And we're supposed to "talk" to these folks

[Amianthus]

sirs chose to quote from an article which in summary deleted any and all facts indicating that previous acts of aggression by Israel had taken place before the aggressive Arab acts that purportedly led Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike.  This was obviously misleading as without the earlier Israeli aggression mentioned, one could easily conclude that Israel was the sole innocent party to the war and that it was merely responding to unprovoked aggression.

I guess you didn't bother to read the entire article.

[sirs]

sirs chose to quote from an article which in summary deleted any and all facts indicating that previous acts of aggression by Israel had taken place before the aggressive Arab acts that purportedly led Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike.  This was obviously misleading as without the earlier Israeli aggression mentioned, one could easily conclude that Israel was the sole innocent party to the war and that it was merely responding to unprovoked aggression.

I guess you didn't bother to read the entire article.

That would have run against Tee's template of what is, is   

[Michael Tee]

Ami:  <<I guess you didn't bother to read the entire article.>>

sirs:  << That would have run against Tee's template of what is, is    .>>

You should both try to express yourselves more clearly.  If you feel that the article contained something that I missed, lay it out for me.  What's in the article that you think I missed?  I'm not perfect.  I can make mistakes.  If I made one, I'll note it and apologize for it.  But bullshit posts like yours are impossible to deal with in any reasonable or intelligent manner.  You are  like little kids with something up your sleeves.  Grow the fuck up.

[Amianthus]

You should both try to express yourselves more clearly.  If you feel that the article contained something that I missed, lay it out for me.  What's in the article that you think I missed?  I'm not perfect.  I can make mistakes.  If I made one, I'll note it and apologize for it.  But bullshit posts like yours are impossible to deal with in any reasonable or intelligent manner.  You are  like little kids with something up your sleeves.  Grow the fuck up.

I do express myself clearly. If you would read the section of your post that I quoted and my comment, you would (assuming normal intelligence) understand my point quite well. My problem with you has always been your skimming of my posts and not gaining a clear understanding. I always quote the relevant section - the part of your post to which I'm responding directly.

In this case, you obviously didn't read the article that Sirs linked. Had you read the article, you would have seen that many of the very points you brought up - supposedly left out of the article - were actually in the article, though not in the section that Sirs directly linked. You read the quote, possibly skimmed the single section that he directly linked, then dismissed the whole thing as "Zionist fraud."

For example, you state "The other Wikipedia article is the one quoted by sirs - - it is the same as the first article, MINUS all of the stuff indicating that Israel was not exactly blameless in setting the stage for the war." Yet the article that Sirs linked in to the discussion has a number of quotes similar to the following:

• "The 630,000-700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from the areas that became Israel were not allowed to return to their homes, and took up residence in refugee camps in surrounding countries,"
• "The 1956 Suez War was a joint Israeli-British-French operation, in which Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and British and French forces landed at the port of Suez, ostensibly to separate the warring parties, though the real motivation of the United Kingdom and France was to protect the interests of investors in those countries who were affected by Egyptian President Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal."

Obviously, the authors of the articles did not attempt to hold Israel blameless, as you claimed. So, it is pretty obvious that my statement is correct: you did not bother to read the article, instead dismissing it as "Zionist fraud." Sloppy and lazy, in my book.

[Michael Tee]

It's just as I suspected.  Had there been anything in sirs' article that directly contradicted my claim that material supporting the mixed-blame theory of the Six Day War had been excised, you would have quoted it directly, rather resort to innuendo based on vague allegations of skimming.

The original Wikipedia article referred specifically to incidents related directly to the run-up to the Six Day War, for example, the National Water Carrier raid, the Samu Incursion, the Israeli warplanes' flight over Damascus; sirs' article referred to none of these.  Instead, you refer to things in sirs' article that had no immediate causal connection to the Six Day War - - the expulsion of the Palestinians, the Suez War.  There is very little reason to link the Six Day War to the expulsion of the Palestinians or to the Suez War.  It would be absurd to link Arab troop movements in June of 1967 to either of them.  What sirs (and the Zionists who "trimmed down" the original Wikipedia article which, once trimmed, he used as a source) left out of the facts leading to the Six Day War were facts that directly challenged sirs' portrayal of an innocent suddenly threatened by hostile neighbours without having furnished them with any reason or pretext for the "threats" and in fact without providing any reason to assess the so-called "threats" as anything other than threats, for example, as defensive precautions.

[domer]

What's your point, Tee? To be specific, what lesson are you trying to draw from the Six-Days' War?

[Amianthus]

The original Wikipedia article referred specifically to incidents related directly to the run-up to the Six Day War, for example, the National Water Carrier raid, the Samu Incursion, the Israeli warplanes' flight over Damascus; sirs' article referred to none of these.

The article is a summary. That section even includes a link to the article that you yourself posted.

Presumably, an intelligent person would follow that link to the main article on the war of '67 if they were interested in details. Presumably, an unintelligent person would complain that the details were in a detail page instead of the summary. Others would learn about the concept of "hyperlinking" and what it's all about.

[Michael Tee]

<<The article is a summary. That section even includes a link to the article that you yourself posted.>>

Ridiculous.  This is a debating group, not a research institution.  If sirs has a point to make, he can make it in debate - - post it.  When he asserts points in support of his position and backs it up with a source, that's legitimate debate.  Anyone who doubts his point can check his source.  When he selectively asserts some points that favour his position and leaves out others that don't, that's borderline legitimate too - - except when he cites an obviously truncated article in support of his contentions, and the full article from which it was taken clearly states what he had been covering up.

Most of the Wikipedia articles have links, and the links have links as well.  IMHO, it's just asking too much of a debater not only to go to the source article cited but also to follow up all its links.  sirs should either have cited the full article and not the excerpt or been a little more honest in his original post and not pretended that Israel was an innocent victim of unprovoked aggression.

[Michael Tee]

<<What's your point, Tee? To be specific, what lesson are you trying to draw from the Six-Days' War?>>

Unfortunately, I got a little side-tracked on that issue, so your question is a good one.

The war was brought up by sirs as the reason for the occupation.  That to me is clearly bullshit and I advanced several reasons why.

However, sirs also painted Israel as launching a fully justified pre-emptive strike on its neighbours and cited a Wikipedia article which seemed to back him up on that.  When I checked out Wikipedia on the Six Day War, there was a fairly detailed article that painted a more balanced picture of the war, particularly casting doubt on the pre-emptive nature of it (the Menachem Begin quote) and also showing a step-by-step history of Israeli aggression, within months of the start of the war, which made the Egyptian and Syrian troop movements a little more equivocal and explicable at least in part on the preceding Israeli aggression.  My beef with sirs became centred around the use of what I considered to be Zionist-censored material in support of a Zionist lie, when the original uncensored material giving the full story was readily available.

That said, I still believe there was plenty of fault to go around where the war is concerned.  Nasser's threats to destroy Israel had to be taken seriously by the Jews of all people.  History shows that we cannot afford to ignore threats of anihilation.  A high state of defensive readiness had to be maintained, clearly.  Perhaps even a pre-emptive strike was in order.  It's just not the slam-dunk case that sirs likes to pretend it is.  And in any event it is a shabby and ridiculous excuse for 39 years of occupation and the ongoing theft of Palestinian land and livelihood, the slow-motion ethnic cleansing that Israel has initiated.  The obvious explanation of the occupation  is greed for land and indifference to the suffering of others.  Plain and simple.

[Amianthus]

sirs should either have cited the full article and not the excerpt or been a little more honest in his original post and not pretended that Israel was an innocent victim of unprovoked aggression.

This is not a courtroom, where the prosecution is required to make a full disclosure to the defense. It's a debate club where both sides are expected to do the requisite research in support of their own position and are not required to provide support for their oppsition.

However, in the future, I'll make sure to remind you of your rules when supporting your own position, if you don't also provide support to your opponents.

Regardless, both articles (yours and Sirs) list the casus belli of the '67 war as Egyptian aggression. So, quoting either article by Sirs would have been supportive of his position.

[Amianthus]

The war was brought up by sirs as the reason for the occupation.

Actually, Sirs originally only mentioned a history of Arab aggression toward Israel. You brought the year 1967 into the discussion, and later brought up the Six Days War, recommending he look it up in Wikipedia.

Feel free to go back and look. Page 20 and 21 of the discussion, IIRC.

[Michael Tee]

<<Regardless, both articles (yours and Sirs) list the casus belli of the '67 war as Egyptian aggression. So, quoting either article by Sirs would have been supportive of his position.>>

That's a ridiculously simplistic assessment of the situation.  The article (mine, not sirs') casts doubt even on the casus belli theory when it quotes Menachem Begin.  Further, even if the casus belli were to have been the the Egyptian threats and troop movements, it does not absolve Israel of all responsibilty for what happened next.  The factors of provocation and prior aggression clearly stated in the full article belie the picture of Israel as the blameless victim of unprovoked aggression.

<<This is not a courtroom, where the prosecution is required to make a full disclosure to the defense. It's a debate club where both sides are expected to do the requisite research in support of their own position and are not required to provide support for their oppsition.>>

I don't disagree with that.  But I am certainly under no obligation to meekly accede to every authority that sirs wishes to use in support of his position.  If he picks a doctored and censored version of a full Wikipedia article, I call attention to the doctoring and censoringl

[Michael Tee]

Ami:  <<Actually, Sirs originally only mentioned a history of Arab aggression toward Israel. You brought the year 1967 into the discussion, and later brought up the Six Days War, recommending he look it up in Wikipedia.

Feel free to go back and look. Page 20 and 21 of the discussion, IIRC.>>

Maybe you should read your own references a little more carefully.  Here's what sirs actually said, on p. 20:

sirs:  <<Ironically speaking, "if you knew anything about their history", you'd grasp that this so-called "occupation" begain when Israel had to take lands in defense of their country, as every one of their border neighbors, Jordan included was massing its military along their borders, and Egypt's President declaring their intentions of taking on Israel.  They didn't simply "occupy 3 million Arabs"  Everything that Israel has done has been in RESPONSE to something being done or about to be done to them.  Nearly every one of Israel's military incursions into Gaza or the West Bank was as a result of some attack directed at Israel.  What part of the math are you not understanding here, Tee?>>

[sirs]

The war was brought up by sirs as the reason for the occupation.

Actually, Sirs originally only mentioned a history of Arab aggression toward Israel. You brought the year 1967 into the discussion, and later brought up the Six Days War, recommending he look it up in Wikipedia.

Tee's just bent out of shape that no one is really buying this alternate version of history he's trying to sell, where it really is Israel who's the big bad meanie, and that Nasser was simply respondiing to the apparently occasional incursions by Israel, with his pledges of complete Israeli destruction.  You've already nailed it many times over Ami, how BOTH wikipedia articles (the one with more detail, and the summary), as well as boatload of others, make it crystal clear what prompted Israel to pre-emtively attack messers Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon & Syria, and the lands taken in defense as a result.  Even his own frellin article makes that conclusion.  Your perservence in continuing to deal with Tee's template on this subject is to be commended

[Amianthus]

I said:

"You brought the year 1967 into the discussion, and later brought up the Six Days War, recommending he look it up in Wikipedia."

You said:

"Maybe you should read your own references a little more carefully.  Here's what sirs actually said, on p. 20:"

sirs:  <<Ironically speaking, "if you knew anything about their history", you'd grasp that this so-called "occupation" begain when Israel had to take lands in defense of their country, as every one of their border neighbors, Jordan included was massing its military along their borders, and Egypt's President declaring their intentions of taking on Israel.  They didn't simply "occupy 3 million Arabs"  Everything that Israel has done has been in RESPONSE to something being done or about to be done to them.  Nearly every one of Israel's military incursions into Gaza or the West Bank was as a result of some attack directed at Israel.  What part of the math are you not understanding here, Tee?>>

Perhaps you'd like to highlight where Sirs mentioned the Six Days War in there. I can't find it. Israel took land both prior to and subsequent to the Six Days War. Egypt threatened Israel both before and after the Six Days War. Jordan had it's military along Israel's border both before and after the Six Days War.

In many cases, the land taking was due to Arab aggression, but in some cases it was not and was preemptive on Israel's part. Hence the statement from Sirs "Nearly every one of Israel's military incursions" - had he meant to claim the Israel was blameless, he would have said "Every one of Israel's military incursions".