about the UN resolution, making it sound like it labeled Israel the aggressor in the war when it was passed fourteen years later.  In short, you have nothing but lies and deliberate obfuscation.
Actually, my defense of Israel is solely in response to your entirely biased attacks on them and your lies about the war.  You lie, I call out your lies.  In this case that amounts to defending Israel as they were the ones you lied, and continue to lie, about.
Your entire premise is based on deliberate misrepresentation.  Your posts are so poor in this regard it takes you multiple times to get your BS straight before you don't delete what you just posted.
Then why did you frame it as the UN condemning Israel as the aggressor in the Six Days War?  Because you are disingenuous and hope you won't get called out.  These conversations tickle me as they consistently melt away at your façade of impartial intellectualism.  
You're disingenuous as you consistently ignore the aggressive vitriol directed against Israel, all the while trying to spin them as the aggressors.  I have to reiterate, I'm not even a fan of Israeli foreign policy, but your arguments against them are so flawed and biased that any fair minded person would feel compelled to correct them
A lie by omission is a lie.  You consistently omit provocations against Israel, hence you are lying by omission.  So yes, deal with it.  Take another seven attempts at a response before finally getting it right.  I'll still be here.

In case someone just happened on this thread and wonders what all the smoke is about, here is the original "lie": 

2) Why is recognizing Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights a bad thing? Because seizing another country's sovereign territory in war and claiming it for your own has been against international law since WWII, when the Axis powers set the standard for appropriating and occupying land of other nations. As I just reminded OtherMike, the US usually goes to war to stop that kind of thing. "Buffer zone" for the aggressor nation is not an acceptable reason for breaking an international law supposed to protect everyone.

My reference here is to the 1981 UN Resolution 497, which condemns Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, which is sovereign Syrian Territory. The original wording included this: "Israel's decision of 14 December 1981 to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, constitute an act of aggression under the provisions of Article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations." U.N. RESOLUTION ON GOLAN - The New York Times (nytimes.com).
The reference to "aggression" was stricken from the final version, apparently to get the US to sign on to the rest of the condemnation, which it did. Resolution 497 (unscr.com). 

This is another RULE OF LAW issue, only at the international level. So far as I know, the US is the only country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. LSUfan saw this as positive Trump accomplishment, though the rest of the world disagrees.

Israel argues that it was fighting a "defensive war" when it attacked Egypt in 1967, and so it is exempted from a law which it claims only applies only to "aggressor" nations. This is a contested definition of both the war and the law, though, even by many Israeli historians. 

What's hyperbolically called a "flat out lying lie" here is simply the rejection of Israel's self-definition as non-aggressor.

It is still the position of the entire UN, including allies like Britain and Canada, that the annexation is against international law, and sets a terrible precedent which may encourage nations to concoct "defensive" wars to acquire territory, as Putin is now doing. 
Security Council Members Regret Decision by United States to Recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over Occupied Syrian Golan | UN Press

So my original complaint to LSUfan was that US recognition of the annexation goes against international law, and makes the US the first country to endorse it and the moral hazard which follows if "defensive" wars can be used to gain territory. Mine is actually quite a respectable position in international debates over the annexation.  

Trump's scorn of international law here is  another reason why, in the coming presidential election, rule of law is at stake both at home and in our foreign policy. I take time to work through these legal and historical precedents because I am concerned that many voters may not recognize the stakes.