ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who recently visited the Gulf, said it was “entirely logical” for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.

A Dolphin-class submarine is already (after passing the Suez Channel recently) in that region as well: equipped (built in and donated by Germany) with four torpedo tubes which are capable of launching nuclear-armed Popeye Turbo cruise missiles. (They thus differ significantly from their "parents", the German 209-class.)

Biden: Israel free to set own course on Iran
By ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security
Sun Jul 5, 4:09 pm ET

WASHINGTON " Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

Biden's remarks suggested a tougher U.S. stance against Iran's nuclear ambitions. Nonetheless, administration officials insisted his televised remarks Sunday reflected the U.S. view that Israel has a right to defend itself and make its own decisions on national security.

In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Biden also said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stands. Some thought the administration's approach might change in light of the Iranian government's harsh crackdown on protesters after the June 12 presidential election. Opponents of the ruling authorities claimed the vote was rigged against them.

"If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage," Biden said.

It was after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on May 18 that President Barack Obama said it should be clear by year's end whether Iran was open to direct negotiations. Obama told The Associated Press last Thursday that persuading Iran to forego nuclear weapons has been made more difficult by the crackdown after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Biden was asked whether Netanyahu was taking the right approach by indicating that Israel would take matters into its own hands if Iran did not show a willingness to negotiate by the end of the year.

"Look, Israel can determine for itself " it's a sovereign nation " what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden replied. He added that this was the case, "whether we agree or not" with the Israeli view.

Biden was then asked more pointedly whether the U.S. would stand in the way if the Israelis, viewing the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to the existence of the Jewish state, decided to launch a military attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do," he said. . . .
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090705/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_iran_israel_6

Netanyahu dismisses US calls for West Bank settlement freeze as ‘unreasonable’
Steve Weizman
June 1st, 2009

HAVAT GILAD, West Bank " Israel’s prime minister on Monday dismissed the U.S. demand for a settlement freeze as unreasonable, moving closer to a collision with the Obama administration, while mobs of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian laborers and burned West Bank fields.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/netanyahu-dismisses-us-calls-for-west-bank-settlement-freeze-as-unreasonable-68708/

Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is a dangerous linkage. . . .
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/no_linkage_between_iran_and

So.....do we interfere with another sovereign state or don't we?

So.....do we interfere with another sovereign state or don't we?

US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02

Advocate, You bring up a story about one couple, and try to apply that to the whole. It just will not work! Stealing Palestinian land by force to increase Jewish settlements is a worse crime.

Yes, I agree. However, there's a huge difference between Nazi Germany and the US during that period. Our country trashed the Constitution to mistreat the citizens of our own country by ignoring our Constitutional rights. In Germany, they were death camps, not concentration camps. Japanese Americans volunteered to serve in the US military while their families were incarcerated in concentration camps. Think about that if that's possible.

So, it gets back to the post that described a woman being arrested for no reason that we would deem correct. Your response did not address that post, and the society it reflected. You just focussed on Israel. Israel does not arrest women for walking on a beach in jeans and a tee shirt with male friends. I guess you are correct, if you wanted to point out that that Israel has a modern society. It is not Israel's fault, if her Arab population chooses to live within the confines of a restrictive society.