Mr.Flibble, on 11 May 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:
Eh, you serious with this? The Six-Day War was a defensive war even if Israel fired the first shots. The surrounding Arab states were only about 24 hours from attacking Israel when Israel decided to take the initiative by crushing the Egyptian air force. (And of course before that the Arabs had blockaded Israeli shipping, remilitarized the Sinai Peninsula, etc. which in itself would have been legitimate reasons for Israel to take military action against the Arabs.) The Arabs states wanted to destroy Israel. Israel's war was defensive. Arabs were the aggressors. There is no controversy surrounding this.
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The partition plan was very sound. Israel would have gained the areas where Jews were in the majority while the Arab state would have gained those areas with Arab majorities. In addition, Israel would have gained the Negev desert (uninhabited then) to accommodate the expected influx of Jewish immigrants. This was all perfectly reasonable. (And of course the Arabs would have opposed
any partition so whether the plan was considered fair wasn't even relevant to them.)
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The fact that Jews call the
1948 warthe "War of Liberation" and the Arabs call it "The Catastrophe" I think indicates our "defensive" the whole thing was.
Israeli declaration of independence was followed by
every surrounding Arab state (plus Iraq) invading the (then tiny) country. Can't get more defensive than that.
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Israel continues to oppress the indigenous people of the region.
Indigenous people? The whole "Palestinian people" is a recent invention.