But hasn't the experience in Afghamistan and Iran shown that wepaons superiority are not such an advantage when you're dealing with insurgents?

Suppose nn ISIL style group seizes power in Egypt, marches through Sinai and occupies Gaza strip. What is Israel's high tech stuff going to do if they don't know who's a goat herd and who's an insurgent.

Okay, it's a long shot, I admit.

In a fight for their very existence, I can't imagine the Israelis taking much care to differentiate. I can also imagine the courtesy 'knock at the door' being dropped, too.

They're a bunch of vicious ****ers when they choose to be, and I can't say I blame them.

When has it ever paid off?

I mean, past couple thousands of years?

I don't think they will care who the offender is.

so you think that they survived all those time without friends?

I am sure Sephardi Jews survived Spanish on their own.

I am sure Israelites claimed their current land after WWII on their own without friends.

I wouldn't describe Bayezid II as a "friend" - more like a savvy operator.

As for the notion of the British being "friends" of the Zionists - well, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

We can call it whatever we want due to motives but simple fact is they were never alone,claiming otherwise is not truth.

True, but as observed above: everything they've ever had, up until they established their own state, has been dependent on the goodwill, the generosity, the best interests, the sufferance - whatever you want to call it, for whatever reasons - of others.

It's all very well running with the wolves to find the reindeer herd, but it still pays to kill your own and hide it behind your own tree.

You just made two completely contradictory statements.

To say - they are not making friends, but they have always had friends - maybe you just defined your gray answer for yourself.

I do not think you have to be existential about this, maybe just historical. If one understands the issue from a historical point of view, of course it is motivated, but it may be actually the only solution for that particular geo region in these particularly unstable times. They rely on themselves for variety of reasons, too.

Look, i get what you are saying. The point I am trying to make is, in my view, the next step for Isreal is to come to a resolution and move on.Continuous fights,advancing illegal settlements and Gaza blockade is not helping them. They have achieved so much in Israel via innovation, they are solid democracy. The actions listed above are not really humane and if they want to ensure their future, they need to start with their own actions.

In short, as it says in Hosea(8-7), "They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind"

My statements are not contradictory actually. They always had friends and that is how they survived and now they are not doing much to make friends.

I agree with your last paragraph, but it doesn't stop to find allies.

Anyone who is reported to be openly pro Israel gets exposed to whatever political conditioning, blackmail or threat there is. Why would Israel ever weaken their friends and the support they can get by an overt alliance or whatever is reported?

sorry, I could not quite understand your second point. Could you please clarify?

You said they are not making friends. I think they have allies, but it is not overt.

OK, got it now.

You might be right.However, that only proves the point they are not as doomed and gloomed as they advertise.

Anyways, I am neither pro or against them. I just hope they come to resolution there soon. With resolution, I do not mean destruction of either side.

Sorry to take a poke and play the devil's advocate here .... but

What more should Israel do to make allies?

Critics with an anti-Israeli if not anti-semitic bias are saying, if you let the Palestinians bomb you and refrain from retaliation, and if you also abandon chunks of your territory and your capacity to defend yourselves, we might ask our Palestianisn friends to be a bit nicer to you before they wipe you off the map.

I really can't understand why Israel hasn't taken them up on that. What have they got to lose?

Good speech here by Andrew Neil. Note the point he makes on people using the fashionable term "anti-Zionism" as a way of concealing/excusing their antisemitism.

https://vimeo.com/238584380



p.s. Vimeo embedment used to work on here, what happened?

They can start with stopping the west bank settlements and letting the international aid to enter Gaza. A criticism on Israeli politics doesn't mean that one agrees with the Palestinian actions either.

That brings me back to my original post. Why not accept the two state solution and move on?

Zionism was quire accurately voted as racism by the UN and only overturned due to intense lobbying and backroom dealing after the fall of the Berlin wall & the Persian Gulf war

I remember. I still wonder how much of that is a fair translation. Wish I spoke Farsi.

Do you remember Bibi with his bomb sketch, showing the bomb 95% complete and fearmongering that the Iran would have a nuclear bomb within a year if the nuclear deal got accepted? A lie if I ever saw one. Well, today Iran has no bomb and is much further away than before, exactly thanks to the deal.

Or this headline which is pure clickbait because beginning enrichment is lightyears away from having enough material of sufficient concentration for a bomb.