🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15bmmqINNlqt@agate.berkeley.edu> dan@barkley.berkeley.edu (dan graves) writes:
>   In article <EGGERTJ.92Jul30165655@moses.atc.ll.mit.edu>, eggertj@moses.atc.ll.mit.edu (Jim Eggert x6127 g41) writes:
>   |> In article <159680INN7pj@agate.berkeley.edu> dan@jonas.berkeley.edu (dan graves) writes:
>   |> I don't understand what you mean when you say that Israel has been one
>   |> of the USA's most steadfast allies.  Do you mean that the US has, in
>   |> time of need, been able to go to Israel for help?  Do you mean that
>   |> Israel has done its best to do what the US wants it to do?  Please
>   |> explain.
>   Israel always supported us diplomatically when  our 
>   incompetant president Ronald Reagan  wanted us to 
>   do something stupid like negotiate with terrorists.

I presume you mean the Iran-Contra affair.  I wonder how one could
possibly form a high opinion of a "steadfast ally" whose main claim to
alliance is such a dirty deal as Iran-Contra.

>   They even abstained from retailiating against their
>   enemies when their citizens were murdered by rocket
>   attacks, just because we asked them to.  I would
>   call this very steadfast.

Don't kid yourself, Israel was not motivated by mere alliance with the
US.
With the density of sorties the Coalition forces were sending over
Iraq, Israel realized that it just didn't make sense to send any of
their planes into harm's way.  Either military sense (they couldn't
have destroyed a significant number of Scud launchers) or political
(they couldn't have added significantly to the destruction of Iraq,
hence wouldn't have scared Iraq at all).
All they could accomplish was to make Iraq hate Israel even more, or
to risk the chance that Iraq (or another Coalition country) would down
an Israeli plane.  Israel would have been shooting themselves in the
foot to launch an attack against Iraq.

>  I doubt any of the brutal
>   dictatorships of the region would do the same.  The 
>   current administration is willing to accept much of
>   the smoke and mirrors of the Arab dictatorships
>   as support.  Israel has supported us with concrete and
>   (in the case of the scuds) potentially dangerous action.

If you want concrete and potentially dangerous action as proof of
alliance, then ask Israel to give the West Bank to an independent
Palestine.

>   Now i ask you to comment on the most important point i made
>   in the earlier post.  Israel is not (unlike these brutal 
>   dictatorships) motivated by conquest or the politics of hatred.
>   Israel defends itself, every nation's right.

Surely you jest.  There is more than enough hatred in Israeli politics.
There is considerable evidence that conquest of Arab territories was a
goal of the 1948 war of independence.
--
=Jim  eggertj@atc.ll.mit.edu (Jim Eggert)