>>Mike wrote: Question: What made these people in Lebanon decide to launch suicide attacks Laurent:
>>Well no matter how long this lie is being repeated in the media worldwide, I cannot understand how a tiny country of 5 million jews that control 1% of the middle east area would even dream of winning a war against 200 million surrounding arabs? One would have to be crazy to even think of engaging in such an aggression.<< Mike says Unless one had very powerful friends and one of the best-equipped and trained fighting forces on the planet. And regarding lies in the worldwide media, tell me please who distorts the news from the middle east the most. We disagree on this but I sent a lot of information on this off-list and have yet to see a reply. Can you not accept that the Israeli propaganda machine is infinitely superior to anything that the Palestine side could manage? Laurent said: >> Simply put, Israel is trying to survive, not expand. Territorial encroachments are for security reasons (eg Kibboutz in northern Israel being shelled daily).<< Mike says I simply do not believe this. I sent you evidence to disprove this, evidence based on the memoirs of such 'lefties' as Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin. 'Territorial encroachments', a lovely euphemism, are for wholly different reasons. Laurent said: >> No, the rhetoric has changed over the decades, it has become more clever, but the same hate still prevails.<< Mike says The rhetoric on both sides has indeed become more clever but you see only one side of it, as I imagine you would say about me. In my heart I have no hate for anyone and I imagine that you were not referring to me personally. I am engaged in an investigation to try to see what really happened here and what's really happening now. I know this is difficult and I will try to see all sides but what I have read has informed me, to a small extent compared to you, Laurent, I am sure, but please do not attribute hate to my motives. I do not attribute hate to yours, and in fact I wish you a very happy xmas too. Talk to you in the new year, Regards, Mike. Dear Mike, I have been enjoying our exchanges on and off list. Rest assured that I have not detected an ounce of hate in you ever. I have no doubt your motives are sincere but I believe you have perhaps fallen a little on the opposite side from me. Regarding your off-list communication of Christopher Hitchens book, I have not forgotten and will prepare a substantiated reply as soon as possible. I'm sending you an article off list too. Now regarding these past exchanges, do you really believe that Israel willingly and knowingly wants war with 200 million arabs, even with the US support? Come on, that would be suicidal because: as long as Israel wins the wars they stay alive, and they often give back the land they won on the battlefield. The one time, God forbid, they would lose 1 war, this will mean another holocaust. Israelis remember that the U.S wasn't always backing them up, so they've learned not to rely on anybody else but themselves for survival. I'll give you a couple of examples of that last point: Just before WW2, the U.S. sent back to Germany boats filled with German jews, to a certain death. During WW2, despite the many appeals, Roosevelt refused to bomb concentration camps or railroads leading to them, because those were not "military targets". After WW2, the U.S initially didn't want to vote for the creation of the state of Israel. The simple fact is the muslim propaganda has turned jews into pure evil (see the article I'm sending you off-list). If you read this press anything we do is wrong, isn't it? We jews have learned to take this press with a grain of salt. For the very reason that before we had a state and the ability to defend ourselves, the arguments of hate and of us being evil were the same, just presented slightly differently. About the only thing we can ever do which brings no protest or cristicism is letting ourselves being slaughtered. There's no question that generations of arab children are being indoctrinated at an early age to kill jews whatever the cost. Why so much hate? The question of the land is bullshit. This land became a desert after the jews were taken captive to Babylon and remained so for 2000 years. Nobody wanted this wasteland. The arabs who lived on it certainly had no official deed to it, no more and no less than the jews before them. So I personally interpret Bill Fowler's argument (JMDL on 12/25) differently. He simply meant that jews had historical and religious ties to this land which the arabs didn't. Those who chastised Bill for his use of the term "chosen people" are not aware of the meaning of these words. It simply means that God has chosen the jews to fulfill the 613 commandments of the Torah, for the benefit of the entire mankind. In other words jews have the responsibility to follow the law to ensure order in the world, whereas non-jews are not obligated. The key word here is responsability. There is no meaning whatsoever of a privilege of any kind. After all, if anybody thinks jews' ordeals over the ages is a privilege, we'll gladly trade it with another fate. So, to conclude, the question is not whose propaganda is stronger. The issue is that muslim propaganda is finding an echo among the muslim population worldwide. That echo is obviously stronger due to the sheer number of muslims compared to the number of jews. So this leads to more hate on a much wider scale. In my own country of France which is home to 5 million muslims and to 600.000 jews, the politicians have clearly made their choice of whose votes to cajole. Just 2 days ago, a liberal rabbi was stabbed with a knife in the synagogue where I send my children. A university in Paris voted last week to sever its ties with Israeli universities, despite the fact that those universities in Israel enroll students of all creeds and are at the forefront of the dialogue with Palestinians. No, it was easier to put all of israelis and their institutions in the same "evil" basket. There are hundreds of incidents in France, largely unreported. You may say that jewish extremists do similar things, true, but on an infinitely smaller scale. Of course it's not right. All I'm saying is the arab side is encouraging massive slaughter, and history has proven that it's very easy to convince people, even the most culturally advanced nations (as was Germany) to perform inhuman acts. When you think of it, what JUSTIFICATION did it take to convince a black african of one ethnic group in Rwanda to chop the head off another black african, times a few millions! So if men can do it to men of their own race and color and religion, think of what others can do when the other side is portrayed as pure evil and is of another religion. Happy and healthy 2003 to all of you. Laurent
