the 6 Day War...

[LeoSalinas22]

hi everyone, peace be upon you all and God bless everyone of you,

below is a link to a website about the 6 Day War and the miracles that occured there. it is very fascinating and actually got me choked up just reading about it because i know God intervened for the nation of Israel in that war. no other war that is taught in history at our schools teaches about this and no other war that i know about ( if there is, let me know!), for the exception of the wars in the Tanach, did people of a nation look to God for their salvation. the link is right here.

thanks and God bless.

[post-abrahamic]

No one can honestly claim God is on the side of racist Israelis who even former President Jimmy Carter soundly condemned for their racist apartheid policies keeping Palestinians living in hellish conditions.

You site a war that has a totally different perspective to the victims of the Zionist land stealers and killers of local resistance to this theft of land.
Without considering the immorality of Europeans and Americans ganging up to deprive Palestinians of their own country in order to assuage the conscience of Europeans for the European caused Holocaust, no Christian has a right to side with the foreign invaders. No one who knows God would ever stoop to stealing another people's land.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by LeoSalinas22

hi everyone, peace be upon you all and God bless everyone of you,

below is a link to a website about the 6 Day War and the miracles that occured there. it is very fascinating and actually got me choked up just reading about it because i know God intervened for the nation of Israel in that war. no other war that is taught in history at our schools teaches about this and no other war that i know about ( if there is, let me know!), for the exception of the wars in the Tanach, did people of a nation look to God for their salvation. the link is right here.

thanks and God bless.

To say that God is on any side in any war is morally bankrupt.

TE

[Thomas]

One might alter one's opinion when one considers the Israeli's launched their strikes (announced as a defensive measure) in one of the gaps in the US satelite surveillance of the region.

You might also want to check out the continual attacks by the Israeli airforce on the USS Liberty, a wireless listening ship that was part of the NSA umbrella monitoring the region, which was bombed, torpedoed, napalmed and whose crewmen were straffed in their liferafts ... attacks that were passed off as a series of 'tragic errors' whilst Liberty's crewmen talk of continual friendly fly-bys by Israeli aircraft up until the day of the attacks.

A tragic error that took out the US monitoring of military signals ... 34 US sailors killed, 171 wounded ...

Thomas

[Snoopy]

"Forty years on, Israel has settled around 450,000 people on land occupied in 1967, in defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own. The fate of the Palestinians informs foreign policy and relations between the Arab world and the west to this day."

Channel 4 - News - Six Day War: remembered

s.

[Muslimwoman]

Please hang your head in shame Leo. There is right and wrong on both sides but who is dying for politics and land?.....


Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Wednesday November 24, 2004
The GuardianAn Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.

[LeoSalinas22]

is it me or do alot of you guys hate jewish people? wow. this was completely unexpected. if a mod is reading this, by all means, delete this thread because apparently people here don't like the jewish. laters.

[wil]

Namaste Leo...

Here is the the thing as I see it, if we think G-d intervened on their behalf, did G-d not assist the winner in all battles? Or where was G-d at that point in time? If G-d came out for this war....where was He at the camps?

I think if one has a mind to, one can compile 'miracles' in all battles.

In regards to hating Jews or Jewish people, I don't buy that there exists a prevailing anti-semetatic sentiment on this site.

I'm appalled at what the US has done in the middle east, and that we still have capital punishment, but that does not mean I hate Americans.

Many gov'ts have some issues and problems, that their own citizenry and others are not proud of.

[bananabrain]

whoa, there, everyone, just calm down a minute. leo - firstly, criticising the state of israel is not the same thing as hating jewish people. if you think an action, a policy or a law is wrong, you must be free to say so. there is a difference between doing that and having a go at all jews in general. where there is often confusion (and i can see it here in one particular case) is when criticism of israel is expressed in terms which draw on classical anti-semitism, such as when israelis are accused of conspiracies, poisoning or inherent untrustworthiness in such a way as would be unusual were it aimed at any other group. for example, take darfur. what those militias are up to down there, blimey - yet i don't see anybody calling darfur a "racist apartheid state". singling israel out in order to "demonise" it is a very different animal, as we shall see below.

Originally Posted by LeoSalinas22

below is a link to a website about the 6 Day War and the miracles that occured there. it is very fascinating and actually got me choked up just reading about it because i know God intervened for the nation of Israel in that war. no other war that is taught in history at our schools teaches about this and no other war that i know about ( if there is, let me know!), for the exception of the wars in the Tanach, did people of a nation look to God for their salvation.

leo, you should really know that despite the opinions of chabad (who, incidentally, are not a zionist organisation and do not believe in a non-religious jewish state) and despite the wishful thinking of many credulous and foolish religious people G!D does not intervene directly in human history any more. in jewish terms this is called the hester ha-panim ("hiding of the Divine Face") and the religious consensus on miracles is that *every single one*, *even the biblical ones*, could also have occurred *naturally* (however unlikely this might be), APART from the Revelation at sinai. all other miracles have an element of doubt. this is why a "strong east wind blew all night" the night before the splitting of the reed sea.

doubt is an important thing, because it allows for individuals to hold to their own private opinions. when someone like you, or chabad for that matter, attempts to discern the cause and effect of the Divine Will *within recorded history*, the effect is invariably corrosive. in the case of the 6-day war, a lot of people got delusions of grandeur and, forty years later, we're living with the consequences. so-called "christian zionists" who get all excited about G!D helping the modern state of israel are invariably doing so for their own purposes in my experience. frankly, mate, if your perception of what we're up to in the middle east is preparing to all be killed or converted when jesus shows up again then you are no friend of ours and neither are any of your fundamentalist friends. it is bad enough that our own fundamentalists think that the aversion of a *serious existential threat* - which was what the 6-day war was - gives them an excuse to ride roughshod over the humanity of others, without a bunch of rich americans encouraging them to be even more extreme. so much for one side. now for the rest:

Originally Posted by post-abrahamic

No one can honestly claim God is on the side of racist Israelis who even former President Jimmy Carter soundly condemned for their racist apartheid policies keeping Palestinians living in hellish conditions.

well, you sound pretty open to debate, don't you? i must say i'm noticing evidence of a pattern here. you're not a UK academic, are you? you do know, by the way, that jews are not permitted to buy land in the palestinian authority? the penalty for that is death. is that not a form of "apartheid"? jews are also not allowed to become citizens of the new iraq (even if that is where they were born) - is that not "racist"? i just hope that you do actually distribute your invective in an impartial fashion - but i'm not holding my breath.

firstly, since when is jimmy carter the fount of all wisdom on the middle east? even he has found it hard to defend his recent book and interventions as blatantly one-sided as his recent ones have been do just as much harm as those of fat, bigoted televangelists.

You site a war that has a totally different perspective to the victims of the Zionist land stealers and killers of local resistance to this theft of land.

with all due respect, i think you're failing to take the proper view of the historical context of the 6-day war. i don't think you're prepared to actually concede it might be a bit more complicated than your sloganeering would suggest. you might read some of nasser's speeches, perhaps. remember, israel beat three - count 'em - three vastly larger, richer and better resourced countries who were preparing to annihilate it. not "steal their land" - they were going to "throw the jews into the sea". everyone would have been slaughtered. the israelis were not about to take that lying down.

Without considering the immorality of Europeans and Americans ganging up to deprive Palestinians of their own country in order to assuage the conscience of Europeans for the European caused Holocaust

the arabs (we can't really speak of palestinians properly before 1967) had a chance in a UN VOTE in 1948 to partition the land. the jews voted yes. the arabs voted no and they started another war of annihilation in which they lost. the only countries that gave israel any material or logistical support were france and czechoslovakia. forget "europeans and americans ganging up". the americans weren't even interested at this point. as for the "conscience of europeans" - more than half of israel's population comes from arab countries like morocco, iraq, syria, yemen, lebanon, egypt and tunisia. they were simply kicked out (or murdered) after 1948 - they were rich communities that had been in these countries in some cases since before there were arabs there - but i don't see you calling *that* a theft of land. and that, certainly, has nothing to do with the Shoah.

no Christian has a right to side with the foreign invaders. No one who knows God would ever stoop to stealing another people's land.

whilst i am not about to whitewash immoral acts that were committed by israeli forces and governments at any time, i think calling the them "foreign invaders" is simply flying in the face of cultural fact. jews are from this place. its very names, its hills, its valleys, its stones are in our hearts. we have prayed for the return to zion and jerusalem for the last 2000 years, more than three times a day. under my wedding canopy, at the moment of my greatest personal happiness, i recited "if i forget thee, o jerusalem, may my right hand wither". i don't expect you to understand this, but the land of israel is our land historically, culturally, religiously and now, factually. what we must do is seek to be worthy of it morally and, unfortunately, we're not doing a great job of it so far, particularly at the moment. however, without a realistic, open-minded assessment of the facts and realities we are not about to find any understanding, let alone a solution. this, i am afraid, includes a full understanding of the mistakes of the early C19th zionist movement which had such tragically ignorant and misguided slogans as "a land without a people, for a people without a land". can anyone spot the bloody problem with that nowadays? sheesh, what a bunch of idiots they were. however, as someone said, we have to start from where we are, not where we wish we were, which means that slinging abuse and accusations, or hegemonising and romanticising are both equally unhelpful - and this thread so far has been an example of precisely why it is nearly impossible to have a discussion about the middle east without it being hijacked by people with extreme and unreasonable viewpoints.

thomas -

i've not come across the uss liberty event before, but there seems to be a very comprehensive wikipedia article on it:

USS Liberty incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

obviously, i would be appalled to think that the israelis did this to american bystanders on purpose, knowing they were americans, but having read the article, i am bound to pull out the following quote:

No adequate benefit has been put forward that the Israelis would derive from the attack on an American ship, especially considering the high cost of the predictable complications that must inevitably follow such an attack on a powerful ally, and the fact that Israel immediately notified the American embassy after the attack.

given that the US was *not* an ally of israel at the time of the 6-day war (or it wouldn't have happened) but only became so afterwards, i find it very hard to believe that the israelis' explanation of this tragedy did not satisfy the american government, if not some of its most senior politicians and soldiers. i also understand that the israelis paid some $13m in reparations to the wounded and the families of the dead, so presumably they accepted some measure of responsibility. i presume you brought this up because it happened in the war and it wasn't (presumably) evidence of Divine intervention, not to illustrate the general perfidiousness of israel.

Originally Posted by Snoopy

"Forty years on, Israel has settled around 450,000 people on land occupied in 1967, in defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own. The fate of the Palestinians informs foreign policy and relations between the Arab world and the west to this day."

snoopy,

have you come across what is going on in a place called nahr al-bared in lebanon at the moment? nahr al-bared is a palestinian *refugee camp*. in lebanon. there are corresponding camps elsewhere in lebanon, syria, jordan and egypt. in them, palestinian refugees are kept in limbo and have been since 1967 and in some cases 1948 - by other arabs. their so-called "brethren" have kept them in poverty and filth for 40-60 YEARS, whilst trumpeting how important the palestinian cause was to them and using it as an excuse to avoid dealing with their own problems. the palestinians have been treated scandalously by the other arabs, who pat them on the head with one hand, handing them grenades and AK47s and paying them to murder themselves and others, whilst refusing them jobs, citizenship, public services or entry into their own societies. some brotherhood. the palestinians *i* know are sick and tired of being taken for fools and used to fight other peoples' battles. this includes their leaders, in many cases. might i point you to this article which appeared recently in the international arabic paper asharq al-awsat:

Asharq al-Awsat: 40 Years On - The Real Stigma

jews don't treat other jews like that. however, as you should have seen in gaza last year, the israelis pulled out thousands of settlers *unilaterally*, because it was the right thing to do and they thought it might get them some peace. instead, they got rockets in sderot. so forgive me if i am a little cynical about "international law" in this and other contexts. people are very keen to go on about it without actually realising what it is - namely, what you can get away with justifying to other countries. it has always been enforced selectively and will continue to be so until countries are either abolished, or are prepared to accept an international policeman, or are prepared to relinquish absolute and total sovereignty over what they can call "internal affairs".

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

i presume you brought this up because it happened in the war and it wasn't (presumably) evidence of Divine intervention, not to illustrate the general perfidiousness of israel.

I brought it up for a couple of reasons:

1 — The pro-Israel lobby in the US is one of the most powerful political machines influencing government there. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories generally, nor in any nonsensicle 'Zionist agenda' ... but rather I do believe that those who make politicians' lives difficult tend to get listened to, and get their way, so that they'll go away ... and the pro-Israeli lobby, who's views happen to coincide with the military-industrial complex, at present wields enourmous power with the way it can rouse support.

After Vietnam, I would have thought the American's would have learned not to get into a war without any clear and precise idea of how to end it, but apparently not ...

2 — If I wanted to bring up the perfidiousness of the Israeli state, there's loads of other opportunities ...

Having said the above, do I think the Arabs are innocent victims in all this? No, not in the least. The innocent, and the victim, belong to a class of people without nation or boundary, but rather united by a common circumstance.

Simply, whilst the reputations of all players cannot emerge from the Middle east unsullied, and nor should they, this whole mess is to the shame of all of us and a testimony to greed, let's not drag God into a mess of our creation, as if it was His idea...

Thomas

[17th Angel]

god is love?

There is NO love in war....

[Muslimwoman]

Just so you know Leo, what offended me was that you attributed this political battle to G-d and seemed to delight in the deaths of your fellow man (on G-d's behalf). So in your opinion did G-d change sides in other battles? You may have asked why G-d did not protect the Jewish people during the holocaust? I think BB has answered this question for you but that means we should neither question G-d nor attribute anything to Him, as we know nothing of G-d's motives or reasons.

The issue I quoted could just have easily been of the death of a Jewish child, this was my point - children are dying for politics and land and it is shameful and should not be rejoiced.

As I said there is good and bad on both sides, I live in the Middle East so am frighteningly aware of the politics. I am also fully aware that the 'blame' lies on both sides.

Please don't ever accuse me of anti semitism, I take each person as I find them, regardless of religion, gender, colour, etc and I try hard to treat all people with dignity and respect.

Salaam

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

The issue I quoted could just have easily been of the death of a Jewish child, this was my point - children are dying for politics and land and it is shameful and should not be rejoiced.

As I said there is good and bad on both sides, I live in the Middle East so am frighteningly aware of the politics. I am also fully aware that the 'blame' lies on both sides.

god is love?

There is NO love in [human]politics...

[Dondi]

Originally Posted by bb

despite the wishful thinking of many credulous and foolish religious people G!D does not intervene directly in human history any more. in jewish terms this is called the hester ha-panim ("hiding of the Divine Face") and the religious consensus on miracles is that *every single one*, *even the biblical ones*, could also have occurred *naturally* (however unlikely this might be), APART from the Revelation at sinai. all other miracles have an element of doubt. this is why a "strong east wind blew all night" the night before the splitting of the reed sea.

Granted, we do not see nowadays any direct intervention of God in any miraculous fashion, ala plagues, fire, and brimstone, but does that mean that God doesn't have an indirect hand in the course of human events? Aren't there prophesies in the Hebrew scriptures still awaiting fulfillment, and have indeed some have been fulfilled, significantly with the historic date of May 14, 1948? Or is God just letting the proverbial clock to run on it's own?

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

god is love?

There is NO love in [human]politics...

You hit the nail on the head 17th, there is no love in politics and this is man made not divine. IMHO anyone that thinks they can kill in the name of G-d and that He will be pleased about it, clearly has a screw loose and has failed to understand the overall message of G-d in all scriptures.

So yes G-d is love - people on the other hand are largely scummy.