[twowords]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Do you really think the UN partition plan failed because the Arabs wanted the spasely populated underdeveloped desert in the south, or because they didn't want to Jews there at all.

2) Nasser did close the straight to Isreali shipping. Check your facts.

3) The forced withdrawal of the UN peacekeepers and the stationing of troops in the Sinai was a direct breach of the most important part of the peace treaty. There was no excuse for it and the fact that it led to war is no shocker.

4) If there was no plan to invade Isreal why would Nasser say this upon finalizing his military alliance with Jordan:
"Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

Rhetoric, I think not. You don't openly call for the destruction of a country, make military alliances with its nieghbors, station huge troop contingents on its borders, and blockade its ports because you want to make a statement.

We are lucky Isreal's leaders had the foresight to launch a pre-emptive strike, because if they had not the war could have turned out much differntly and Isreal might not exist today.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) By the time hundreds of thosands of Jews had immigrated and violence was breaking out, neither side wanted the other side in British Mandate Palestine. Period. And remember there were only 5,000 Jews there at the turn of the century, they only were able to immigrate because the Arabs in British Palestine did not have control of the country/state/area, the British did. Like I said, when you start your history before 1948, you may understand it better.

2) Check your reading of my post.

3) The arguments that the Israeli invasion of 1967 "was no shocker" and that the Arab states were responsible for starting the war are at least presentable, although in the context of the previous decades it is largely dismisable. I would not be surprised if we disagreed on this. However, I am glad this appears that you have given up on the pre-emptive war assertion, which is just laughable if you study the wars' sequence of events in any detail.

4) Studying the Middle East history of this time shows that the rhetoric used by Nasser and others to maintain power, rally the continient, and ensure popular support contrasted significantly with their more realistic foreign policies. Many nations in the Middle East considered the ultimate goal to be a Palestinian state in the place of Israel, which likely would involve perhaps a few massacres followed by mass exodus by Jews and the those remaining subjagated similarly to the Palestinians in the West Bank have been over the years. In other words, about the same thing that happened with the creation of Israel. In this light, you could consider 1967 to be a "preventative war" on Israel's part, embarked on because the combined Egypt/Jordan/Syria might someday be capable of conquering Israel and 1967 was as good a time as any to take them down a notch. Again, this argument is presentable, if not ultimately believable, and at least an improvement on the pre-emptive assertion.

"We are lucky Isreal's leaders had the foresight to launch a pre-emptive strike, because if they had not the war could have turned out much differntly and Isreal might not exist today."

Ahhhhhhhhh, your're going to drive me crazy.