Does Israel have the firepower to wipe Iran off the map?

[g222]

Quote from Option Trader:

1/2 answer: is religion fixing you, or are you fixing the religion.

Appreciate your concern, man ... but don't worry about me. I don't cause anyone grief in the name of God.

In short, no matter what is fixing whom, or who is fixing what ... and all ideologies aside ... imperfect man wrote the words in The Books, and many have suffered because of the belief in the absolute truth to those words. Therein lies my problem. No doubt, many of these scribes were good, trustworthy people. But good and trustworthy enough that others should believe them when they say that their God said it's ok to hurt nonbelievers ??? Sorry ... I'm not thinking so.

After centuries of people dying over religion, I do have to again wonder what it would be like 5 generations from now, if today our clerics layed down these 'Holy Books" started preaching the Golden Rule.

 

[FredBloggs]

Quote from shohami:

Noone displaced anyone.
The UN resolution from 1948 was based mostly on the principle of majority. Where there were majority of Jews, that land was given to the Jews. Where there weren't, that land stayed out of the the territory of the state of Israel. Arab countries around didn't accept that, and started an all-out attack, where the new Israeli state was victorious at the end.
I don't remember reading anywhere that Americans had any rights in America. But pilgrims started coming from Europe, conquered what was once the land of the "native Americans", and now you have a country named "The United States of America", which, in essence, is formed of immigrants from all over the world.
Same happened in Israel, but for different reasons. Jews were hunted down and killed all over Europe and Africa. Anti-Semitism rasied its ugly head everywhere, during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Where could the Jews turn to ? Israel was a baren wasteland, under Turkish power, then British mandate, so Jewish immigrants started coming, settling down (just like European settlers came to America few hundred years before), bought lands from whoever was here (mostly Turkish lands that the Turks just took for themselves, conquered), and that's how they became a majority in Israel.
So yes, Jews deserve a country.
Today there are more than 7 million people living in Israel, and approx. 80% of them are Jewish. I think that should settle that yes, Jews deserve a country, and yes, it should be Israel.

fair point.

but what i think is wrong is then inviting every brutus, cohen and arik in the world to your tiny piece of land, then invading others land and destroying their communities in order to make room for your new countrymen. that is where i see the core of the problem.

its like the usa (&uk's) immigration problem in reverse. where as we are trying to stop all these people flowing in, israel actively encourages it (as long as they are jews - hey isnt this discrimination??? ). when the resource deplete (land) they go steal someone elses. that aint right.

 

[shohami]

Quote from FredBloggs:

fair point.

but what i think is wrong is then inviting every brutus, cohen and arik in the world to your tiny piece of land, then invading others land and destroying their communities in order to make room for your new countrymen. that is where i see the core of the problem.

its like the usa (&uk's) immigration problem in reverse. where as we are trying to stop all these people flowing in, israel actively encourages it (as long as they are jews - hey isnt this discrimination??? ). when the resource deplete (land) they go steal someone elses. that aint right.

Your point is fair as well, FredBloggs. I do believe there should be a separation and I dislike the previous governments' decisions regarding building new settlements in places where Jews are a minority. It might have been due to security reasons back then, but we are some place else now, and should abandon those places, return to more modest borders.
There's still plenty of room for all those "Cohen" and "Arik" (Brutus ?!) that wish to come to Israel. Israel has been defined as a Jewish state, so yes, every Jew has a right to enter its borders and live in it. There's no need to invade the unpeaceful neighbors for that. Let them stay unpeaceful in their own places, without Israel's presence.
Just my view, of course.

 

[fhl]

Invade others land? I don't know the ins and outs of all the settlements process, but I do know that in some of the cases I have read about, the jews bought land, and then settled it. Then, Palestinians who have sold the land have to fear for their lives because they are "traitors". These cases didn't sound much like "invasion" to me. In any case, they got land by winning a war that they didn't start. That's what the so-called occupied territories are all about. The notion that if they will give all the land back there will be peace is so laughable I don't know how people can say it with a straight face. In 67, the arabs had the land, then they attacked.(nobody was occupieing the territory then) They say they will attack again. Every day they say it.

 

[FredBloggs]

Quote from fhl:

Invade others land? I don't know the ins and outs of all the settlements process, but I do know that in some of the cases I have read about, the jews bought land, and then settled it. Then, Palestinians who have sold the land have to fear for their lives because they are "traitors". These cases didn't sound much like "invasion" to me. In any case, they got land by winning a war that they didn't start. That's what the so-called occupied territories are all about. The notion that if they will give all the land back there will be peace is so laughable I don't know how people can say it with a straight face. In 67, the arabs had the land, then they attacked.(nobody was occupied the territory then) They say they will attack again. Every day they say it.

so, following this line of thinking that an enemy countries land, defeated in a war belongs to the victor?

does this mean that iraq is the 52nd state? will iran be the 53rd?

who next? starbucks in jordan or syria?

 

[shohami]

I don't see what's wrong with opening a Starbucks in Syria ...

 

[shohami]

Quote from fhl:

The notion that if they will give all the land back there will be peace is so laughable I don't know how people can say it with a straight face. In 67, the arabs had the land, then they attacked.(nobody was occupieing the territory then) They say they will attack again. Every day they say it.

I agree that there won't be peace. Just get out of there, finish the damn wall, and let each side live peacefully on their own.

 

[Option Trader]

Quote from FredBloggs:

so, following this line of thinking that an enemy countries land, defeated in a war belongs to the victor?

does this mean that iraq is the 52nd state? will iran be the 53rd?

who next? starbucks in jordan or syria?

Ideologically valid or not valid, your point has nothing to do with America or Israel, rather with the world & with the fact that throughout history that the winner has always taken over. I think you should clarify that you only meant to use Amer/ Israel as just two examples of countries that you feel haven't acted according to your ideals.

Personally, I think you should have chosen better examples. You should have chosen a country that fought their wars only to conquest (rather than self-defense and security), a country with no historical claim in the land (unlike here where the Jews were in Israel for thousands of years), and a country with no Biblical entitlement to the land (unlike here where the Jewish people were given the land of Israel by God).

You should have chosen "victims": a) who were not themselves attacking with the intention to kill innocent people, men, women, and children who were not involved in the war--a much bigger ideological issue about war than land conquest (actually way beyond war); b) who were not in themselves in violation of something that everyone would agree is thievery as it had nothing to do with war (i.e. taking the possessions of hundreds of thousands of Jews who had to flee Arab countries); c) who were sitting peacefully in their historical land and then were attacked (unlike here, where "somehow" they were "found" occupying the Jewish people's historicaly land, and the attacks were initiated in the other direction).

Note also: If America still had conquest in mind they would have already incorporated Iraq into America and certainly taken the oil for free.

 

[shohami]

Quote from Option Trader:


Note also: If America still had conquest in mind they would have already incorporated Iraq into America and certainly taken the oil for free.

I think the US has enough problems without having to deal with some 27 mil. Iraqis becoming US citizens ...

 

[FredBloggs]

Quote from Option Trader:

.....and a country with no Biblical entitlement to the land (unlike here where the Jewish people were given the land of Israel by God).

......

but this bit is the big joke. biblical right! lol


im sure the muslims and arabs lay claim to the land on the basis of religion/biblical right. i believe there is some big rock in the area that mohamed was supposed to behave been born on or something similar.

the jews claims to the land on biblical right falls apart in 3 places:

1/ other religions therefore have just as much right to that land based on their biblical rights. (what makes your biblical rights any more valid than someone elses?)

2/ if the israeli's are so keen on biblical rights, and doing what the bible old testament/torah says, then why do they continue to lie (about their ownership of nukes), kill (palestinians) and murder (innocent children and war reporters)? hardly 'biblical' behaviour is it! in fact, i believe God frowns on these activities.

3/ whats to stop someone else inventing a new religion and claiming rights to your land? after all, it is their 'biblical right' is it not, because their book says that their god gave them the land 10000000000 years before yours did.

so what makes the jewish religion/biblical rights any more or less valid than anyone elses? Gods word? prove it! because other religions such as christianity claim that Gods favour with the jews kind of went a bit flat after you murdered Jesus. so i guess hes taken the land rights away too. bad luck eh - your land lord called eviction 2000 years ago making israelis no more than squatters!

i think the whole middle east needs to move beyond religion, and all live happily ever after.