Well the Isaelis can take out as many people and weapons as they can, but Hezbollah will still be there when the smoke clears.

I think we - and by 'we' I mean the sworn enemies of these radical Islamist groups - need a new strategy.

Anyone have any ideas?

__________________
Ralph

1985 300D Turbo, CA model
248,650 miles and counting...

Thanks! You too, Surf.

You're right, of course, I will pay attention. Ugh.

__________________
Ralph

1985 300D Turbo, CA model
248,650 miles and counting...

Israel can either surrender or kill so many Hizbolleans that they seek more salubrious environs. Middle ground will just result in a continuation of the seemingly endless series of brutal wars in which noncombatants incur the most casualties.

B

So should we be in or out? On the recent stuff, I will clarify.

Cryptogram wrapped in a puzzle.

By the by, the title of this thread is abominable--what if it was--"Don't **** with the Arabs......?"



Is there anyone that can say the thread is patriotic, helpful, insightful or serves any purpose?

Can they continue to kick Hezzbolah's ass now, and could they have been established without the full faith and credit of the US Gubmt.? Just a querstion.

Israel, that is.

Well we ARE in.

Israel has done some things I don't approve of (my lack of approval no doubt deeply wounds all Israelis) but in the final analysis I think they are a similar nation to us in many ways and we need to stand with them.

__________________
Ralph

1985 300D Turbo, CA model
248,650 miles and counting...

I don't think so (for all of the above). IMO, creating a theocratic state was an incredibly dumb idea. For Israel to continue to be a theocracy (even if a democratic one) seems in direct contradiction to our own founding principles and for the obvious reason that israel is currently experiencing.

But here we are. Israel is a viable state and the people think of themselves as a nation more now than they have in over 2,000 years. They will fight and we will support them in that fight. It's an imperfect world.

B

Or it casts hezbollah in the role of idiots-not smart enough to be able to see what Israel would do.

I play chess, the more plays "ahead" that oyu can plan, the better off you will be against your opponents. For hezbollah's leaders to admit that they didn't see this one coming makes them sound pretty dumb.

That is, of course, one way of looking at it. Your POV also makes perfectly good sense, considering hezbollah's history of deceit, anything is possible.

__________________
Current Benzes

1989 300TE "Alice"
1990 300CE "Sam Spade"
1991 300CE "Beowulf" RIP (06.1991 - 10.10.2007)
1998 E320 "Orson"
2002 C320 Wagon "Molly Fox"

Res non semper sunt quae esse videntur

My Gallery

Not in this weather!

Si Senor...

__________________
Current Benzes

1989 300TE "Alice"
1990 300CE "Sam Spade"
1991 300CE "Beowulf" RIP (06.1991 - 10.10.2007)
1998 E320 "Orson"
2002 C320 Wagon "Molly Fox"

Res non semper sunt quae esse videntur

My Gallery

Not in this weather!

There are few excuses for the behavior of Jewish gangsters in the 1920s and 1930s. The best known Jewish gangsters – Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Longy Zwillman, Moe Dalitz — were involved in the numbers rackets, illegal drug dealing, prostitution, gambling and loan sharking. They were not nice men. During the rise of American Nazism in the 1930s and when Israel was being founded between 1945 and 1948, however, they proved staunch defenders of the Jewish people.

The roots of Jewish gangsterism lay in the ethnic neighborhoods of the Lower East Side; Brownsville, Brooklyn; Maxwell Street in Chicago; and Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. Like other newly arrived groups in American history, a few Jews who considered themselves blocked from respectable professions used crime as a means to "make good" economically. The market for vice flourished during Prohibition and Jews joined with others to exploit the artificial market created by the legal bans on alcohol, gambling, paid sex and narcotics.

Few of these men were religiously observant. They rarely attended services, although they did support congregations financially. They did not keep kosher or send their children to day schools. However, at crucial moments they protected other Jews, in America and around the world.

The 1930s were a period of rampant anti-Semitism in America, particularly in the Midwest. Father Charles Coughlin, the Radio Priest in Detroit, and William Pelley of Minneapolis, among others, openly called for Jews to be driven from positions of responsibility, if not from the country itself. Organized Brown Shirts in New York and Silver Shirts in Minneapolis outraged and terrorized American Jewry. While the older and more respectable Jewish organizations pondered a response that would not alienate non-Jewish supporters, others – including a few rabbis –asked the gangsters to break up American Nazi rallies.

Historian Robert Rockaway, writing in the journal of the American Jewish Historical Society, notes that German-American Bund rallies in the New York City area posed a dilemma for mainstream Jewish leaders. They wanted the rallies stopped, but had no legal grounds on which to do so. New York State Judge Nathan Perlman personally contacted Meyer Lansky to ask him to disrupt the Bund rallies, with the proviso that Lansky’s henchmen stop short of killing any Bundists. Enthusiastic for the assignment, if disappointed by the restraints, Lansky accepted all of Perlman’s terms except one: he would take no money for the work. Lansky later observed, "I was a Jew and felt for those Jews in Europe who were suffering. They were my brothers." For months, Lansky’s workmen effectively broke up one Nazi rally after another. As Rockaway notes, "Nazi arms, legs and ribs were broken and skulls were cracked, but no one died."

Lansky recalled breaking up a Brown Shirt rally in the Yorkville section of Manhattan: "The stage was decorated with a swastika and a picture of Hitler. The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. We … threw some of them out the windows. . . . Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up. . . . We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults."

In Minneapolis, William Dudley Pelley organized a Silver Shirt Legion to "rescue" America from an imaginary Jewish-Communist conspiracy. In Pelley’s own words, just as "Mussolini and his Black Shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his Brown Shirts saved Germany," he would save America from Jewish communists. Minneapolis gambling czar David Berman confronted Pelley’s Silver Shirts on behalf of the Minneapolis Jewish community.

Berman learned that Silver Shirts were mounting a rally at a nearby Elks’ Lodge. When the Nazi leader called for all the "Jew bastards" in the city to be expelled, or worse, Berman and his associates burst in to the room and started cracking heads. After ten minutes, they had emptied the hall. His suit covered in blood, Berman took the microphone and announced, "This is a warning. Anybody who says anything against Jews gets the same treatment. Only next time it will be worse." After Berman broke up two more rallies, there were no more public Silver Shirt meetings in Minneapolis.

Jewish gangsters also helped establish Israel after the war. One famous example is a meeting between Bugsy Siegel and Reuven Dafne, a Haganah emissary, in 1945. Dafne was seeking funds and guns to help liberate Palestine from British rule. A mutual friend arranged for the two men to meet. "You mean to tell me Jews are fighting?" Siegel asked. "You mean fighting as in killing?" Dafne answered in the affirmative. Siegel replied, "I’m with you." For weeks, Dafne received suitcases filled with $5 and $10 bills -- $50,000 in all -- from Siegel.

No one should paint gangsters as heroes. They committed acts of great evil. Historian Rockaway has presented a textured version of Jewish gangster history in a book ironically titled, But They Were Good to their Mothers. Some have observed that, despite their disreputable behavior, they could be good to their people, too.

__________________

Lets see, they offered up 95% of the land the Palestinians wanted and that was rewarded with SQUAT. The Arabs want the Jews dead, plain and simple, so it is obvious to moderately intelligent people (I guess not all), that Israel has show extreme restraint. They don't need an excuse to do anything, they are surrounded by their enemies. They can defeat them all and yet they stay behind their borders.

get a clue dude. Just say you hate Bush and quit trying to use any excuse (sound familiar?) to tie every problem of the world to him. It only makes you look stupid(er).

And by the way, we SELL arms and munitions we don't give them away. Do something smart and invest in the company that makes them.

__________________
MB-less

Your first suggestion would require an act of intellectual honesty--which may be a reach for many folks here.

Your second suggestion is very good. I would, however add: diversify, diversify, diversify.

__________________
Current Benzes

1989 300TE "Alice"
1990 300CE "Sam Spade"
1991 300CE "Beowulf" RIP (06.1991 - 10.10.2007)
1998 E320 "Orson"
2002 C320 Wagon "Molly Fox"

Res non semper sunt quae esse videntur

My Gallery

Not in this weather!