History of the Middle East

Answer 1

People who ask this are bothered that so few Israelis are dying. Plain and simple. Well, that's tough. We're not going to let ourselves be killed in order to satisfy you or the bleeding-heart liberals in their safe havens in Europe. In the Battle of Mogadishu (1993), between 1500 and 3000 Somalis died, including hundreds of civilians. How many Americans were killed? Eighteen. Did anyone accuse America for doing what it saw as necessary? During WW2, sixty seven Japanese cities were carpet-bombed with incendiaries. 300,000 dead. War reportage should not treat the casualty count as a moral scale in which (like golf) the higher the number, the lower is your rank. The fact that Japan suffered more than ten times the number of people killed than America did, does not change the war's moral barometer. America was fighting a just and necessary war against a heinous enemy.

In 2006, thousands of Hezbollah rockets rained down on us; the Iron Dome defense hadn't yet been perfected. Are you sad that now we, thank God, have an effective defense? The fact that Hamas doesn't have an Iron Dome is their bad fortune. Now why don't you turn the question around and ask why is it that the terrorists in Gaza aren't stopping? So far they've shot over two thousand rockets at us in one month.

You should be aware that almost all of the Palestinian deaths occurred as collateral damage while Israel was trying to defend its populace against these terrorist rocket attacks, and terrorist tunnelers and the like. Israel targets military objectives, warning nearby civilians in advance through phone calls and leaflets, while Israel's terrorist enemies target civilian objectives almost exclusively. As one witness, a journalist, said: "Israel uses its weapons to protect its women and children, while the cowardly Hamas uses women and children to protect its weapons" by putting them as a human shield near weapons caches and rocket launchers in Gaza. Thus Israel faces an impossible situation in which the terrorists are just waiting for their Palestinian brothers to be unintentionally killed so that they can seize the opportunity to internationally bash Israel in the gullible U.N. and the media. They shed false tears, which could have been prevented by laying down their Iran-supplied weapons and sitting down to negotiate. When Israeli civilians are killed, these same terrorists hand out candies and sing in the streets.

The Palestinian attacks violate one of the most basic rules of international humanitarian law, the rule of distinction. Article 48 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that "In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives." Since the rockets Hamas aims at Israeli towns are launched into civilian enclaves, each of the 12,000 or so rockets that have come into Israel from Gaza since 2005 (including over 2000 this month alone) represents a war crime. Where is all the outcry against Hamas? People are being duped into their insidious propaganda.

And incidentally, where is your outcry concerning Muslims killing thousands of Muslims in Syria? Or the fact that the last remaining Christians now have fled Mosul after Islamic State militants issued a medieval-style ultimatum threatening them with death if they stayed.

Certain facts you may not know:

1) Hamas's founding charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel.

2) Israel supplies Gaza with water, electricity, medicines and provisions. What does Hamas do? It even fires at the power station that supplies Gaza with electricity.

3) Hamas oppresses its own Palestinian population, treats women as inferior objects, and persecutes Christians while building an army of fighters dedicated to suicide and holy war.

4) Israel treats wounded Palestinians. All the time. A reporter writes: This week I saw a Palestinian girl from Gaza being evacuated in an IDF tank to a hospital in Israel. She and her mother were interviewed, from inside an Israeli hospital. They spoke of the fair treatment, the care they received, and described the soldiers who had saved them as "brave and fair." Their faces were covered, for fear of being harmed when they return to their homes in Gaza.

5) Hamas fired on the field hospital Israel established in Shejaia, a facility which only treats wounded Palestinians. Hamas did this in retaliation for the IDF's attack on Wafa Hospital in the same neighborhood. The only difference is that Wafa Hospital is used as a Hamas launching pad for missiles aimed at us. We have publicized this on film; and we also have shown footage of them concealing missiles in U.N. schools.

6) In recent years they have not built so much as a single bomb shelter in Gaza, shelters that could save the lives of many civilians. Instead, they built dozens of underground tunnels from which to attack Israel and try to destroy it.

7) During the first 10 days of this war, the IDF lost 10 soldiers. Some of them, like the three paratroopers, are dead because the Israeli Air Force refused to attack a specific target for fear of hurting civilians. Instead, the paratroopers entered a booby-trapped house and were blown up.

8) Israel withdrew completely Gaza in 2005. Israel gave peace a chance. Instead of peace, we got war and war again. Hamas has refused to join any cease-fire Israel agreed to. We agreed to a cease fire even though, under the current circumstances, this would have been touted as an Israeli defeat. Hamas seeks to wreak death, to terrorize, to continue to brainwash those whose brains are not already drenched with uncompromising hatred.

Answer 2

Your compassion is admirable. Did you speak out while next door, the Muslim president of Syria was responsible for killing 150,000 Muslim citizens of his own country, including 1700 this week?

During the Israeli air campaign, the Gaza Health Ministry reported 250 deaths, while Israel reported 1,300 air strikes against Hamas terrorist targets in Gaza. How is your math ? Can you see what that means ? It means AT LEAST 1,050 air strikes that produced NOT ONE SINGLE casualty. You need to ask yourself: "How is this possible ?" You may talk about being harsh on Palestinians. I can personally and confidently promise you that if Israel were out to kill Palestinians, in the same way that Hamas is out to kill Jews, then one Israeli pilot in one Israeli airplane could easily have killed 250 or 500 in a half hour ... it wouldn't take 1,300 missions. The Israeli air force and army have done MORE to PROTECT the rights and security of the Palestinian people than ANY military force in the history of warfare. Israel's fight is with Hamas, NOT with the Palestinian people, and Israel is far more concerned for the welfare of the Palestinian people than their own government is. You only need to think about a few simple questions:

==> Why would Hamas launch rockets from inside a crowded city, where people could get hurt, instead of from open fields?

==> Why would Hamas dig tunnels under the border and into Israel? What on Earth could they be planning to use them for?

==> Why would Hamas spend huge sums of money buying weapons and building tunnels, instead of building electric power, water purification, roads and rails for their own people?

==> What kind of a political party is it that feels the need to write into its constitution that it promises to destroy a neighboring country and its population?

The Burj Al Arab is made of-

• steel
• concrete
• Teflon coated with fiberglass
• Dy neon coated with DuPont Teflon

The question as worded is ambiguous since Palestine refers to several different things.

1) Land: The lands commonly referred to by the term "the Mandate of Palestine" came into existence (according to science) hundreds of millions of years (if not billions of years ago) from interactions between the African and Arabian Plates.

2) Mandate of Palestine: The British Mandate of Palestine was created during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations when the British Ambassador drew a line on a map and called it Palestine in 1919. In 1922, the area currently known as Jordan was separated jursidictionally from the Mandate of Palestine, giving the Mandate its present shape.

3) Current Nation of Palestine: The Nation of Palestine was created by the Oslo Accords in 1993. This document created the Palestinian Authority which became the recognized government of the State of Palestine. Palestine has embassies in numerous countries (except most Western States) as a result. (There are also embassies from before this point in countries that did not recognize Israel before the 1960s, but they were more symbolic than representative of an actual governing agency.)

The way the question is written is to assume that it is not theirs, which is not the case in the slightest. According to historical, religious, legal, and political grounds, the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine at least partially, if not entirely, belongs to the Jewish people.

1) Historically: The Jews have an undeniable presence in the land from at least 700 BCE until 70 CE and this is proven not only by the Biblical account, but from Assyrian Ruins, Babylonian documents, Hellenistic inscriptions, and Roman volumes. Jews had a continuous presence in the land from 70 CE until the present day (even though they were nowhere near the majority) even though they were forcibly deported from the territory. The fact that they survived, as opposed to the Arameans or Hittites who were similarly exiled does not illegitimate their claims.

In addition to the population-part of the historical claim, Jews have physical ruins and cities that are very sacred to them in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The city of Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible. The city of Nablus used to be the Northern Metropolis of Shechem. Hebron was the first capital of Ancient Israel whence Saul ruled and David ruled until he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Even more recent sites like Masada document the Jewish presence and struggle to persevere.

2) Religiously: The Jewish claim to have a connection to the land of the British Mandate of Palestine is firmly grounded in their religion. Jews as early as the Babylonian exiles wrote about returning to the land because God had promised it to them. According to the Pentateuch, God promised Abraham that piece of land. (This promise is even acknowledged in the Qur'an 5:20-21 and 17:104.) Many Jewish Holy Sites are in Israel such as the Kotel Hama'aravi (Western Wall).

3) Legally: By international law, the Ottoman Empire took the territory from the Seljuks and Abbassids by internationally recognized conquest. The territory was ceded to the British as a Mandate by the Ottomans as a term of surrender in World War I. (Even though the British had promised the territory to both the Arabs and Jews during the War, neither promise is legally binding.) According to the terms of the Mandate, even though the British were in control, the League of Nations had official jurisdiction. In 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan that gave both a Jewish State and an Arab State the Right to Declare Statehood. The fact that the Arabs decided not to immediately declare such a state does not make the Israeli declaration any less valid. (It is important to note that Palestine did declare statehood on these grounds in 1988, which further cements the legality of this view.)

4) Politically: Jews invested a lot in building the political and physical infrastructure of the land even before they had control. Jews built farms, trained military brigades, created political parties, studied government, and defended themselves. This created a system that was able to repel the Arab Attacks in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, secure expanded borders in the Six Day War of 1967, and hold those borders in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Israelis were actually able to exert control over this territory.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but should capture the sentiment of the question.

Answer 1

Wherever you see a military conflict in the history of modern Israel, and that Israel still exists after it, you know that Israel didn't lose. Had Israel lost, it would no longer exist.

Just as on so many previous occasions of violence and military action, there was nothing worthy of the world's attention going on until Israel fired back. Later, Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon at the request of the UN, in return for the stationing of a UN 'Peacekeeping' force in southern Lebanon, and a guarantee that the shelling and rocketing of northern Israeli towns and farms from Lebanon would be prevented.

Answer 2

Contrary to the view presented in Answer 1, the 2006 War in Lebanon was not an existential war for Israel (as opposed to the 1948-9, 1967, and 1973 wars). Therefore, judging Israel's victory or defeat cannot come from "and the flag was still there." The dominant opinion, both in Israel and the Arab World was that Israel lost with a differing opinion on how badly.

There is still research being done on why Israel was much less successful in the Lebanese War than it had been in previous engagements. The general theory is that Israel was unable to effectively fight a counter-insurgency war in hostile territory. Hezbollah was too entrenched in the various south Lebanese neighborhoods for Israel to do anything less than carpet-bombing if they wanted to get everything, but Israel refused to engage in such conduct and attempted to go door to door. Hezbollah also had superior command over the terrain since they were fighting on "home ground". Israel's stated aim was to either deal a massive blow to Hezbollah, recover soldiers Regev and Goldwasser or both. They achieved neither. (Regev and Goldwasser's corpses were eventually recovered in a prisoner transfer deal with Hezbollah a few years later.)

No, Ariel Sharon died on Saturday, January 11, 2014.

Answer 1

The difference between Persians and Turks are that Turks are of Mongol descent. Persians are Aryan.

Answer 2

Persians are an Indo-European people who developed a civilization in what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The Persian Empire is known for a vast expansion, characterized by a tolerant attitude towards minorities and gifts of autonomy to local regions, governed by an absolutist king. Their historic religion is Zoroastrianism, but after the conquest of Persia by the Islamic Caliphate, the majority religion of the Persians (as well as the ethnic minorities of Iran) has become Shiite Islam.

The Turks are composed of two historical groups that intermarried and created a unified culture. Oghuz Türk nomads, an Altaic people from Central Asia, conquered Anatolia and brought it under their rule. During that period, those former Byzantine citizens who converted to Islam began to take on the same mannerisms as the foreign Türks who had conquered them. They began to speak the same language, dress in the same clothes, and believe in the same general ideologies. This process is well-documented by Turks and is called Turkification or Türkleşme. Turks primarily exist in Turkey and Cyprus with a significant diaspora in the USA and Germany. The historic Turkish State was the absolute monarchy of the Ottomans and the modern Turkish State is the Secular Turkish Republic. Sunni Islam has always been a central part of Turkish identification and culture and was one of the earliest markers of "Turkishness". With the advent of the Secular Turkish Republic, there has been a push to determine Turkishness based on forms of identity other than religion, to make Jewish, Christian, and Alevi citizens of Turkey into Turks as well.

Judaism formed in Israel when Abraham formed a covenant with God.

Answer 2

By Abraham in the Middle East.
Tradition states that Abraham founded Judaism. The Kuzari (Rabbi Judah HaLevi, 1075-1141) states that Abraham was gifted with high intelligence; and, as Maimonides (1135-1204) describes, Abraham didn't blindly accept the ubiquitous idolatry. The whole populace had been duped, but the young Abraham contemplated the matter relentlessly, finally arriving at the conclusion that there is One God and that this should be taught to others as well. This is what is meant by his "calling out in the name of the Lord" (Genesis ch.12). As a young man, he remonstrated with passersby in public, demonstrating to them the falsehood of their idols; and our tradition tells how he was threatened and endangered by Nimrod.
Subsequently, Terah relocated to Harran; and it is here that Abraham began to develop a circle of disciples (Rashi commentary, on Genesis 12:5). Later, God told Abraham in prophecy to move to the Holy Land, which is where he raised his family. He continued his contemplations, eventually arriving at the attitudes and forms of behavior which God later incorporated into the Torah given to Moses.
Moses achieved the highest level of prophecy (Deuteronomy ch.34) and was called upon by God (Exodus ch.3). He brought the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery (Exodus ch.12). He received the Torah from God (Exodus 24:12) and later recorded it in writing (Deuteronomy 31:24).
All of the above places are in the ancient Fertile Crescent.