Reply #45: Operation Kinneret and Qibya...

[Violet_Crumble]

Yr claiming that Operation Kinneret was in direct response to repeated Syrian attacks on Israeli communities and fishermen. That's not what I've been reading, and considering Avi Shlaim has referenced Moshe Sharett's diary, amongst other sources, when he says that the attack on the Syrians was completely unprovoked, someone's going to have to prove to me that Moshe Sharett was lying about it. The Syrians did not attack Israeli fishermen - they fired only on Israeli naval boats when they came too close to the shore. This much more credible version of events would explain why there was no condemnation of the Syrians..

the continued killing of Israeli civilians because of which the raid was mounted was only elliptically mentioned ("there is substantial evidence of crossing of the demarcation line by unauthorized persons, often resulting in acts of violence" - UNSCR 101, section B1)

Okay, so was the continued killing of Arab civilians prior to Qibya mentioned at all? And those 'unauthorized persons' tended to be Palestinian civilians who were trying to return to their land. Israelis would shoot at them, which in turn resulted in them arming themselves. There was violence on both sides, though of course those incidents can't in any way be found to be on the same scale as Qibya, which is why what happened at Qibya quite rightfully earned a resolution...

I'd be a bit careful of complaining about Israel being hard done by as a member of the WEOG group. Israel held the presidency of the group twice, which I'm assuming if Israel was being picked on, would never have happened. I guess some folk might complain that it's not fair that Israel can't be a member of the regional group that it's geographically a part of, and that it just sucks so bad that it's in with those European countries, but Australia and New Zealand are in the same situation. They're both members of WEOG, even though geographically there's a regional grouping that they could be part of...

Violet...