Originally posted by atc pal
The Israeli F-15 without a wing was after a midair with another F-15, I believe.

May 1 1983, F-15D “957” collided with an A-4H during DACM. The skyhawk crew ejected, the F-15 landed with a single wing torn off. Photo attached, plus more at
http://www.f-16.net/library/stories/midair.html

On June 9 1982, on the other hand, an IDF/AF F-15 was hit by an R-60, fired from a Syrian MiG-21bis. Although one engine was disabled, the F-15 managed to make it safely to Ramat David.

Originally posted by cozic
skythe, I didn’t forget that picture, I just don’t like it…
it’s main subject is the pilot & not the F-16 😀

True, but sometimes these unlikely pictures are precisely the place to find a wealth of information. What do we make of the badge on the pilot’s breast? Is the first aircraft headed for MANAT?

Originally posted by Arthur

Then on what ground do Israeli citizens have the right to build settlements on non-Israeli territories, how can it happen that Israel controls the supply of fresh water on non-Israeli territory, and how can Israel carve up the pieces of land not taken over by building corridors between the settlers, building security walls? If Israel acknowledges that those territories aren’t hers, i fail to understand how it can support not only Israeli citizens moving into those territories, but even more so: why protect them?

While Israel is prohibited from altering the political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it is nonetheless the sovereign currently in cotrol in these territories and therfore has certain resposibilities in a number of several fields, one of which is water. As for building security measures, international law doesn’t actually prohibit even an occupying power from building fortifications or other security measures on land it holds. Sorry.
As for the settlements, there’s no debate, they were a mistake. As I’ve already said, they’ll have to go. Why they are protected, however, is an entirely different issue. These people are there because consecutive governments either prompted or allowed them to go, and as such has a responsibility towards these people. Being in the wrong does not carry with it a death sentence. They are civilians and have their rights as such.

International disagreement with Israel annexing the Golans didn’t stop Israel from annexing it. An annexation which, conveniently fitting in my theory that Israel thrives on the current instability, makes any serious peace process between Syria and Israel impossible BTW.

Israel annexed the heights in 1981 and has since negotiated their return at least three times. In regards to the prospects of a future Syrian-Israeli peace deal, the annexation is quite meaningless.

My theorem that Israel should annex the Palestinian territories and give the Palestinians the same rights as Israeli citizens (including reparations for all the property the state of Israel -in hindsight- ‘bought’ from them) would probably be the fairest solution of all, and IMHO also the one with the best chance for a long lasting peace. I do agree that it’s a highly improbable solution, especially since both sides would reject it vigorously. But perhaps just that makes it a fair solution. But yes, it would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

So while Egyptian TV airs programs based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Syrian television shows supposed Jewish ritual killings of Christian children, Anti-Semetism within the Arab world is so rife that a speech at the OIC summit claiming “Jews rule the world by proxy” is met by a round of applause, and even in France the chief Rabbi advises Jews not to display Jewish symbols in public, your suggestion is that Israelis give up their independence to become a minority in a Muslim country.
The mere suggestion would be funny were it not so detached from reality, or if it involved your fate, not mine. And what if your rosy predictions don’t come true? Who would fight for me? Long lasting peace indeed, why don’t you just call it a “final solution”.

BTW, I loved the suggestion that in the name of fairness Israel should compensate Palestinian refugees. All it shows an entirely one sided view of this conflict, which lays the blame entirely at Israel’s feet. When the Palestinian refugee problem was created, an even greater number of Jews were kicked out of Arab countries, or did you not know that Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Syria are Judenrhein, Arthur? We, of course, gave them housing, took them in, and today they are an integral part of us. In retrospect, we should stuck them in sordid camps for 50 years, an open sore just to prove how evil are enemies are. That strategy has obviously done the Arabs a world of good, no one remembers Jewish refugees anymore.

It would also be the end of the Palestinian ‘state’ as a dictatorship.

Yeah right, and this is based on what? The abundance of Arab democracies? Foolish me, I forget. The reason Arab nations are undemocractic is because of Israel. Just remove the nuisance, and all your problems are solved. No, your solution does not offer an end to dictatorship, just the application of one to Israel’s Jewish population.

Back in 1967 the territories were acknowledged to be mere negotiation chips as you state above, but nowadays they are suddenly disputed? That does indicate a sliding scale towards annexation, if you ask me. I do think that the current ‘disputed’ status has more to to with the invasion of Israeli settlers since the mid-1970s (and please tell me what other reason they had to go there but dogmatic Living Space) than anything else. Just move in enough of ‘your’ people and the territories become disputed? Fair enough, by that logic i think Mexico can start disputing California and Texas too.

The disputed label is not a matter of semantics, it is a perfectly legal issue. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories and have been such even prior to the Israeli conquest in 1967. Originally a part of the mandate of Palestine, and destined to become parts of future Jewish and Palestinian states, they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt in 1948. It is a little known fact, but the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank following 1948 was not recognized by any nation save Britain and Pakistan, and as such they have no claim to it. Neither does a Palestinian state, simply because one never existed. Funny enough, the one nation that can actually stake a perfectly legal claim to them is Turkey, the last sovereign entity which held to them by undisputable circumstances.
The very fact that you would suggest that Israel is on a “sliding scale towards annexation” just shows how detached you are from events over here. While even the Israeli right finally arrived at the conclusion that there will be no viable alternative for Israel other than the formation of a Palestinian state, even outside a negotiated agreement, in your mind the events are flowing the other direction.

Any state can do as it pleases to maintain it’s national integrity, after all it’s a matter of domestic politics. Denying rights to people subjugated under a country’s rule for the simple reason that their offspring/ethnicity/religion isn’t considered good enough by that country’s ruling people, does not make me think of that country as a fair democracy. Deliberately maintaining a segregated society with haves vs. have-nots based on ethnicity/religion/offspring? Serbia was attacked for less. And you know i can suggest an even nastier parrallel when it comes to the whole theory behind such behaviour.

Israel proper is 80% Jewish, the rest being minorities, most of which are Muslim Arabs. All enjoy citizenship and the rights that go with it, including representation in the Knesset. I know our democracy doesn’t live up to your standards, but ironicly ours is the only government in the Middle East for which the Arab population can vote for in free and fair elections. I attend university alongside our Arab population, I go to the same stores as them, I even have several Arab neighbours. Segragated society indeed.
The issue is not about ethnicity, not about race, nor about religion. Palestinians are not Israelis, they do not want to be, and even if they did Israel is not obligated to give them citizenship. They live in territories which the world does not accept as Israeli. Now, I perfectly willing to admit that I do not envy their situation, and a change is certainly called for. However, the current predicament will not be solved by forcing Israel to commit suicide by absorbing a population which does not wish to see it exist.

The Palestinians didn’t go to Israel, Israel came to the Palestinians. Big difference.

Not according to international law.

I can’t disagree with this, if you can explain me where my sense of morality is warped. I personally can’t see where it is namely.

It’s its detachment from the realities in which we are living. Just because European circumstances have led to a situation where former animosities lie in the past, does not mean that the application of the same strategies in the Middle East will have the same effect, especially when all evidence point to the contrary.

Israel does not wish to maintain control of the Palestinian territories, yet it keeps extending that control even when the Oslo peace process was still active. Saying one thing while doing the other is not convincing, and somehow it does give some credence to the Palestinian frustration and actions born out of that frustration. Unfortunately, Palestinian idiocy gives Israel even more excuses to have it’s way with the occupied territories, a nice example being your “unilateral separation to Israeli defined borders“. If you think such behaviour leads to peace and stability, i can assure you it does not.

Oh, we know it does not, but while Israel perhaps hasn’t fulfilled its obligations to the letter, agreements with the Palestinian are not even worth the paper on which they were signed. Waiting for a negotiated agreement, for a Palestinian leadership which will actually be willing to display some form of responsibilty, some form of commitment for its own people, is not something we can afford.

I couldn’t care less if the Jews would be better off without their own country or not, i suggested the people in the areas controlled by Israel to be better off without their own separate countries. A very big difference – as i think my interpretation gives better chances for a long-term peace.

You frequent ACIG, don’t you Arthur? Did you see this ?
We can romanticize and dream of a world where nationalism doesn’t exist, where everyone lives in peace with his neighbors regardless of the race/color/beliefs, but why do we of all people have to be the guinea pigs to satisfy your sense of morality?

Kicking the Palestinians out would have been ethnic cleansing and would probably not remain unanswered in any way. After all, Israel always claims it’s a better state than those nasty Hama-destroying Syrians or Black September Jordanians.
But bullying the Palestinians out? It’s a perfect explanation for Israel’s current behaviour in the territories. Destroying the social/economical structure by denying farmers to go to their lands, separating families, cutting off water supplies, denying people to go to work… All in territories admitted to be not a part of Israel.

Where are the hordes leaving the West Bank and Gaza Strip? They don’t exist. This war has been going on for three years, and yet nothing even remotely similiar has taken place on the ground. The Palestinians are not leaving. Other conflict produced millions of refugess, so where are they?
Now, you can either go on believing what you will, regardless of the facts because it fits in with your perception of Israel, or you can begin viewing the conflict as one between two sides in which Israel inflicts losses but also suffers some, and is trying to deal with difficult circumstaces. You obviously can “give some credence to the Palestinian frustration and actions born out of that frustration” and yet Israeli actions aimed at, god forbid, providing security for its own citizens, is so far beyond your comprehension that you’d rather invent diabolical Israeli schemes out of thin air. Israelis don’t feel fustration, they don’t make mistakes, they don’t make an effort. No, that’s for Palestinians. Israelis are nefarious schemers and through that prism all their action should be viewed.

It was Israel who entered Palestinian regions in the first place, and acknowledged those regions weren’t Israeli. You make it sound like the withdrawal was a favour.

The point I made that the suggestion that Israel has some grand plan to annex the territories simply does not fit events on the ground over the past decade. It overlooks Israeli concessions, an Israeli willingness to compromise, all in order to enable the portrayel of Israel as inherently opposed to peace, absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility whatsoever for the break down
of the peace process.

I am suggesting it, and personally i am playing with the thought. Your current elected priminister had his men’s guns locked and loaded when he had to dismantle the Jewish settlements in the Sinai to make peace with Egypt, so he does seem pretty able to put Israeli lives at risk (non-Israeli lives are obviously of no concern as he proved in Nabi Samuel). Also, if he was willing to completely withdraw from the Sinai, then why are the Palestinian territories so much different? One explanation could be that the West Bank and Gaza strip make nice land-grab, now only to find a way of getting rid of those people. A little subtle, please.

That’s all very nice, but now for reality. The Sinai belonged to Egypt, there was no border dispute there. The West Bank and Gaza Strip don’t legally belong to anyone. Even UN resolutions 242 and 338 recognize that the 1967 borders are negotiable and that Israel is not actually obligated to unilaterally withdraw to these borders, but to borders agreed upon in the framework of a negotiated agreement.

You can’t deny the facts are open to various interpretations, one of which i’m offering. I won’t take this comment as a subtle hint for me being an anti-semitic Jewish-conspiracy-fearmongering idiot, but i sure hope other people reading this won’t do that either.

My intent was not to suggest such a thing, but rather that with you judge Israel by standard no nation on earth can live up to, without even the slightest attempt to understand the motivations that make the country and people act as they do. With only a limited knowledge (and the dates of the Yom Kippur War are quite basic if you’re going to participate in a discussion about it) you lay blame squarely and solely at the feet of Israel, completely ignoring Israeli moves to peace or the Arab rejectionism which is rife. Muslim antisemetisim, Arab dictatorships, European Antisemitism, terrorism, incesant incitement to murder, a total disregard for signed obligations, all are nothing, ignored for accusations which at best have a disputable basis in reality, and at worst are abject lies. Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Lebensraum? Do you have the slightest idea of what the 1967 war was about? How we begged for European and US help against an Egyptian blockade and open threat of annihilation and got none? No, but we’re extorionist, liars, racists, warmongerers, murderers, and given the chance we would commit the most horrendous crimes. This is what you are in effect saying, is it not?

You might also wonder why it has happened that my country, where there used to be a massive public support for the state of Israel, has suddenly become such a staunch believer in the ‘demonisation of Israel.’ I happen to think Israel is at least in part responsible for that.

Without a doubt, but on your part you might want to think how it came about that two years ago Europe came to believe that we had killed no less than 500 Palestinians in Jenin, how we supposedly bulldozed their bodies, and dug mass graves. All without the slightest shred of evidence, all of which turned out to be false. Or how the BBC can air a program that actually accuses Israel of using poision gas against the Palestinians, again, without the slightest bit of shame at such a lie. Nothing short of blood libels.

Egypt and Jordan have accepted and acknowledged the state of Israel, negotiations with Syria are impossible because one of the parties refuses to discuss the status of the Golan heights,

Pure and utter nonsense. Israeli-Syrian talks have stalled on a number of issues, none of which is Israeli refusal to discuss the future of the heights. Negotiations during both Rabin and Barak govermnmets went well beyond that.

and the fourth neighbour is still recovering from being an anarcho-state which was in no small part thanks to Israel’s invasion and subsequent partial occupation of that very same country.

Right, shift the Lebanese civil war onto our shoulders. Never mind that it broke out in 1975, 7 years before our invasion, never mind inter-faith tensions, an inflexible constitution, Palestinian factions building up arms, trying to wrestle control from a weak central governement, Shiite unrest, Syrian military intervention, a multitude of causes, at the end of the day it’s about Israel.
Of course, it’s been four years since we finally withdrew from Lebanon, and yet the Syrians are still there, the Hizbullah is still there, and the Lebanese army has yet to deploy to southern Lebanon despite an obligation to do so. But hey, we’re the only reason peace doesn’t come about. :rolleyes:

With the nuclear weapons, you don’t need such a pact.

We asked for a pact like you have, they didn’t want to give us one. So we took care of ourselves. If that makes us extortionists, they by all means, call us whatever you want. It beats relying on European goodwill. We tried that once in 1967, you told us to go and screw ourselves.

Poor rhetorics Oren! Suggesting a juxtaposition where there is none, without any sort of quantification of words like ‘very extensive’ and ‘many different layers’. You know it’s fluffy phrases like this which leads the true numbnuts to go conspiracy-all-the-way…
Allow me to disassemble:

By all means, do use my imperfect use of English to dig out the hidden meaning this extortionist has not-so-cleverly let slip.

“Many of which do not contradict the interests of the United States”
So you agree that at least part of the “very extensive multi-layered” US-Israeli relations actually do contradict the interests of the United States?

Actually, I was trying to show a little humility. I thought it would be presumptous of me to tell the Americans precisely where their interests lay, so I tried to water it down.

“…while others also inhibit Israeli interests.”
A meager quantification suggesting a few minor points of the “very extensive multi-layered” relations do inhibit Israel, hence suggesting the bulk does not?

Did I at any point suggest that we would rather not have this relationship, that I do not think it is good for Israel? I may not have pointed it out, but I do appreciate US help a great deal, and even if some Americans do not value our friendship, it makes no difference to me. I am not, nor am I going to be, of the American bashing crowd.

If anything, this hasn’t proven one point against the Puppet Master-theory. Which was not something i suggested at all, i only stated that the Israeli nuclear weapons are a very thick bargaining chip for Israel to get US military aid.

“bargaining chip”? Wow, that like an entire step up from extortionists.

Syria was hardly the threat during the 1973 war, Egypt was. The use of nuclear weapons against Egypt would have been far more likely (especially if Israel hadn’t been able to cross the Suez Canal itself), and far more harmful for the US – Suez Canal and such. I might be wrong on the actual dates of the war though.

Can you provide some evidence to suggest that Israel, at any point following the initial phases of the war, actually contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against Egypt in case it were unable to conduct its own crossing of the canal (October 16) ?

Originally posted by Arthur
Israel a democracy? Yeah, in name it is.

Unfortunately, if it gave democratic rights to all people living under Israeli rule, that whole nasty Democracy-thing would put an end to Israel as a Jewish state. After all, you can’t really sustain a Star of David on your flag if more than half of your population is not Jewish, can you?

The Golan Heights were hardly inhabited when Israel took that territory from Syria in 1967, and that area is now conveniently annexed by Israel. Yet somehow, the area where millions of non-Jewish people live is (in name!) not annexed by Israel… i don’t think this is a coincidence.

Israel did not annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip because as far back as 1967 it recognized that these territories (with possible border alterations, as recognized in UN resolution 242) would be the price it would have to pay in future negotiations with Arab States. In 1967 it offered them back in return for peace but was rejected in the Arab summit in Khartoum.
No one recognizes Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, no one has ever been willing to accept such an annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and yet you’re criticizing us for not doing something we are supposedly forbidden to do? The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories, whose final status is yet to be determined. Israel is under no obligation to give it’s inhabitants Israeli citizenship, on the contrary, it is prohibited from doing so.
Neither is there anything wrong with Israel wishing to maintain its Jewish identity. There does not exist a single nation state on the face of this planet that does not wish to maintain its national identity through curbing both immigration and naturalization. To expect Israel to commit national suicide to satisfy someone’s warped sense of morality is pure hypocricy.

Still i think there are only two options for a reasonably peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue: either Israel withdraws completely to it’s pre-1967 borders (which is not likely, considering both strategical and dogmatic biblical Lebensraum-issues), or Israel officially absorbs the Palestian territories including it’s people (which is even more unlikely, since that would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state and, aw gawd, give the Palestinians exactly the same rights as Israeli citizens).

Not a big follower of politics around here, I gather?
Israel does not wish to maintain control of the Palestinian population, all but the extreme right have accepted this long ago. That was why it entered the Oslo Process, hoping that some responsible Palestinian leadership would emerge, thus allowing for a process that would have culminated in a Palestinian state. No such luck, the current state is unilateral separation to Israeli defined borders. This will probably not satisfy the Palestinians, but they’ll have the state they want. The point is that it’s not black and white. It’s not as if there are only two solutions, and neither is viable.
(I’ll ignore the Lebensraum comment. How appropiate that it should appear in the same post that suggests maybe Jews would be better off without their own country.)

The current standoff and slow but sure theft/destruction of Palestinian properties is definately in Israel’s advantage. Better yet, the Palestinian suicide attacks are hardly harmful for Israel as a state, yet provide wonderful excuses to continue the strategy of bullying the Palestinians out.

“Bullying the Palestinians out”? Plain slander, we could have kicked them out after the victory in 1967, after a very destructive war in 1973, like the Kuwaitis did in 1991, but no, they’re still here. It was we who withdrew from Palestinian regions, we who helped them form their security services (one of which officers today blew up on a Jerusalem bus, killing ten), and yet we’re “Bullying” them out? Do you really think our elected government is so cynical, so evil, as to wish a continuation of terrorism just for some diabolical purpose? one which incidently never seems to come about? Spare me the arrogance. More than enything else, the above just shows how widespread the demonization of Israel is. No matter the facts, people would just believe anything.

As for Israel’s nuclear weapons, i believe their main function is not to deter potential Arab agression but much more to keep the US hostage in arms handouts. The US started giving (rather than selling) weaponry to Israel in 1973, when Israel threatened to otherwise go nuclear during that war.

Of all nuclear armed nations today, we are the sole one whose neighbors refuse to even recognize it’s right to exist, let alone that of the Jewish people to an indepedent homeland. We do not have to justify why we need nuclear weapons. We do what we can in order to ensure our continued security. Unlike the nations of Europe, we don’t have an pact with the US that assures their assistance in times of war.
US-Israel relations are very extensive, on so many different layers, many of which do not contradict the interests of the United States, while others also inhibit Israeli interests. Spare me the portrayel of Israel as some pupper master, holding the entire US administration by the neck. It’s so shallow, it’s outright insulting.

Plus, both for you and SOC : Israel supposedly considered using nuclear weapons on the first two days of the 73 war, when the situation was considered most dire : October 6th and 7th. By the 11th Israeli forces were already advancing within Syria, making any use of nuclear weapons against Damascus impracticle. When did the US airlift begin? On October 13 (the Soviet one to the Arabs had already begun on October 9). The airlift had a lot more to do with saving face versus the Russians than anything to do with nuclear weapons, or it would have begun a week earlier.

Originally posted by frankvw
I agree, but when such signs create segregation in those same schools, some action has to be taken. You can’t change the way people act towards diffenences, but you can change the way they dress to “uniformise” it a little. I don’h hear people complaining about school uniforms in Britain. This is the same, apart the fact it touches a religious symbol. Pupils go to school to learn, not to show their faith.

The simple fact the it does touch a religious symbol is what makes the Hijab entirely different from school uniform, this is no trivial matter. Preventing Muslim girls from wearing the Hijab is a form of religious coercion no different from forcing them to go covered as was once the practice in Afghanistan. A liberal democracy cannot tell its citizens how and when to practice their faith. The Hijab is an integral part of Muslim belief, it’s not about showing your faith, it’s about practicing it.
Granted, France does have its integration problems, but it is dealing with them in the worst possible way. On the one hand it’s dictating behaviour inconsistant with their beliefs (not a good idea for integration), and on the other forcing observant parents to withdraw their daughters from the public education system, sending them to schools over which the state has no influence (not a good idea for integration).

Besides, you have the answer to this law in the french motto itself: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. Equality is applicable here, too.

Such a ban makes a mockery of both liberty and equality. Equality cannot be dictated, it must be practiced, and in this case this means letting people practice the faith they believe in.

Of course, but have you ever seen what was on the german WW2 army’s belt buckles ? it was, translated, “God, with us”…

Interesting, I did not know that, but nothing more than an anecdote. National Socialism wasn’t about religion. Neither are the millions who are dying in the Congo.

I’m speaking of such easy relations. And this is one reason why Religion and State should be separated from the start. School is the State. Administration is the State.

I agree, I do think separation of state and church are a good idea. I’d certainly like to see more of it here in Israel. But the lines are not always so distinct, and I don’t think France should be telling people where and when to practice their faith. Individual rights should be curbed only when they infringe on other rights. I do not think this is the case.
To make matters worse, the events around the ban in fact make a mockery of the whole concept of separating church from state. If the French interior miniter Sarkozy needs the approval of an Egyptian cleric for a piece of domestic legislation, well, not only is there no separation, but where is the “state”?

Now, in France, you’ll never hear a politician calling for God in a speec relating with war. On the other hands, many other nations do. How many times, in recent conflict, did I hear arab head of states or religious leaders calling for holy wars, how many times did i hear US politicians saying “God Bless America”, or “With the help of God, we’ll do the right”, or stuff like that.

There is to be a trend blame every human sickness on one religion or another. Religion is a good card to carry around, but it’s rarely a motive, more like an excuse. You’ll take it away, there will always be another. Was Stalin an observant man? I don’t think so.

Another problem in France is that many kids from foreign origin, often northern Africa, live in appatment buildings, and those are concentrated, making it a real dangerous zone, a kind of ghetto. And they usually don’t integrate to the population. The result being social differences and tensions. This is one more way to remove a social difference.

France’s problems are very real, which is why I don’t understand why they are not taking them head on, but rather picking on little girls. This will do nothing but further estrange the Muslim population. What France should be doing is investing heavily in its educational system, making sure the very noble principles on which French democracy is founded reach every household. This cannot be achieved though draconian legislation, it only serves to erode these principles.

Originally posted by frankvw
This is perfectly logical for France. How could a country that separetes State and Religion accept religious signs in thebublic life ?

Little girls wearing the Hijab are not a threat to the separation of church and state. A threat emerges when the state presumes it has the right to tell individuals how to live their lives and what cloths to wear or not. A secular state does not necessitate that individuals be secular as well, but it does require that they be given a choice.

If all over the world, the priests stayed in their places of cult, and the politicians stopped invoking God (or however you call him) as a reason for their acting, there would be far less problems.

With all due respect, a tired cliche’. Neither Nazism nor Communism were about religion, yet somehow they managed to be quite murderous nonetheless.