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Stuxnet
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Stuxnet |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/?test=latestnews “This is what nation-states build, if their only other option would be to go to war,” Somewhere in the world there are unknown men and women who should be very proud and to whom we should be very grateful . . . . |
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| © Copyright 2010 John Pawlik - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Fascinating report. Are there any other confirming sources? I find it encouraging, especially with backup sourcing to confirm. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. And now someone is offing critical scientists . . . . |
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rwood Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793Tennessee |
Super intelligence in the power of a worm. Seems so fictional but the abilities of computer genius is mind boggling. Even the little things that make something appear on a screen is magical to me. Like this  smiley, and yeah I know it's code, but to have the smiley happen while ancient glyphs are still around from when we first started carving out our existence? That's just a wild wonder for me.Rendering a thing useless with computer code, yep, fascinating and scary!! |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Somehow I don't think the Chinese are going to be very grateful. Stuxnet infected 6 million computers in China and the Chinese have already proved they have the technical capability to mount a formidable cyber attack in retaliation. Come to think of it the US didn't escape unscathed either, with 3000 infected PC's reported so far, they use Siemens systems too, in electricity generating plants and nuclear facilities, I don't think they'd be very grateful when their turbines, pumps and centrifuges suddenly go bang. quote: Terrible isn't it. Hopefully the terrorists responsible for the attacks on innocent civilians, along with any states that may have sponsored them or are linked to them, will be suitably punished. A small invasion perhaps, a military enforced regime change, strategic rocket strikes or at the very least UN sanctions. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “This is what nation-states build, if their only other option would be to go to war,” Or as some say: "Never again". . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Actually it isn't, unless the people running the nation-states in question are complete psychopaths with suicidal tendencies thrown in for good measure. Stuxnet is targeted malware, targeted in the sense that it infects Siemens control software running on PC's with a Windows operating system. Beyond that the software doesn't give a damn whether it's the Siemens control system that's keeping the Indian satellite INSAT-4B in a geosynchronous orbit (or not) or the Siemens control system that's stopping the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig from exploding (or not). Even if Stuxnet was written to target a single specific site releasing it into the wild is a crazy idea, whoever gets infected will just copy it, edit the target and kick it straight back at you. That's what happens with viruses, one goes wild and within 48 hours there's three or four variants that have been modified and re-released. Nation-states generally try to avoid shooting themselves in the foot, or giving others the ammunition to do it for them. Siemens control systems run most of the nuclear facilities in the US, the Hydro electric generators, industrial infrastructure in manufacturing plants, temperature and climate control in hospitals and public facilities - the list goes on and on. Right now some sixteen year old C++ programmer in Bosnia or Egypt is probably working out how to modify Stuxnet to blow up the boiler in a kindergarten, Mosque or Synagogue near you. Grateful? Hardly. . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Well it's official. The UN says Iran's pretty much out to build a bomb . . . There's talk of military action. At what point does the trigger get pulled? . |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
I think they should pull the trigger as soon as possible. It makes sense to undertake a pre-emptive strike in the face of such threats - if an attack is as inevitable as you make out then there's nothing to lose. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
It would be helpful if we had some good intel about all this, though, wouldn't it? Oh, that's right! I forgot. The last administration blew Val Plame's cover, and she was working on gathering exactly this sort of covert intelligence, wasn't she? Gosh. Thank goodness there wasn't any real damage done with all that business back then. Got to be happy all that stuff was buried and that Scooter Libbey got off and that the White house was able to sweep all that inconvenient stuff under the rug. We might have had two or three extra years to be able to formulate policy and decide on action to deal with that stuff. Never mind. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UEVoSJmfs Hitch made a pretty good summary. You can find other videos reflecting his view of Iran on the net. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Um, no. You don't want to make a point of running around making preemptive strikes. There is actually a fairly ugly history of bogus pre-emptive strikes. Many people have attacks of convenient memory lapse when they recommend pre-emptive strikes and are filled with self-righteous energy. The Germans staged bogus attacks upon German targets by phony Polish troops in 1939 as an excuse for the invasion of Poland. This is detailed in Shirer's excellent The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich for those who have forgotten the incident that was one of the major causes Belli for World War Two. The Germans were in a self-righteous fury about it — again, as detailed in Shirer. We need only look back at our own history in using the attack on the twin towers to drum up a war fever against Iraq, which had nothing to do with the Al Qaeda/Saudi fundamentalist inspired events which we used as excuses for a preemptive strike against Saddam Hussein, a wretched tin-pot dictator whose country was incapable of the sort of hysterically exaggerated aggressions that our government was insisting he was not only capable of but actually preparing to execute. The administration that changed U.S. foreign policy from one that followed international law on eschewing first strikes or preemptive strikes — and that would be the locally much admired Bush Administration — was also that administration that was forced to admit that Saddam Hussein had had nothing to do with the twin towers, and whose chief executive was seen publicly lampooning its own idiotic search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction on television, acknowledging as directly as possible what an utter sham the entire illegal notion had been from the beginning. One of the more diplomatic things the current president did when first assuming office is to make a point of not opening investigations against the prior administration that might have lead to the prosecution and possible jailing and even execution of much of the previous administration for war crimes on exactly this issue, not to mention torture and mistreatment of prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territory in time of war. The fact that this whole business is being casually brought up again as though there was nothing wrong with preemptive strikes and the whole set of policies that tend to surround this particular issue tends to show that the whole notion of war crimes, the Geneva conventions, international law and the history of the last hundred years has somehow not sunk in. The notion of lawful and moral behavior actually is something that is extraordinarily important, and that is easy to forget except at those times when we seek to apply elements of that code of behavior to somebody else or some other party. I wish I could remember whether it was a joke or an actual quote that had Viktor Frankl comment about the issue of Freedom in the United States. Frankl was an Existentialist and physician who survived six years in Auschwitz, and had some startling things to say about the nature of freedom and meaning. I think reading his memoir adds anybody's depth and humanity. His — perhaps apocryphal — comment about freedom in American? What he's credited with having said is that he wished that the Statue of Liberty on the East coast was balanced by a Statue of Responsibility of the West Coast. If he didn't say that, somebody should have. If fact, I'd be willing to start a subscription to help put up the Statue myself. quote: |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
If you believe the hype Bob an attack is inevitable. In the face of such an imminent threat the only response, according to the US and Israeli military, is a pre-emptive strike. If the threat is real and the military experts are correct regarding the best response then anything other than a pre-emptive strike would be a grave and costly mistake. I just wonder what form that pre-emptive strike might take - hitting the Saudi oil fields would be one option. Closing the straits of Hormuz would be a little weak on its own, a missile attack against Israel perhaps or would a direct assault on American soil have more impact? . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Apparently Hitch alive made no more a dent than Hitch now dead . . . . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Not so. I thought that Hitchens was brilliant. The point that He was making did not appear to me to be a justification for an immediate preemptive strike on anybody, however. The point he was making was that the Iranian government was a dangerous bunch of unstable fools with delusions that being a nuclear power would be a useful move in terms of realpolitik on the world stage. I agree with him. They are indeed a dangerous group of fools, whose actions may seriously destabilize an already shaky region. I simply do not understand Hitchens as advocating somebody else — say The United States — taking over that job and seriously destabilizing an already shaky region of the world, so a new US unpredictability might tempt the Iranians into even more unfortunate displays of macho behavior. For a more stable power to start acting crazy and unpredictable would not be a particularly enormous advantage, since it would be an invitation for people that Hitchens is already clear are unstable to act in an even more unpredictable fashion in response, wouldn't it? Hitchens whole point seems to have been that you don't want to encourage greater displays of hysteria. But perhaps you heard Hitchens as saying something else? I heard him trying to be reasonable with the Islamic spokespeople, and I seemed to see them, albeit uncomfortably, seeing his point, especially when he made it clear that he didn't think that the Israelis were perfect, and especially when he made it clear than he had gone on record as having been critical of them for some of their mistakes as well. The marvelous thing about Mr. Hitchens here, was that he had it clear that he was on the side of reason and rationality and the whole notions of acting with justice and humanity to everybody, not simply toward those allied with the Christians or the Jews or the Muslims. He tried to ally himself with what seemed to be most deeply fair in the whole thing. First strike capability was pretty much not a good idea for anybody, and the notion of using it under any circumstances seemed pretty much wrong, and he went to some lengths to unmask those who were toying with that prospect as being basically evil from the ground up, no matter whose side they were on. Hard to dislike somebody that honest, as far as I'm concerned. I don't insist I'm right, but that's pretty much how I feel. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
What nuclear weapons have been found in Iran? Are they worse than those that may be found in Israel and other countries? Does anyone know what flag/symbol it is that supposedly has the mushroom cloud on it as Hitchens described? I searched for it on Google but couldn't find any such flag. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "What nuclear weapons have been found in Iran? " Just how do you do that? "Are they worse than those that may be found in Israel and other countries?" So it would be ok for Iran like North Korea to have them? I thought Hitch was pretty clear on the concern. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/04/hezbollahs-mush.php "The worst case scenario — the incineration of Tel Aviv and a nuclear retaliation against Tehran — isn’t likely. I don’t expect it will ever actually happen. I’m sure enough — at least 90 percent sure — that I feel safe making the prediction in public. I’m a writer, though, not a policy maker. And I don’t live in Israel. I’m safe and can afford to be wrong. I won’t be killed, nor will I be blamed for getting anyone else killed. The Israeli government won’t make the same risk calculations I make. If I’m wrong, they’re dead, and so is their country. I can’t tell whether or not Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike. But let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that it’s 90 percent likely Iran’s threats of annihilation are just bluster. And let me ask this: How would you feel if your doctor diagnosed you with an illness and said there’s a ten percent chance it will kill you? Would you find 90 percent odds of survival acceptable? Would you sleep peacefully and do nothing and hope for the best? I travel to dangerous places. It’s part of my job. But those odds, for me, are prohibitive. Those odds are almost as bad as the odds in Russian Roulette, and you couldn’t pay me enough to play that game even once." . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: My understanding is that Israel does have nuclear weapons and Iran does not as yet. That is my [i]understanding[/], and it is not something I would care to have to [i]prove[/] in either direction. I believe that both statements have a high likelihood, but would be willing to see good evidence to the contrary in either direction. My understanding is that Iran wishes contradictory impressions about their national posture on this. One impression I believe they wish to generate is that Iranians are peace-loving religious folk who are trying to bring their country into a reasonable posture to deal with the fact that oil won't last forever and that nobody will take them seriously as a national power unless they are able to support a nuclear industry and have at least the potential for being a nuclear Military power. The other is that they wish to use the possibility of nuclear weapons to shore up their governmental legitimacy and to support at least pretensions toward being a regional military power that can be a balance to Israel. In doing this, they run the risk of starting a regional nuclear exchange and possibly a global nuclear exchange as well. As I said, these are conflicting aims. As I also said, these are my own readings of the situation, and I think that many more patriotic Iranians are quite capable of seeing them as "bold initiatives." This is the language that patriotism will often use, somewhat one sided and myopic and without a realistic estimation of consequences. Iranian patriotism in this way is probably not much different in its fashion that Argentinian patriotism or the Patriotism of the Finns or the French or the Israelis or the Canadians. It's like having a teeter-totter with the fulcrum moved way over from one side or the other in making certain kinds of judgements. As for the question of finding out the truth of the situation, I'll try to take the opportunity to beat one of my favorite dead horses again. You do research to find out what the actual facts may be, and then you base your actions on what the facts are. This is one of the reasons that good journalism is so important. Good journalism tries to find out what the actual facts really are. It checks its sources and gets confirmations and it led to its conclusions by the facts it collects. What it does NOT do is cherry pick facts to fit preconceived fixed ideas and positions and edit the facts in such a way as to exclude facts that are inconvenient. There is a close connection between journalism and espionage, since both professions are in the business of gathering facts. Frequently journalists have been arrested as spies and are expelled from countries for gathering information because it is difficult to know in advance which information a given country will regard as a state secret. The story is that in the Soviet Union during the cold war, the phone book was classified. Imagine the sort of trouble being a visitor in that country a6t that time could get you into if you tried to give somebody you found interesting a call. Much of the espionage information done on the United States has been done simply by having people read and classify information they've found in the newspapers here. You cab find out where many public facilities are, generating plants, reservoirs, manufacturing plants, offices — you name it. Much information about soviet affairs might be gleaned from copies of soviet war college publications we might acquire. And so on. And then there are actual covert operations, such as running companies that specialize in information that other countries might find of interest, such as information about nuclear power and the oil industry. This is of course why the cover of Ms Plame was so vital to our middle east intel gathering capabilities, and why when her cover was blown by Vice President Cheney and the wrecking crew in the White House at that time, access to a lot of the potential information about exactly the sort of data John is asking about dried up. The companies with which she was involved had their covers blown. Agents in place that might have been valuable resources for this sort of information were blown as well. I would be very interested indeed to see a full evaluation of the amount of damage done to the national security by that set of politically motivated disclosures, and I'd be even more interested in know what damage continues to unfold from that. I am already heartsick about it. That would be one of the decent ways to gather information about that sort of data though, to clarify what I just said: To run a successful covert operation to get it and hope that treason doesn't blow the operation or get anybody killed or both. quote: To take your question seriously, I don't know. I would imagine that would depend on what your evaluation criteria were, and the nature of the damage that was designed into the weapons themselves. Some bombs are designed to be primarily anti-personnel weapons, right? Many of these kill with a blast of high intensity radiation but are less intense on blast-wave and heat damage, so that the real estate is less affected and the territory can be occupied. I believe. Other weapons are very dirty and will deny real estate as well as providing significant environmental degradation and massive casualties as well. If you did research, you could probably come up with other options even more distasteful than the ones I'm offering. I don't know which options which countries have on offer or have in development at this point. The Pakistani Nuclear Bomb specialist who sold the North Koreans their technology a while back is supposed to have had several packages available, though my understanding is that the ones that most countries of budget means really seem to feel their needs don't require the more specialized, higher tech and cleaner bombs: It's not like they're giving high-end presents several scattered groupings of their 500,000 dearest friends. Should you feel motivated to do research on your own, I'd really be thrilled to hear the results. quote: Hitchens was. I don't know if Hitchens was a Republican, though. I guess it's fine to be all for that second amendment stuff as long as it's people you approve of buying the weapons to overthrow the governments that you don't like. When it's people you don't like buying weapons that might be used against you, you start talking about what a terrible thing it is to have such whacked out drooling fools able to put their fingers on triggers might fast, and making plans to blow them away before they get any funny ideas. Doesn't sound so cute when Iran or Korea starts talking about Second Amendment solutions that seem just fine when we're the ones doing the talking, does it? Little more talking, a little less threatening and shooting and spheroid-slinging seems a great idea from where I sit. I still think Hitchens made a lot of sense here, though I'm not so sure about everything he's written, being a bit more open to the spiritual world of experience than he seems to have been, and being a great fan of Bob Dylan as a song-writer but thinking he was really not a poet. Which doesn't keep me from enjoying most of his songs, by the way. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dBzslDdQ_g Merciless, as it should be. . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “1. Iran is building an atomic bomb. Of this there can be no doubt. Iran is mass-producing 20 percent–enriched uranium-235. Commercial reactors require only 3 percent–enriched U-235; clearly, a factory producing 20 percent–enriched fissile material is part of a nuclear-weapons program. 2. The sanctions designed to stop the program are not working. In fact, according to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), far from slowing down, Iran has doubled its rate of production. 3. Iranian bomb capability is imminent. While the U.S. military prefers its U-235 to be 93 percent–enriched, for less picky customers 20 percent–enriched material is more than good enough to do the job. With proper design, about 250 kilograms of the stuff are enough to make a nuclear weapon. According to the IAEA, Iran already has 190 kilograms of 20 percent–enriched U-235, of which 120 kilograms are available for bomb production; and the country is producing more material at a rate of 13 kilograms per month. Assuming that the IAEA is correct in its figures, it will take Iran only another ten months to have enough 20 percent–enriched U-235 to build a bomb. So what is the American response? According to David Sanger and Eric Schmitt, writing in the September 2 New York Times, the Obama administration is currently trying to “calm Israel,” so as to dissuade it from undertaking a military strike to stop the Iranian bomb program. In addition, Sanger and Schmitt report that President Obama has ruled out any U.S. military action that might “harm ordinary Iranians” or even inconvenience them by damaging the electrical grid that powers the bomb-making plants. We should avoid all such action, administration representatives say, “in order to give sanctions time to work.” This policy of inaction presents Israel with a stark choice. . . . with deterrence dead, the question is, What happens next? . . . Unfortunately Israel’s options for taking out Iran’s nuclear program are much more limited than those possessed by the United States. The U.S. could take out Iran’s underground bomb factories using bunker-busting weapons; the Israelis cannot, at least not reliably in one strike, which is all the chance they would get. The U.S. could knock out the electric-power plants that drive the centrifuges, and keep them knocked out; the Israelis could do the former but not the latter. This leaves the Israelis with only one really dependable military option, and that is to take out Iran’s oil-export terminal on Kharg Island. This facility, which handles over 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports, is a very soft target. Because it consists of rows of huge, thin-walled oil tanks, it would require only a few hits by conventional bombs to turn the whole place into a massive inferno. Without the oil exports that pay for 65 percent of its national budget, the Iranian regime would go bankrupt. Not only its nuclear-bomb program, but the regime itself, would soon cease to exist. “ Brilliant “There’s just one little problem: Such a strike would probably send world oil prices to at least $150 per barrel, thereby precipitating a worldwide economic crash. Millions of people on every continent, including this one, would lose their jobs. A responsible U.S. government would act to prevent such an outcome. Yet the Obama administration seems to be forcing it.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/328746/obama-s-iran-policy-risks-glob al-crash-robert-zubrin Perhaps intentionally so. Would you support such inaction if it intended an Israeli strike? It solves a big problem with little or no American blood; either thier own or on their hands. . |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fXK_Y6WQAA Have you ever noticed how often Netanyahu says "there is no question"? http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/2012/03/0 8/netanyahu-irans-nuclear-weapons-threat-peace-world-must-be-stopped VAN SUSTEREN: ...And the other problem too is in 2003, with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there was so much certainty and it turned out, our intelligence was wrong on that. So I am trying to balance the two. NETANYAHU: First of all, there is no question. There is no comparison. In the case of Iraq, I was on the Israeli cabinet when we discussed this issue. We didn't know. We couldn't say that they didn't have a nuclear weapons program, we couldn't say if they did. In the case of Iran there is absolutely no question. ... Netanyahu talking about Iraq in September 12 2002. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQdg4D78Jc "There is no question whatsoever..." [This message has been edited by Essorant (09-29-2012 11:45 AM).] |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Have no doubt If Iran does not stop Israel will strike . |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I wouldn't underestimate Iran's ability to defend itself and potentially strike back. In the long run, Israel striking Iran most likely won't stop the nuclear program, it will just delay it and give people that already have spite toward Israel more spite, and those that wish to commit violence against Israel another reason to wish to commit violence. It will result in more threats to Israel, not less. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. They want Israel dead because it exists. They've wanted it since 1948 and tried several times to make it so. You can't believe anyone is worried by more reasons. That first is enough. . |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
No one is preventing Israel from existing as a state, it is Israel that is preventing Palestine from existing and taking every step to make sure it never will exist. They continue their military occupation in what little is left to the Palestinians, immiserating them with barriers, checkpoints, and blockades, not letting the non-jewish Refugees return to their homeland in Israel because they want to maintain a Jewish majority there, gradually trying to annex more and more land to Israel by continuing to expand illegal settlements which is just a slowmotion way of Israel taking over the Palestinian territories. They have de-palestinianized the land as much as possible and left the Palestinians with as little as possible because according to Zionism they have an inherent right to all the land in the area, not just some of it. Existing also means co-existing, not trampling on those that were already there and denying them their rights to the land and denying them a state where they can have self-determination as well. When will Israel quit blaming anyone and everyone but itself and take responsibility for the wrongs that it has committed and continues to commit, many of which are not just wrongs from the perspective of the people, but from the perspective of international law as well? Israel is completely capable of defending itself, and yet it pretends every provocation is a threat to its existence and a justification for offensive actions, assassinating certain officials or scientists or launching destructive attacks and war. If Israel doesn't want to be treated like a colonial bully then it should stop behaving like one. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Ess: quote: That's not true Ess ... in the history of Israeli / Palestinian negotiations, a two-state solution has almost always been accepted by Israel, though they've been unwilling to give as much land as the Palestinians have demanded. The Palestinian position has been much more unyielding, since they've stated over and over that Israel should not exist as a state. Many times negotiations were refused on part of the Palestinians, because of Israel's demand for recognition of statehood. The Palestinian "right to return" ideas, have typically been about getting enough Palestinian population into Israel that Israel would be dissolved by population majority. Anyone who thinks dissolution of Israel is not the Palestinian goal, is fooling themselves. I can cite many of these things to back them up. Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
quote: You need to look at the reasons from the Palestinian perspective as well Stephanos. We don't get things from that side very much because our media is lopsidedly pro-Israel. Here are some interesting articles about Camp David negotiations and another about the Palestinian Papers. http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0309.htm http://www.jkcook.net/Articles3/0545.htm Israel has always tried to monopolize and determine what the Palestinians should accept as their "state." And the history of the negotiations and the actions on the ground always moved in the same direction: less land for the Palestinians and either little difference in lack of freedom, the same, or more Israeli intereference, walls, checkpoints, etc. in the occupied territories. The proposals haven't been for a true state but for the Palestinians to give into something that would mean sacrificing more land and accepting something far less than true freedom and self-determination for something still essentially occupied by Israel but expected to be considered their own "state." quote: They have unambiguously acknowledged Israel as a state in recent decades Stephanos. The problem is with acknowledging it as "Jewish" state. The founding of Israel wasn't just the founding of a state, but the founding of an apartheidic state that forced as many Palestinians out of the way as possible to establish a Jew-dominated land. The Palestinian refugees simply wish to be able to return to their homeland just as Jews today and many that weren't even born there have a right to it as their homeland. Why can't they? Because Israel will only let Jews be the majority. Two peoples, Jews and predominately non-Jewish Palestinians can't live equally together in their homeland when Israel only allows Jews to be a majority in more than 80% of the land that is the homeland of both peoples. The majority of Palestinians aren't just locked out of the majority of their homeland but out of having a state of their own on the little left to them. Israel continues its military occupation and taking more and more land which is supposed to be for a Palestinian state for its own illegal settlements. It doesn't allow co-existence between the two majorities as one state but it doesn't allow two states to exist for the two people either; it only allows an apartheid where the land of the Jewish majority always gets to expand but the land left to the Palestinian majority only gets to shrink along with the hope for any Palestinian state. Anyone with understanding can see where that set up is going - it follows the direction of the Zionist claim that Israel has an inherent right to all of the land formerly called Palestine, not just some of it, and will stick to it as long as it takes to get it. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414371,00.asp |
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