Mossad Chief: Israel becoming a burden for the USA

[Skeptic]

But you can't say why. Lot's of nations lease lands to other nations and it's no big deal. Why is it so awful in this case?

The Jews can be blamed.

 

[Thunder]

But you can't say why. Lot's of nations lease lands to other nations and it's no big deal. Why is it so awful in this case?

how's this?

let Palestine exist on 100% of the WB for 25 years. then, once that time period is up, if Palestine wants to lease some land to Israel, they will negotiate such a deal.

sounds good to me.

 

[Mycroft]

how's this?

let Palestine exist on 100% of the WB for 25 years. then, once that time period is up, if Palestine wants to lease some land to Israel, they will negotiate such a deal.

sounds good to me.

So you have no idea why it was proposed, you have no idea the terms of the proposal, and yet in total ignorance you're willing name it as the deal-breaker and blame Israel for the failure of these negotiations. That sounds fair to you?

Can you think of any reasons Israel thought it was a good idea to lease these lands?

 

[Thunder]

Can you think of any reasons Israel thought it was a good idea to lease these lands?

er....cause they didn't want to lose the Jordan Valley just yet?

oh, btw, at Taba, the 27% lease proposal was dropped.

so there..

 

[Mycroft]

er....cause they didn't want to lose the Jordan Valley just yet?

That sounds like a pretty good guess.

And from the Israeli point of view, that would solve a lot of problems.

Since Oslo, the Israeli perception is that negotiations only produce concessions from Israel in return for nothing from Palestinians. Delaying turning over of Jewish held-lands gives assurance that Israel isn't going to spend a ton of money moving and relocating their citizens only to see Palestinians redouble their efforts at war (like what happened in Gaza). Instead, they move people as they see Palestinians getting on with the business of building up their government structures and their economy, and they get to spread out the expense of relocating their citizens over a period of time.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

oh, btw, at Taba, the 27% lease proposal was dropped.

so there..

So with that deal-breaker removed, did peace ensue?

 

[Thunder]

So with that deal-breaker removed, did peace ensue?

nope. and do you know why??

thought not.

 

[Mycroft]

nope. and do you know why??

thought not.

I've a pretty good idea, but I'm going to guess you're going to lay the blame on Israel, right?

 

[Thunder]

I've a pretty good idea,

please...share.

 

[Darth Rotor]

how you figure?

Their 1973 war allowed some revision in approach to Russian monopulse and CW SAM's. Also demonstrated how Sagger (like TOW) can be successfully employed, which meant light infantry was not necessarily chowder for armor to feast upon.

There were other ways they helped us test out our weapons versus Sov weapons. You might want to look up the Great Turkey Shoot over Lebanon some day ...
Syria, with the help of the Soviet Union, had built up an overlapping network of surface-to-air missiles in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. On June 9, 1982 the Israeli Air Force carried out Operation Mole Cricket 19, crippling the Syrian air defence array. In subsequent aerial battles against the Syrian Air Force, the IAF managed to shoot down 80 Syrian aircraft without losing a single fighter plane in an air to air combat.

Seeing how to take down an IAD rig was valuable insight into what we had to deal with in

one might argue that America's support for Israel turned the Arab world against us. if not for Israel, the Arabs may have sided more with the West, rather than the USSR.

Disagree. Anti-imperialist sentiment in the 50's and 60's, as well as Arab nationalism, was very similar to Israeli nationalism, and not necessarily nationalism that had anything to do with the Pals. See Nasser's UAR dream, and the various ex imperial territories becoming sovereign nations.

You are viewing this IMO through a far too narrow, and recent, lens. You also seem to be overlooking how the Persians play into this ... which they do, and how the Turks play into the region, which they do.

For Matt: the value of any ally as an asset varies over time, see US Iran relationship as a fine example. The Shah did quite a bit of oil business with the US during the Arab oil embargo.

If you feel that US has NO benefit from a regional ally, as opposed to my position of varying benefit, I'll recognize an absolutist, and perhaps a fool, and waste no further time.

So, is it your position that the US accrues no benefit from having Israel as an ally?

A simple yes or now will suffice.

DR

 

[Mycroft]

please...share.

Start another thread if you want. Here and now you're still trying to explain why leasing the lands Israelis are already on should be so awful that it was a deal-breaker. So far the best you've got is a less-than-cogent, "well, how would you feel if Palestinians leased Israeli land?!!!"

Which, for the record, if Israelis and Palestinians agreed to it, I can't imagine why I would object.

 

[Thunder]

Start another thread if you want.

what an amazing and obvious cop-out. you accuse me of blaming Israel for the failure of Taba, but suggest YOUR reason should be addressed only in a new thread.

 

[Thunder]

Here and now you're still trying to explain why leasing the lands Israelis are already on should be so awful that it was a deal-breaker.

why is it a deal-breaker?

cause its time to end this **** ing mess, once and for all.

sign a damn peace treaty, seperate the two sides into viable and defensible states.

all this talk of "leasing" 27% of the West Bank, is soo funny that one must question whether it was meant to force Arafat to refuse the deal, so the Israelis could say "see? we tried, and Arafat walked away".

 

[Mycroft]

why is it a deal-breaker?

cause its time to end this **** ing mess, once and for all.

sign a damn peace treaty, seperate the two sides into viable and defensible states.

Oh, okay. So the Israelis should just kiss off all their own concerns about Palestinians intransigence and their own self-defense needs because Parky is frustrated about the Middle East?

That makes sense.

Tell me, how come you don't make the same demands on the Palestinians? Why not say to them, "...its time to end this *********** mess once and for all, sign the damned treaty, take your lease payments and make peace already!"

all this talk of "leasing" 27% of the West Bank, is soo funny that one must question whether it was meant to force Arafat to refuse the deal, so the Israelis could say "see? we tried, and Arafat walked away".

Okay, so now your getting into truther paranoid conspiracy theories (about Zionists, no less!) and the only reason you claim it was a deal-breaker is your personal frustration?

Truly amazing.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Yassin was in a wheelchair when he was 12 due to a wrestling accident with his friend.

Didn't stop him from forming Hamas along with Rantissi (who was killed after Yassin), in 1987.

This wheelchair defense doesn't quite cut it.

one hopes this is short enough to satisfy any roving moderator

Analysis: Hamas history tied to Israel

By Richard Sale
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 6/18/2002 8:13 PM

In the wake of a suicide bomb attack Tuesday on a crowded Jerusalem
city bus that killed 19 people and wounded at least 70 more, the
Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, took credit for the blast.

Note also the bus lines in Israel are a military asset used to transport troops and are thus lawful targets.

Israeli officials called it the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in six
years.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately vowed to fight
"Palestinian terror" and summoned his cabinet to decide on a military
response to the organization that Sharon had once described as "the
deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face."

Active in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas wants to liberate all of
Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It
is has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other
acts of terrorism.

But Sharon left something out.

Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but,
according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials,
beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect
financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a
counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said
Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic
Studies.

Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute
support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious
alternative," said a former senior CIA official.

...

According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in
1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an
Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened
its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and
social work.

According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement
came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from
Israel. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian
nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the
rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.

...

Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One U.S.
intelligence source who asked not to be named said that not only was
Hamas being funded as a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had
another purpose: "To help identify and channel towards Israeli agents
Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists."

In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could only
listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were
dangerous hard-liners," the official said.

In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence
system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot.
Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike
the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing
to acquiesce in its very existence.

...

All of which disgusts some former U.S. intelligence officials.

"The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try to
be too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro.

According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry
Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to
fighting terrorism."

"The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries
to put it out by hitting it with a hammer."

"They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said.

Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to
help smooth the waters," he said. "An operation like that gives weight
to President George Bush's remark about there being a crisis in
education."

...

Asked to confirm a report by U.S. officials that Brig. Gen. Yithaq
Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials he had
helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and
communists," the official said he could confirm only that he believed
Segev had served back in 1986.

The Israeli Embassy press office referred UPI to its Web site when
asked to comment.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Still obfuscating two concepts, one of early warning, not used to check booby-trapped houses, and that of checking houses for booby-traps, the latter of which is not the modus operandi of the IDF.

So again, being a lemming and jumping into a booby-trapped house is wimpy/cowardly? Duly noted.

Standard policy for Hamas/Islamic Jihad/etc. is the use of groups of civilians human shields, as well as protected sites (ie hospitals, schools), with a copious amount of photographic and video evidence, to fire their mortars/missiles:



And you have a few eye-witness reports from groups like B'tselem of a cases I can count on one hand of the IDF's use of a neighbor to check for booby-traps in a house.

Interesting comparison.

It remains a war crime and forbidden by the Israeli Supreme Court. Go argue with them.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Been tried, it failed.

When Israel left Gaza your camp whined that they had wronged the Palestinians by not negotiating their withdrawal and thus depriving the Palestinian Authority of their legitimacy and credibility. And, of course, the violence from Gaza continued.

By the 1993 agreement between the PLO and Israel all the occupied territories are to be treated as a single entity. East Jerusalem is still occupied therefore the resistance continues.

And as I have posted it is the legal opinion in Israel that Gaza is still occupied.

Therefore it has never been tried.

But in any case, the "occupation" started because Israel was being attacked from these areas. It's perfectly reasonable that they should withdraw with reasonable assurances that the violence will cease.

A lawful occupation in accordance with the relevant treaties and conventions is fine. This occupation is in criminal violation of international law. We have been over this.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Not at all.

You're asserting this as a deal-breaker, so tell us why it's so intolerable. While you're at it, how about some more information?

What lands were being discussed? What are the current uses for the land? How much were the lease payments going to be? What was going to happen with buildings on these lands at the expiration of the lease?

It seems to me these are all relevant issues if you're going to claim that the proposal was so awful and egregious that of course Palestinians were perfectly justified in condemning their children to yet another generation of warfare and privation.

One would have thought by now everyone would acknowledge the squattertowns in the occupied territories are all criminal activities by international law. Accepting a lease would legalize them.

 

[Matt Giwer]

#1. I believe any deal giving the Israelis more than 5% of the WB is pretty crappy...but acceptable. But 27%?? that is indeed rediculous and a sick joke.

why? how can anyone honestly expect the Palestinians to be satisfied with only 73% of the West Bank???? its true Borscht-Belt comedy.

#2. I believe a lot of this land would have been in the Jordan Valley. Not sure where the other land would have been.

If you actually follow the crap out of Israel you find they always talk about the "large settlement blocks they expect to keep." But after years of reading I have yet to come across a single suggestion of something attractive enough to get the Palestinians to agree.

 

[Thunder]

Oh, okay. So the Israelis should just kiss off all their own concerns about Palestinians intransigence and their own self-defense needs because Parky is frustrated about the Middle East?.

so, Israel needs to control the Jordan Valley to protect them from who?

Jordan? Iraq?

give me a break. George W. Bush took care of Israel's threat of a land war from east, in 2003.

Tell me, how come you don't make the same demands on the Palestinians? Why not say to them, "...its time to end this *********** mess once and for all, sign the damned treaty, take your lease payments and make peace already!" ?.

I have criticised the Palestinians for not restarting peace talks. But I don't expect them to accept a state in 73% of the West Bank. No honest person would.

Okay, so now your getting into truther paranoid conspiracy theories (about Zionists, no less!)

err...umm....suggesting an alterior motive for Barak to offer such a BS plan, makes me a conspiracy theorist within the realm of a 9-11 Truther?? Wow.

you know, this is not the first time someone at JREF has made this deranged argument. it is a new tactic of right-wing Zionists? find any possible reason to call your opponent a Truther?

come on Mycroft, you're better than this.

 

[mortimer]

One would have thought by now everyone would acknowledge the squattertowns in the occupied territories are all criminal activities by international law. Accepting a lease would legalize them.

Finally you post something correct. Is there something wrong with Israel coming to an agreement with the Palestinians?