This excellent article is a warning about war mongering and the sometimes terrible results.............. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/12/please-shut-up.html Please Shut Up by Gershom GorenbergMar 12, 2012 8:00 AM EDT Rhetorically filling the fuel tanks of warplanes is all the rage. Benjamin Netanyahu did it at the AIPAC parley last week, dismissing diplomacy, sanctions and deterrence for dealing with Iran, and equating sorties over Qom with bombing Auschwitz. Rick Santorum used that venue to promise to "tear down" Iranian nuclear facilities. Mitt Romney was slightly more restrained, but his intent was the same: Bomb, baby, bomb. When Barack Obama tried to shush "loose talk of war," he got as much traction as a vicar giving a sermon during a soccer riot. Put aside Santorum, who compulsively froths, and Romney who (to reverse a Hebrew saying) is always a weathervane, never a compass. The real question is what the Israeli prime minister has in mind. Were he competently planning for war, I'd expect stepped-up home front preparations and political changes such as widening his coalition. So far, that's not happening. Could Bibi and Romney's tough talk about refueling bombers lead to war? , Joseph Eid / Getty Images The alternative is that Netanyahu wants the threat of war to produce the gains of war, without Israel having to fight. He's either trying to push America to attack, or trying to convince other countries that tighter sanctions on Iran are the best way to keep Israel from acting. But talk has a price. Since Netanyahu likes citing history, I'd suggest he study a fairly recent example of the risks of saber-rattling: the crisis that led to the Six-Day War. "Of all the Arab-Israeli wars," historian Avi Shlaim has written, the conflagration in June 1967 "was the only one that neither side wanted." So why'd they fight? Locating when the slide toward war began in '67 is hard. You could go back to the Arab League resolution of January 1964, which said that Israel's use of Jordan River water "multiplies the dangers to Arab existence" and called for the "final liquidation of Israel." This was the first time the Arab states collectively, officially called for Israel's destruction, Shlaim notes. The declaration wildly exaggerated the water issue and Arab military capability. But it gave Israel a frame for judging events. By early 1967, the events included Palestinian raids from Jordan and Syria into Israel, and border clashes between Syrian and Israeli troops. A top-secret U.S. National Security Council history, on the other hand, locates the "immediate starting points" of the 1967 crisis in the second week of that May. Israeli leaders were "aroused to especially strong rhetoric by Israel's approaching Independence Day," and the rhetoric was aimed at Syria. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said there'd be "no immunity" for a country "that encourages sabotage operations." Military Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin asserted that because Syria sponsored terrorism, limited measures were unlikely to work. "The essence of the response must be different," he warned. Reason, he implied, wouldn't convince unreasoning enemies. The rhetoric was followed by mistaken Soviet warnings to Egypt that Israel was about to invade Syria. Bound by a defense pact with Syria, afraid of looking weak, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser marched his underprepared army into the Sinai Peninsula. In Israeli accounts, that's the start of the avalanche. But Nasser's move should have been mere posturing; U.N. peacekeepers were deployed in the Sinai. Nasser demanded they leave. Had the U.N. refused, Nasser would have safely reaped the political fruit of the threat. Instead, Secretary-General U Thant removed the troops. From there, the concatenation of escalation led to Israel's preemptive attack. Wherever you mark the start of the crisis, brinkmanship led to war. So what, some Israelis might say. Israel won. It gained East Jerusalem, the West Bank and more. Jews stood again at the Western Wall. Even if the war inspired a wave of ultra-nationalism in Israel, even if you accept (as I do) that Israeli rule over the Palestinians has been corrosive for Israel itselfwell, none of us know how an alternative universe without war in 1967 would look. But this we certainly know: In six days, Israel lost 800 men, roughly proportionate to American losses in the entire Vietnam War. Arab losses in 1967 were much higher. Speaking of a fallen friend, the young novelist Amos Oz said after the war, "If you could blow up the Western Wall with dynamite and it would bring Micha back to life, I'd say, 'Blow it up!" Beware the glory of unneeded wars. Back to today: Israel is responding not only to Iran's actions but also to its rhetoric, its statements of intent. At the same time, whether Netanyahu is bluffing or not, he must take into account that Iran is listening to his language. Iran presumably also pays attention to the Republican candidates, each of whom (heaven help us) could be be America's commander-in-chief next January. The threats may be goading Iran to pour greater effort into its nuclear program, to rush toward creating a weapon more quickly. War rhetoric encourages Iran to strengthen its defenses, to hurry to hide its facilities deeper underground. Are these results that Netanyahu seeks? And there are less predictable possibilities. A threatened Iran may push its allies in Hamas, Islami Jihad or Hezbollah to step up rocket fire against Israel or launch border raids. The clashes this weekend underline the danger. Incidents could easily escalate to battles that would cost Israel lives and international support and divert diplomatic attention from Iran's reactors. Decrying war bluster, Obama warned that it drove up oil prices, giving Iran more money for its nuclear program. The president understated his case. Loose lips launch wars. For heaven's sake, Netanyahu and his Republican friends should shut up.
They've been itching for a war with Iran for a while now. Axis of Evil......Bomb,Bomb,Bomb....Bomb,Bomb Iran...... At what point did people really start taking the rhetoric seriously? When Iranian scientists were assassinated? When Iran reacted by talking about blocking the Strait of Hormuz? I'm thinking it's actions, not words that have escalated the tension that exists.
Sloppy job of cutting & pasting Margot. Does this topic have a point since it's obviously an opinion piece?
The 1967 war escalated on Israel's 1964 attempt to divert water from the Jordan River... I current terms.. once you start calling the other "Hitler" and referencing the Holocaust... its too late. Remember when Bush started calling Saddam "Hitler"?
Let's review who has been talking war: TEHRAN Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesdaythat Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press agency reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html Now we want to "play nice". Grow a pair.
The source link is at the top.. the author is Gershon Gorenberg who lives in South Jerusalem. Gershom wrote The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977. The point is quite clear if you bothered to READ.. Warmongering has consequences.
Israel began threatening Iran in 2002... See Ariel Sharon.. Ahmadinejad never said anything about wiping Israel off the map.. That' MEMRI's political agenda at work.
Like I said, it's an opinion piece. Just because you happen to agree doesn't make it a current event.
Sure there is, Margot. Running until you have no way out. Diplomacy worked wonders at Munich. It is my opinion that France and Russia convinced Iraq that they could stop the coalition from freeing Kuwait with intermintable diplomacy. They also kept, in my opinion, Saddam Hussein in place with diplomacy and prevented his accepting asylum in Egypt. I am not in favor of war but I am in favor of telling people honestly what the consequences of their actions will be and following through.
Nov. 2002 Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete. February 9, 2002: Sharon Argues that Iran A Strategic Threat to Israel Ariel Sharon. [Source: US Department of Defense]Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets with President George W. Bush. According to the Haaretz Daily, the goal of the meeting is to convince the United States that Iran constitutes a strategic threat to Israel. [Ha'aretz, 2/9/2002] February 2005: Sharon Authorizes Israeli Attack on Irans Nuclear Facilities During a private meeting of Ariel Sharons inner cabinet at the prime ministers private ranch in the Negev desert, Sharon gives initial authorization for an attack on Irans nuclear facilities. [Sunday Times (London), 3/13/2005]
Are you AFRAID of his opinion? Waar is a serious business and this one will crash the economy of the US and EU. The alternative is that Netanyahu wants the threat of war to produce the gains of war, without Israel having to fight. He's either trying to push America to attack, or trying to convince other countries that tighter sanctions on Iran are the best way to keep Israel from acting. But talk has a price. Since Netanyahu likes citing history, I'd suggest he study a fairly recent example of the risks of saber-rattling: the crisis that led to the Six-Day War. "Of all the Arab-Israeli wars," historian Avi Shlaim has written, the conflagration in June 1967 "was the only one that neither side wanted." So why'd they fight?
Ok, if you want to play this game. The Arabs started threatening the Jews and their right to inhabit Israel in WWII when they joined the axis in an effort to eradicate them from their "holy land". Fortunately, the axis lost, but the arabs never stopped their open hatred and demand that Jews be annihilated. Then again, this isn't about just talking about war, this actually WAS the war. I bet you don't want to talk about that though. Uh huh. Their own office said that the term taken out of context wasn't referring to any land mass, but rather to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". As if that makes it any better. LOL
Ahmadinejad has said that but you will not admit because it goes against your hate for Israel and Jews Israel is under attack but the Iron dome is working to protect the citizens http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...2126.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop
Perhaps it all started with the (*)(*)(*)(*)ed U.N. giving Israel a homeland. Bastards. When you have intransigent people who will settle for nothing less than total destruction and annihilation diplomacy is a tactic and not a solution. Oh, I also seem to remember "the Great Satan". Remember that one. Or, "God (*)(*)(*)(*) America" from another enemy of our country.
The Arab countries were on the side of the Allies.. You should check.. not that it mattered because they didn't have any armies or weapons.. but most had severed relations with Germany by 1937 and declared for the Allies by 1939.
Israel was given land because those people who tried to eradicate them from where they were lost the war.
Do you really believe that or do you just think the rest of us are too uninformed to know it's not true? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html
Israel killed over 400 British peacekeepers... all the Brits wanted to do was wash their hands and get out. Are you AFRAID to read the article? What do you think YOUR plight will be if Israel attacks Iran and oil goes to $400 a barrel? How many businesses will fold.. How many Americans will lose their jobs??
Adahminejad wasn't president when Israel began threatening Iran. Nov. 2002 Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete. February 9, 2002: Sharon Argues that Iran A Strategic Threat to Israel Ariel Sharon. [Source: US Department of Defense]Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets with President George W. Bush. According to the Haaretz Daily, the goal of the meeting is to convince the United States that Iran constitutes a strategic threat to Israel. [Ha'aretz, 2/9/2002] February 2005: Sharon Authorizes Israeli Attack on Irans Nuclear Facilities During a private meeting of Ariel Sharons inner cabinet at the prime ministers private ranch in the Negev desert, Sharon gives initial authorization for an attack on Irans nuclear facilities. [Sunday Times (London), 3/13/2005]
