Jeroen wrote:

 >> how *can* there be anything good to say about
 >> a country that behaves the way Israel does? a country that 
 >> behaves the way Israel does?
 >
Ronn replied:

 > What of those who feel that the war Israel is waging is a war of 
  >survival against an enemy who will not be satisfied with anything 
 >less than the elimination of Israel?
 >

My first job as a kid was delivering papers; I was about 12 years
old.  I never paid any attention to the news until June of 1967, I
think it was, though that's off the top of my head.  Little tiny
Israel perched precariously on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea
staged a preemptive attack on a force of several nations that was 
massing to invade them; Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and 
others and including the substantial financial backing of Saudi 
Arabia.  The Israeli's were outnumbered and out gunned, but in six 
days: _six days_ they wiped the allied force slick, taking the West 
Bank and the Sinai.

That such a small country could repel such an army is an historical
feat.  Nothing like it has happened in my lifetime, excepting, of
course when the Israeli's did it again in the Yom Kippur war six
years or so later.  That time they were taken by surprise and almost
overcome, but they turned it around and would have marched into 
Cairo if the Soviets hadn't threatened to nuke them.

Nonetheless, these people that had been ruthlessly attacked by a 
conglomeration of countries many, many times larger and more 
populous than themselves, these people that had withstood not one 
but two unprecedented, vicious, attempts to wipe them off the face 
of the earth, these people sat down with those that had vowed to 
continue that attempt to exterminate them, and made peace with them 
and gave back most of the land that they had taken.

If you can't anything good to say about Israel, you must not be 
looking.  And that's the kindest thing I can think of to say.

-- 
Doug

email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto

Irreverence is the champion of liberty.
Mark Twain - Notebook, 1888


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