Oceans and AB,

I'm astounded.

You both sure know that different knowledge comes from different
sources. And instead of comparing you start to call each other
Fundamentalists, well knowing that it is not true of either.

Is it not easier to provide your sources with the posts, so that the
other can read it for himself.

I would hate to see a good thread go down the drain.

Andrea

Andrea, hi!

The thread is fine -- I'm just insisting, if someone poses a question to
me and would like me to respond, that an essential politeness be
present.

AB's last post was polite and fine; his earlier ones weren't, and it is
to those that I am responding.

We are, after all, all volunteers here and politeness is the minimum we
have a right to expect of each other.

I speculated that AB, Spier and Wonderman37 are Christian
Fundamentalists because of their postings in the Religion threads. I am
not using the term in any insulting way. I also specified that if I was
mischaracterizing them I'd be glad to be corrected.

AB has said he is not a Christian, and I accept his statement, though it
leaves me not understanding his posts elsewhere. In this thread, he
stated that one cannot 'force prophecy, only live through it.' This
sounds like a religious fundamentalist's statement, and I would love to
know more about it, so I created a separate thread for discussion of the
Bible and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, I think our thread is in good shape, and hope that politeness and
respect and learning will prevail....

And, more important, I have been thinking about Alex's last major post,
and will get back to it after I have a chance to think a bit more about
it....





Oceans

In reguard that post of Alex's.

The Syrians say the Israelies did it. The Israelies say nothing in
public. UN investigators are suspecious of elements within Lebonon.
The US says Israelies did it, Syrians did it, the US did it (depending
on which faction withing the US you read). Factions within Lebonon
claim the Israelies did it, the US did it or Syrians did it.

As far as the massecree in those places that his death may of stemed
from. There is very little doubt that Israelie influences were involved
in it. Howerver the man that died WAS involved without doubt. To many
witnesses. He had a very checkered carreer did he not.

Thanks for setting me on this course. It led to my researching other
such things. Current and past governments have interfered in the
internal politics of Lebonon as much or more than they have interfered
in the situation between Jews and Palestinians. And a lot of that
interference seems to be in the form of assissanations, covert
operations and 'false flags'. Lots of them.

oh oh oh you are just beginning to possibly investigate one of the
stinkiest
laundries you will ever see....


it's an intricate web....and fascinating in the levels of treachery and
deceit. the truth...

people have died , gone missing, been assinated ..collateral damage has
been paid by hundreds...just because they knew what you are trying to
uncover.

remember....many things have even been designed to counter the
fabricated plot , to point to another set up....just to mislead and
confuse

anyone like you from finding the truth....

Andrea, sorry, I missed an item in your post...

Most of the sources that are essential to understanding the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not on line. I have, literally,
thousands of books that touch on some aspect of the conflict, and I am
sure that none is available on the net.

Websites are all too prone to have selective excerpts, omit major areas,
or have out and out forgery to be of any use to a researcher. We do
not, for example, accept any website as a source of information, except
for documentary collections at the UN, FAO, WHO, IAEA etc. collections.
The reason is that other types of media have been independently vetted.

That doesn't mean that things like books are all truthful: most books on
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have biases and often strong ones. It
is certainly the most lied-about conflict in current history! And this
is where real research comes in. And real research takes a long time,
many years with regars to the I-P Conflict. I would guess that it would
take a dedicated student 2-3 years of intensive study to be able to say
that he/she has developed any expertise on the subject, and another 10
years or so of continued study and hands-on experience before they
should be allowed into a position of influencing policy.

Included in this has to be residency in the region, and language
training.

Without this, a person will flounder. It doesn't mean that a person
can't have opinions, it just means that their opinions will be naive. It
doesn't mean that their opinion can't be 'right', it just means that it
is less likely to be so.

Part of the reason for the difficulty in becoming an expert on the I-P
conflict is that there are are several camps: people who are dedicated
to advancing the agendas of one party or another. Over the 60 years of
the conflict, these advocates have become very persuasive, and a person
who is new to the conflict will get whip-sawed around the place before
they start knowing enough that they can start to find their feet.

So, all this to explain why it is not a matter simple enough to just
post a source.



Oceans

Oceans,

My point is more, I never seen you or AB posting so angry.
It's not only this thread, the one about the dead sea is the same.

People have different opinions obviously, and some are less acceptable
than others in different eyes, that's why I have begged out on page 1. I
probably just wanted to remind you, that I have seen better of the two
of you.

Andrea

Hey Oceans,

As Promised, I'm back again. I'll try to keep this short but first I
would like to say that contrary to what some may believe, I have never
considered your ethnic background (whatever it is) as a factor in your
posts and I think you're very open minded, even when you're wrong or we
don't agree. (Had to throw that "wrong" comment in) Regarding your
initial post, I just thought it was a bit one sided and wanted to give
an alternative view.

As for the subject matter here goes:

I was really not aware of the differences in authority within the UN. I
thought they were equaly binding (UNSC & UNGA). I learn something
everyday. Even so, what good was UNSC 242 when everyone viewed it
differently and even Palestine rejected it. I don't think we can
reasonably only hold Israel responsible for non compliance when
Palestine had no intention of complying with it either. Almost seems as
though it was written to fail. I look at this too with similar, recent
UNSC resolutions that were ignored and wonder where the teeth are in
anything the UN does or say's.

As far as the independence goes. You mentioned that in the end America
rejected the idea yet wasn't it Harry Truman along with the USSR that
pushed for the Approval of GA-181? I believe it was, so that tells me
we supported it through UNGA approval. Perhaps behind closed doors
other things were going on but we publically supported and pushed for
it.

I agree that not all violence is equal. The Palestinians are out gunned
and out matched. I mentioned earlier that I felt both sides were being
used as puppets and I really believe that's correct. I believe that
both sides are fighting for what the believe is right. Palestine is
fighting for their land and Israel is fighting for its security. If
peace can be reached between the two countries then Israel should vacate
the lands but they wont until that happens. Meanwhile, the real hate
groups (extreemist on both sides) keep stoking the fires.

I'm glad you mentioned the Egyptians. The Army Chief of Staff did make
aggresive statements but he was also rebuked for doing so. At the same
time Foreign Minister Abba Eban tried to obtain from the US a guarantee
that they would reopen the straights of Tiran. At first, President
Johnson promised an international flotilla, and warned Israel not to
attack on its own. However, the US was unable to initiate any
international action, and reversed its position, hinting that Israel
would have to handle the problem itself.

If I understand your statement about international maritime law
correctly, Israel had a right to pass through the territorial waters of
Eqypt & Suadi Arabia (The Straits of Tiran). If I'm correct, this means
Egypt had no right to prevent Israel from using that waterway in the
first place. It seems that if Egypt had violated International Law and
no one else was going to assist them, they had the right to attack.

OK, that was longer than intended. Hope you have agood evening and I do
appreciate the friendly debate. Take care

Hi, Jerry! Join the Long-Winded Club (heh heh)

Essentially I agree with your comments, and will only tweak one or two
of them.

1. The UN is a consensus organization, and it is controlled by the
national governments of its members. When it comes to Security Council
matters, it is especially controlled by the five Parmanent Members of
the Council, which have veto power over UNSC resolutions. By either
exercising or threatening to exercise its veto power, the US has over
the years protected Israel from UNSC criticism.

When the UNSC members try to get some sort of action taken against a
rogue state it usually has to creep up to it through a series of
incrementally stronger resolutions, and as they get closer to action the
likelihood of a veto becomes stronger and stronger. UNSC resolutions
usually start off with a statement of concern, which may ask the
Secretary-general to keep it apprised of what is going on. Then is
escalates sort of to a more strongly worded statement, then to a warning
that maybe the UN may intervene, then a stronger warning, blah, blah,
blah.

Oddly enough, the place where strong resolutions are passed is the UN
General Assembly, which doesn't have the power to intervene in matters
of territorial dispute or security (those being reserved to the UNSC).
There is no veto in the UNGA, so the majority prevails. The UNGA over
the years has passed a slew of resolutions that are highly critical of
Israel, but these are nothing more than the moral judgment of the
international community of nations; these resolutions carry no punitive
weight.

2. Yes it was Truman who pushed UNGA 181. This represented a major shift
away from FDR's polcies regarding Palestine, last expressed in a letter
to Ibn Sa'ud after their meeting on a US warship in the Suez Canal in
1945. The USSR also supported UNGA 181, but I don't know anything about
the circumstances there.

Quickly after it was passed, Truman saw what a mess it was going to
create and backpeddled, launching a formal commission to reexamine the
question. But the Israelis prempted any rethinking by declaring their
independence and swinging into action against the Palestinians both
within the area that was recommended by UNGA 181 for the Jews and those
in the area recommended for the Palestinians. The USA and USSR both
recognized Israel within hours of its declaration of independence. Sec
of the Navy John Forrestal (sp?) covers this period well, poignantly,
and in detail in his memoirs.

3. Your description of the LBJ position in May 1967 is spot on with what
I know.

4. Territorial waters and maritime law. In times of peace, your analysis
is correct, but remember that Egypt and Israel were still in a state of
war, governed by their Armistice Agreement. So Egypt had a right to deny
passage to Israeli ships in the Strait of Tiran, or to threaten to deny
passage (which is what they did). But that does not create a right of
Israel to attack Egypt, as the Armisitice Agreement prohibited all
cross-border attacks. The Israelis had already broken that once, in
1956, but other than that time, when the US in effect ordered the
Israelis to return behind their borders, the Armistice Agreement held up
well -- until 1967.

Ok, three points. Total agreement doesn't count, or require lots of
typing!

Cheers, bro...


Oceans

~Walks in , then leaves ~

Dude, let it go !

Alex...to your post this morning (0642)...

I've read it several times, trying to tickle out what are for me its
central questions.



Three, to focus on:

1. The degree to which there is conspiracy surrounding Israel, and
conspiracy generally in foreign affairs

2. The accuracy of the information that is publicly available

3. American culture and its grip on the thinking of Americans

Is this on-target? I hope so!

1. Conspiracy.
Generally, there is more behind-the-scenes stuff going on than the
general public knows about, but there is a lot less than the
conspiracy-oriented portion of the public asserts.

Not everything that happens makes sense. Decision-makers make
self-defeating and contradictory decisions all the time. It is possible
the make up a conspiracy theory to bring all these discrepancies into
line, but the truth is usually simpler and messier. People screw up,
they forget things, they act only partial information under sometimes
tight deadlines and massive stress. This is true of every leader,
whether he/she is American, Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptians, etc.

Further and to add more analytic confusion, over time leaders can change
their points of view. What one says five years earlier may not have a
lot of similarity to what he/she will say and do now.

And, if that isn't enough, governments and personnel change. What one
Israeli government leader says and does may have little bearing on what
future ones will, and the same is true of all governments.


I know quite a bit about the inner workings of the US in particular, and
can say one thing with absolute confidence: the organizational
efficiencies of government organizations are not nearly as great as the
public thinks. The CIA, for example, is simply not organizationally
capable of carrying out most of the conspiracies that are attributed to
it. The Mossad makes massive mistakes, and a lot of their escapades
have been identified. HAMAS is riddled with Shin Beit agents. Etc.

But the general public is naive when it comes to understand how badly
groups within governments CAN behave. People like Elliott Abrams in the
US government operated death squads throughout Latin America, and is now
in charge of advising Pres. Bush on the Middle East. The Mossad is
running terror squads in Iraq, to the great detriment of US hopes there.
Fatah is barely able to contain the al-Aqsa Brigades, and HAMAS its own
equivalents. The Syrians could not contain the PFLP, and so it goes.

Few in the general public understand the extent to which nominal enemies
meet and talk: influential Israelis and Palestinians, terror and
counter-terror leaders.

I hope these thoughts help. A lot of my personal judgments in there, I
know.

2. The accuracy of media reports, and publicly available document.

Generally, the media is way behind in its reporting. Journalists are
often in a hurry, they have deadlines, they only pay attention to
head-line grabbing stuff, and they move on before getting into the guts
of a story. There are exceptions, of course.

Here in the US, the Christian Science Monitor reports thougthtfully and
in depth. The New Yorker does the same and has provided some of the best
reporting available, e.g. all of Seymour Hersh's reports, and Jeffrey
Goldberg on the Middle East, for example, his coverage of Hizb-Allah
back in 2001. But these are the exceptions, and it is rare for me to
find facts reported in the press that I haven't found covered better and
more fully and reliably elsewhere.

Government documents are usually in my experience pretty good. I have to
admit I'm always surprised by this. The major weakness is that they
sometimes omit vital information. It is unusual for them to lie, though.
The best government documents are often written by smaller commissions
that are given carte blanche by their governments.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the UK White Papers are
often models of clarity and honesty. The King-Crane Commission is a good
example of an American document that is worth looking at. But of course
one always has to be alert for what is NOT being said, which is one
reason that consulting MANY sources is essential in coming to any
understanding.

Another good source are memoirs. Leaders always feel they are under
appreciated, and they wan to make sure the future generations get their
side of the story. So they write, and write, and write. Wasn't
Napoleon's memoirs 22 volumes long? (Or am I confusing that with Dumas'
works? )

Menachem Begin's Memoirs, ben Gurion's, Musa 'Alami's, Ronald Storrs',
John Glubb's, Sayyid Qutb's -- these are all gems and chock full of
important revelations.

But without this kind of research, it is essentially impossible for
anyone to come to an independent or deep understanding of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict or its impacts on Lebanon, Syria, Jordan,
Egypt, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle Eats, and, indeed the world, for
there is virtually no part of the world that is not harmed by the
existence of this conflict.

This ignorance is always shocking to me, and the examples of Sabra and
Shatila are among the most horrific. They speak to what governments can
do when their populations are so baffled by what is going on that they
stand idly and culpably by. How many innocent people have died, while
the demons of war did their killing, while the home folks watched their
soap operas and sports on the boob tube?

Courbe sur sa rapiere,
Il regardait le sillage
Et ne daignait rien voir

Don Juan aux Enfers

Bent over his sword
He looked at the death and destruction
And deigned to see nothing.

This is extremely painful for me to see, conflict after conflict, year
after year, continent after continent. The dogs of war at their
business, and the world averts its eyes. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to
be part of this society, and maddened by its insanity and inhumanity.
And then I calm myself down, go into work, and try to make
the world a better place.

3. American culture. Yes, in my opinion (and this is a different subject
and one that would probably be worth another thread) the US AND the rest
of the industrialized world is caught up in patterns of living and
thinking that are profoundly dysfunctional, and we see various aspects
of that represented powerfully and painfully here within the many
threads of JSH.

I sense that America has had its moment of dominance in the world. I see
nothing but bad times ahead for this country. One of the silliest things
people say about terrorists is that 'they' attack us because they hate
our values. To the contrary, those terrorists that are interested in the
US have contempt for our intellectual and moral dissolution and
laziness. And they see the US defeating itself from within.

But, as I suggested, this may be too big a subject for this thread....

Alex...has this responded to your posting? You cover so many vital
questions and your thirst for understanding and your passion for
betterment are so great, I feel inadequate before them.

But I am committed to the exploration, so please let's explore these
themes forward and try and deepen our understanding of them.



Oceans

Alex...
Kat

wow Lawrence...that was good..you made the points very beautifully that
i hoped would be made...i have a gazillion questions


and i am resigned to the answers....i keep thinking if everything came
out it would make a difference..
thank you very much..i still have a hard time swallowing the madness

Bl8ant: The flowers were because of the good you do in the world. I had
no clue. A wonderful woman you are.
Kat

what!!????? what i do now!!? lol

thanks kat...don't do as much as i'd like... can i borrow the clone
catalogue when you are done with it???

Hi Alex

Cloning? Would one of you take a vacation with your power
tools?

Morning Alex

Morning Harry

And I always thought men had powertools?

Hi Andrea


Ummmmm....Yeah!

Alex, just pack one of you!

Oh my, Harry

You can come too, I have lots to get done this year!