alpine_saint

Well, according to the potted history of Israel that I've just read, the area has been continuously populated with Jews for the last 3000-4000 years, and the 1500 years of relatively low numbers in the region were mainly due to Arab aggression...

Our role should be to the defend the UK, the Overseas Dependencies that we still have and the citizens of both. And thats it. The world-wide policeman act should be dropped. And I am utterly against international collaboration As such we need a strong Navy and RAF, and a limited Army capability. But nooo, Fox and Co have gone in the opposite direction.

Argentina has NO claim to the Falkands whatsoever because NO Argentinians have ever lived there. Jews have a valid claim to Israel (the legal name of the area) because they have maintained their claim over time and Jews have actually lived there throughout.

You mean a point you are willing to recognise as such because you have a smart-arse answer ?

Did they ever vacate it ? Did they ever renounce their claim to it ? Was Palestine ever a sovereign state ? Did the most power nation on earth for the first part of the last century not legitimise their claim and set their nation up, followed rapidly by the rest of the world recongising their state ?

Yeah, doesnt exactly fit the Western stereotype of insane, blood-thirsty, agressive "Yiddos", does it ?? The people of Israel are as civilized and as moral as those from any Western country. But they carry a horrific emotional scar, and they know that their neighbours would like to repeat the experience.

Yep, I think he's just proved our point...

Oh dear, you really should get your facts straight before getting on your soap box. Think about it.....

One of the cutest things Israel ever did was taking those Scuds on the chin, it kept the Arab world on the side of the Allies.

Can you find UK citizens willing to live in Afghanistan ? Israel doesnt seem to have a problem finding citizens willing to live in the Occupied Territories....

How can you successfully occupy an area without providing accommodation and services to the occupants ? Israel knows that if they vacate the Occupied Territories, 5mins later the rockets will start landing on their towns again, just like they did when they tried to withdraw from N. Lebanon. Israel is dug in for the duration, might as well make it habitable.

Hillarious. What a bizarre example. The entire history of the 38th parallel has been of Northern belligerence to the South.

I couldnt give a sh*t about what the UN think here. That forum is also full of Palestinian apologists. Israel have occupied the West Bank, and Golan Heights for the same reason as they occuped N. Lebanon - to stop the PLO and other little sh*t organisations using those territories to fire missiles into residential areas of Israeli towns, since the sovereign state in each case was unwilling or unable to do anything to stop it.

Sorry, this makes no sense. N. Korea dont have a reliable working warhead yet (we think) Pakistan has the massive MAD-threat of India to think about (strange you never mentioned India in your example) As for Israel, there is anecdotal evidnece that they came close to deploying a nuclear bomb against Syria during the Six Days war.

Absolute rot. The Jews have as much claim to that land as their home as the Palestinians

Who is more likely to use a nuke - Obama or Ahmedinejad ? Hmmmm, let me think about that one....

Yep, you've hit the nub of the problem. Israel is the only democracy in the region, and is safe-haven from the worst example of ethnic cleansing and mass extermination that the world has ever known. They are surrounded by several nations who would love nothing better than wiping their nation and their people off the map. And its being going on since the times of the Pharoahs. The US was badly affected by the Holocaust, and have sworn to prevent a repeat. I fully understand Israels paranoia and occasional over-reaction to incidents. Look at the issue of the release of Shalit. Israel values their people so much, they will release 1000 prisoners to secure the freedom of their son. Would the Palestinians do the same ? I doubt it.

I just looked at your location. Man, if I lived in those two places, I would overdo the forced positivity too...

We are stil an island.....

This post is a bit simplistic. Iran might be able to detonate a nuke, but they are long way from being able to deliver it. So again terrorism raises its ugly head. The US would obliterate Tehran in the blink of an eye if they connected a terrorist nuclear explosion to Iran. Also, this old hack about "the US is the only country to have used a nuke" is totally irrelevant - it was a totally different time and none of the humanitarian, psychological and social impacts were fully understood

Are you for real ? Just because they have not marched into countries behind large armoured formations does NOT mean they are not international aggressors - they are forever sh*t-stirring and interfering in the internal affairs of other nations in the region, and are universally accepted to be significant sponsors of terrorist activity. Just look at the latest accusations which have trigger the recent escalation in tension.

the only thing I could think of doing with my better half on the IOW in October is somewhat prevented by the presence of children. The IOW is so f**king boring that when we went during the summer, we stayed long enough to have a sandwich. We mainly went for the ferry trip across the Solent.

Why have we ? Fox is about to become political history and we are discussing his "greatest" legacy - the loss of the the Royal Navy, a cornerstone of our security, society and our world standing for centuries.

Obtained after the set up of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970 (which isnt worth the paper its written on in reality...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Proliferation_Treaty Interestingly, India, Pakistan and Israel refused to sign, so technically they arent illegal, but Irans is because they signed. N. Korea withdrew, dont know if that makes it illegal or not.

According to that summary, the Typhoons havent carried on with the naming, but they do have individual idents F, H, C and D...