This last Sunday we had nothing but space in my family room as only two of us showed up for small group. I guess that the Timberbay retreat was more tiring, the homework burden greater than we thought the week before when we agreed to still meet. That is alright. Mark and Garret and I had a nice time talking for about forty-five minutes. I took Mark home and Garret drove himself home. They were both pretty tired too. Mark was also hurting from a leg bruise received during a short pickup game of soccer.
We also decided to have small group this coming Sunday night after Thanksgiving. Well, I have made an executive decision. It is in the best interest of all of our families that we take this coming Sunday off. No harm done. I will miss everyone as I love our small group so much. However, family and family time is so important during the holiday season. Let us all focus on our families and enjoy the blessings the Lord has provided for us through them.
We will next meet on Sunday the seventh of December. A good day to get together and get back into the book of Isaiah, which, by the way, is "Out of this world!"
3 comments:
To be frank, I think our difference is that I give the Arabs too much credit, and you give Israel too much credit.
I honestly think that for too long Israel has used the excuse of an 'existential threat' to their existence to justify horrible atrocities and immoral attacks on Palestinians, Lebanese and others. Then, and now, Israel had the support of the United States who despite a few threatening words, in no way planned to let their ally fall to the Arabs or the Soviet Union.
As for 1967, both the Soviet Union and the United States had assurances that Egypt would not attack first. The USSR had incredible leverage with them, specifically being the main arms supplier to the regime. Nasser also thought that the United States had received assurances from Israel promising not to attack first as well.
Nasser saw the entire spectacle as an attempt to shore up his pan-Arab credentials, and from what I have read, did not really want a war, as he was unsure Egypt could win.
Israel, while maybe seeing a significant external threat, was well aware that it had the chance to gain significant swathes of land, as well as defeat the Egyptian military rather quickly if it attacked first. In fact, it had multiple reasons to attack first, even if the Arabs were not going to.
Near the end of the war, Israel prolonged the fight in the Golan to gain as much land as possible, despite being told by the US to shut the advance down, for fear of Soviet intervention if they made a run on Damascus.
I guess our point of difference is that in my opinion, Israel took full advantage of the situation to smash the Arab armies, gain as much land as possible, all the while well aware that they had the support of the United States and vastly superior weaponary.
I would assume that you would argue that Israel saw itself as being greatly threatened, therefore it took proper and necessary steps to safeguard its current and future interests.
In 1967 there was no such thing as "vastly superior weaponry. At that time the Soviet threat was all too real as was the Chinesse capacity to wage war. You recall that the Korean conflict ended in a stalemate as communist block weaponry and vast numerical superiority ground up hundreds of thousands of lives and raked havoc with civilian lives and assets. Even Vietnam the superiority we had was in the realm of air cover and there the SAM systems shot down hundreds and hundreds of our aircraft. We do not see the West gaining high levels of superiority until the early 80's and after Israel wins air battles with Syria 91 to zero over the Bacca Valley. It was that battle that showed the Arab nations that they had been backed by a loser. Reagan is credited with our technological leap and it was his "Star Wars" doctrine both overt and black box that did the trick. The fall of the Soviet empire was in large part due to their inability to keep up with the Joneses. What you have witnessed in your life time is the Gulf war of 91 and then Operation Enduring Freedom. The one sidedness of these battles is all new within the last 15-20 years. Even Desert Storm, until it was actually fought, was theoretical.
This leads me to suggest to your thinking that Israel's perspective of the "existential threat" must not be judged according to modern warfare theories and realities. Numerical superiority was the benchmark of the Soviet and therefore Arab military strategies. They certainly had both and were, in the Cold War paradigm, very, very frightening.
Just some additional thoughts.
Another point to make regarding the threat that Israel perceived; "Nasser saw the entire spectacle as an attempt to shore up his pan-Arab credentials, and from what I have read, did not really want a war, as he was unsure Egypt could win." What would shored up pan-Arab cridentials mean to an Israeli military leader? All Arabs united under the strong influence of one man, the next Saladin perhaps? I can imagine no greater threat. In fact Egypt in the 1972 attack under Sadat did in fact achieve a certain over all control of the battle and managed to time both Syrian and Jordanian attacks to maximize the potential victory. In Israel it is still discussed and argued as to how they became complacent to the global threat of united enemies.
It is interesting that both in 1967 and 1972 Israel had nothing militarily between themselves and the conquest of Cairo and Damascus. It is said that the U.S. stopped them and in fact that is largely true. Had they gone further than they did the U.S. would have only to turn off arms shipments to control their advance. But, it is also true that Isael's desires have historically been seen as 1. security (The Golan Heights and Jordan River), and 2. historical premisy (Jerusalem as Capital). The Sini is an interesting case as it was worthless to Israel except as a buffer and as a bargaining chip. Giving it back to Egypt for peace certainly was worth that to them. It is still a buffer and it saved Israel vast sums of money to give it back. The Egyptian view of the 1972 war is most interesting. It did prove that they could fight, but it also showed that they could lose vast numbers of soldiers...this corresponds to the Soviet Cold War doctrine of vast numerical superiority.
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