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Post by fascinating on Jun 19, 2018 9:44:44 GMT 1
I think that the post-war settlement imposed by the Americans on Germany and Japan, together with an astonishing amount of aid to Western Europe and East Asia, established a firm peace which was the foundation of the huge rise in post-war prosperity. Strange ideas for a Europhile! We are supposed to believe that peace in Europe has been achieved by taking all the fish out of the North Sea and bankrupting Greece, or whatever else the EU has done for the benefit of humanity. Miserable old skeptics like me, however, point to the 50-year Allied occupation of Germany as a possible factor. Not to mention the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which may have altered the belligerent aspirations of a few Japanese. Rhetorical flourishes aside, there are still fish in the North Sea. We are talking about the causes of post-war prosperity, (not what happened at Hiroshima etc). Yes Germany and Japan were totally defeated and demilitarised, but (if we can PLEASE move on from the war) then after a few years democratic constitutions were installed, aid was given and they were at least allowed to retain their national identities, which the Palestinians have not been allowed for over half a century. Are you suggesting that the post-war settlement had no effect in establishing a stable economy in Europe? The occupation of Germany was mainly to stand up to the threat from the Soviet Union (after it fell the British reduced the number of troops there by 90%), the allies didn't take land and introduce permanent settlements there for their own nationals. In Japan, where there wasn't such an immediate Soviet threat, the occupation formally ended in 1952, except for some outer islands, where occupation ended in 1972.
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Post by alancalverd on Jun 20, 2018 0:03:01 GMT 1
The occupation of Germany was mainly to stand up to the threat from the Soviet Union How easily the truth is ignored. About half of Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union, as part of the agreement between the Allies, of which the USSR was a major part during the war. "Don't mention the six-day war", eh? You attack a superior force, you lose. Common sense is to occupy terrritory up to defensible natural border. A river is a good one, and while the land may be less productive, a mountain ridge has a lot of attraction for the military. I suppose you would have preferred Israel to annihilate and devastate Egypt, Jordan and Syria, then rebuild them as industrial democracies, just like Germany and Japan. An interesting idea, but possibly beyond the immediate capabilities of a small developing country with hardly enough people, never mind soldiers, to occupy its own territory, let alone the entire middle east. And you wouldn't want those uppity Jews to own the oilfields, the Nile delta, and the Suez Canal, would you?
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Post by fascinating on Jun 20, 2018 7:39:13 GMT 1
I think that the occupation of Germany by NATO would have ended at around the same time it ended in Japan, were it not for the direct Soviet threat. What point are you making? The behaviour of the Soviets in Eastern Europe, for 50 years after the war, not allowing full independence of the satellite states, could be somewhat analogous to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, except that has now gone over 50 years, and the people in the West Bank still do not even have their own state.
You can mention anything as long as you point out its relevance to the current situation. The 6 day war was over 50 years ago - why do you mention it?
What's your point?
Please explain what exactly "occupy" means. Is it just military taking up strategic positions in the area? I presume you mean they control the whole area and its people. One way of doing that is that is done under military law and the population simply has to obey what the military decides. Furthermore the citizens of the occupying state can seize land and build settlements in the occupied territory at will. Is that the kind of occupation you envisage as the permanent status of the West Bank, where the people are not citizens of any state? Such a settlement would differ markedly from that of Japan and Germany after the second world war.
I never suggested any such thing. Egypt, Jordan and Syria were defeated, then a peace agreement was made with Egypt. There has been no need to devastate those places.
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Post by alancalverd on Jun 20, 2018 12:25:44 GMT 1
I think that the occupation of Germany by NATO would have ended at around the same time it ended in Japan, were it not for the direct Soviet threat. What point are you making? That, as here, history seems to be whatever you think it should have been. Most people think history is what actually happened. Because that is what happened, and led to the occupations that you object to. 1066 was a long time ago but still very relevant to the government and language of these islands. 1945 was a lifetime ago and led to the present distribution of national borders in Europe. That's how political geography happens, for the most part. Just the blindingly obvious. After a war, you don't sit in the bath and sing rugby songs with your enemies, you either gain or lose territory until the next war. Both senses are used. How very sensible of the Egyptians. Presumably they had some good reason to reinforce their border with Gaza too.
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Post by fascinating on Jun 20, 2018 14:29:12 GMT 1
I am pointing out that is what DID HAPPEN in the case of Japan, but it did not happen in Germany so soon because of the Soviet threat - but it DID HAPPEN there as well, a mere 50 years after the biggest war in history, which lasted rather more than six days.
They didn't merely sit in the bath and sing, they gave billions of dollars of aid. What territory has the USA gained in Europe from WW2?
So you mean complete occupation with military law and the inhabitants have no civil and political rights at all, and that situation should continue indefinitely?
Possibly the US aid of over a billion dollars a year might have something to do with it. Anyway, it shows that the end of war does not have to be accompanied by wholesale occupation of the defeated's territory.
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Post by alancalverd on Jun 20, 2018 16:05:02 GMT 1
Indeed, the lesson of history seems to be that those who negotiate with the victors and behave themselves decently, can prosper after a war, whilst those who swear to wipe the victors off the face of the earth probably won't enjoy life as much. 'Twas ever thus, but some folk never learn.
Old Arab parable. Scorpion wants to cross a river but can't swim. Asks a frog to help him. Halfway across,the scorpion stings the frog. Realising that they are both going to die, the frog says "why did you do that?" and the scorpion replies "because this is the middle east."
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Post by fascinating on Jun 20, 2018 22:18:49 GMT 1
If the people of the West Bank stated that they want to negotiate with Israel and that they don't want to wipe them off the face of the Earth, would that change things?
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Post by Progenitor A on Jun 20, 2018 23:20:00 GMT 1
If the people of the West Bank stated that they want to negotiate with Israel and that they don't want to wipe them off the face of the Earth, would that change things? No it would not. They have said exactly that, many times, but Israel does not want peace (one must infer) and are happy with the sstaus quo whilst they steadily accrue illegal settlements in the WB and await the passage of time to confer legitimacy upon their appropriations - just as happened in the USA with the Indians
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Post by alancalverd on Jun 21, 2018 10:44:35 GMT 1
From "Electronic Intifada" 13 June
Seems as though matters were at least progressing in the West Bank
but you can't expect a war that has been going on for around 4000 years and benefits the clergy and other parasites, to be settled in a lifetime.
I'm not sure you can equate a post-conflict defensive occupation with naked invasion, murder, enslavement and colonisation of a continent 3000 miles away. The native Americans certainly got a poor deal but their descendants seem to grudgingly accept that sewage, guns, horses, cars and television have made life for some a little less onerous than nomadic hunter-gathering with stone tools.
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Post by fascinating on Jun 24, 2018 9:14:41 GMT 1
You quote that violent suppression of a demonstration by the Palestine authority. How is that progress? I don't know what point you are making in quoting proposals from 1996. There is no mention of any such war in this list of Longest Wars in Human History. www.worldatlas.com/articles/longest-wars-in-human-history.html. Regardless, the Second World War was bigger than all other wars in whole of history, yet the aggressors were settled in their own states, with citizens having full civil and political rights, within less than 20 years. Well I don't equate it, but there again it's invasion, some murder, colonisation (by quite a few people from over 3000 miles away). The native Americans aren't made slaves, they have civil and political rights as US citizens, and impose their own laws (within the reservations).
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Post by Progenitor A on Jun 24, 2018 13:25:22 GMT 1
I'm not sure you can equate a post-conflict defensive occupation..... If you read Israeli history written by Israelis, the six day war was not necessary. The Egyptian 'exercises' in the Sinai were a silly posturing at the Israelis, and the Israeli Generals considered them such an insignificant force that they posed no threat. But Israel launched its 'pre-emptive' attacks that started the war anyway,and the question raised by many israelis was - 'why'? The answer appears to be - to enable the very 'defensive occupation' of Palestinian lands that you refer to. This interpretation is reinforced by their making Jerusalem the Capital of Israel and the steady incursions of settlements in the 'defensively' occupied territories It is the stated intention of extreme Zionists to establish 'Eretz Israel' that include Lebanon up to the Litani river, parts of Syria, the whole of Jordan and Egyptian Sinai. Whilst that is a remote aspiration of some Zionists, a majority of Israelis agree with the annexation of large parts of Palestinian teritory. Simple fact. The Israeli have much to admire and one of the reasons for their success in establshing a flourishing democracy and techo- and agro industies that outshine anything in that region (and many parts of te westerm world too) is their cleverness, energy,creativeness and capacity for hard work and the understandale obsesson their Jewish culure. Unfortunately those very same admirable traist (like the Boers in SA) leads to them riding roughshod over any weaker elements that get in their way
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Post by fascinating on Jun 25, 2018 8:17:09 GMT 1
That's the way I see the situation. One indication of the routine oppression is that Israel holds about 6500 Palestinian prisoners, another is the fact that over 30 under-18s were killed by Israel in 2017 (ie before the recent Gaza protests). Yet Israel somehow convinces the Americans, at least, that it is the victim.
The Israelis had stated that the closure of the strait of Tiran would be considered a cause of war. President Johson said "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed.".
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Post by Progenitor A on Jun 25, 2018 12:18:24 GMT 1
The Israelis had stated that the closure of the strait of Tiran would be considered a cause of war. President Johson said "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed.". All this is true, but it has been asserted that the closure of the Straits was used as by Isreal an excuse for starting the war, not the reason. Far more pertinent to Israel stating that war was the supposed aggressive stance of Egypt- later Israeli Generals stated they considered the Egyptian forces not a serious threat. The closure of the Straits would soon have stopped ahd Israel acted by bombing those ports that stopped Israeli shipping and sinking a few Egyptian warships. Here is the Israeli Chief of Staff: Yitzhak Rabin, who was then the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, "We did not think that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."
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Post by fascinating on Jun 25, 2018 12:52:48 GMT 1
Well, what you say makes sense, but now we are in the realms of what people should have done rather than what was done. I might say that some US backing to the UN contingent in the straits of Tiran might have stopped Egypt closing the strait. However we can't ignore the fundamental emnity between the parties, with Israel intent on pro-actively making certain of its own security and safety, at all costs. I think the impulse for war was the Israeli armed forces' wish to destroy their perceived enemies' armed forces, which they thought they could do quickly and thoroughly, and of course they were proved correct. If Nasser didn't want war, he made a very big mistake in closing the straits, after Israel had clearly stated, and recently re-iterated, that this action would be a causus belli.
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Post by mrsonde on Jun 29, 2018 6:19:03 GMT 1
Well, what you say makes sense, but now we are in the realms of what people should have done rather than what was done. I might say that some US backing to the UN contingent in the straits of Tiran might have stopped Egypt closing the strait. The UN contingent in the straits were gone before the US even heard about it! Nasser demanded they stayed confined in their quarters, and U Thant’s entirely unilateral response was to withdraw them all immediately, without even consulting the Security Council. Now, that was probably a very wise move on his part – his primary duty was the safety of his UNEF staff, after all, and clearly the likeliest outcome of Nasser’s Treaty-violating move into the Sinai is that they’d be either casualties or hostages in the middle of a war. Nothing could have stopped Egypt closing the strait (by which you mean reopening them I presume) – maybe he'd have obeyed a forceful Soviet order, but certainly not anything the US could have possibly risked doing. If they’d tried thy’d certainly have set off a conflagration of the Middle East and been dragged into that war with the entire Arab world, at best; and, more likely, short of a miracle, the Soviet Union. LBJ did tell Eshkol that he’d organise an International Task Force to keep the strait open, however. He withdrew that assurance within a few days – it couldn’t be American-led, not without that certainty of being dragged into war, and it quickly became clear that no other country would even consider going near such a powderkeg (only Denmark agreed to present the idea in their parliament for discussion.) Survival, at all costs – we’re not talking about clunk-clicking a seatbelt. For there to be any realistic hope of that, Israel had (and to a large extent still has) no choice but to be proactive about the matter. There is no alternative to the doctrine of Pre-emptive Defence in a country only seven miles wide, surrounded by armies that greatly outnumber them and are implacably sworn to their destruction. Everyone understood this basic and publicly asserted fact, including the Egyptians. There’s a lot of very serious errors in that thought of yours. I presume you know this, and you're simply trying to be offensively provocative? It’s a casus belli in International Law – the freedom of the High Seas being one of the few areas where such a concept actually has a real and genuine and unquestioned application. But more pertinently, it was directly breaking the treaty under which Israel had withdrawn from Sinai, ending the 56 war (the very act that prompted that war in the first place.) Under that withdrawal agreement the Sinai was demilitiarised, and assured to remain so by the presence of UNEF troops. This was the really crucial aspect of Nasser’s move - not so much the sealing off of Eilat, Israel’s only trading port to the East, which came later, but the immediate mortal threat of the loss of that essential buffer zone. Nasser probably didn’t want war, per se – not at that particular time, at least. He certainly intended to have one sooner or later, his detailed plans for it are in the public domain – but in the following year, or two at most. At that time, in May 67, he had 60,000 of his best troops in Yemen, fighting for a socialist revolution as part of his grand plan for a pan-Arab socialist Empire, with him as its Caliph. But – for a variety of unavoidably pressing reasons, he didn’t have any choice.
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