Don't phunk with the Israelis

[dedja]

You have to admire the tenacity and guile of the Israelis ...

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/iran ... 6242035968

A Scientist working on Iran's nuclear program has been assassinated in a car-bomb attack in Tehran.

The bomb had been planted under the car of Professor Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a nuclear scientist and lecturer at Allameh Tabatabaei University, who was in the vehicle with two passengers, Fars News Agency reported.

"This morning a motorbiker attached a bomb to a Peugeot 405, which exploded," the deputy governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Bratloo, was quoted as saying by the Iranian Labour News Agency.

The two passengers were wounded in the blast and taken to a hospital, Bratloo said.

Roshan had reportedly been working at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility, AFP said.

The professor "has been working as the deputy in charge of commerce at the Natanz site," said a posting on the website of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, from which Roshan graduated around a decade ago.

"He was working on project of making polymeric membrane for separating gas," the college website said.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been murdered in recent years in attacks the Islamic republic has blamed on the US and Israel, which suspect Iran's atomic program masks a drive for a weapons capability.

[Sojourner]

Not sure that its actually the Israelis that are doing it,

Of all the nations that have the most to lose if Iran become a Nuclear Power, Saudi Arabia are one. The President of Iran has made no secret of the fact that they would very much like to control Mecca with their brand of Islam. The relationship between the Saudi's and the Iranian Government is not a good one. Saudi's are "Sunni" Muslim, the major insurgency in Iran called "Jundallah" is coincidentally Sunni Muslim who wish to see Iran become Sunni instead of Shiite.

It could be that Israel and the US are assisting the effort, but my bet is that its more likely the Saudis that are funding and arming the rebels in Iran to do the job.

[Psyber]

Most of the violence in the middle east seems to centre on the Sunni/Shia conflict.
Basically, this is the main divider of Islamic populations.

A lot of fuss over nothing really - whether Mohammed was the last of the prophets, or whether one of his nephews, whose name I no longer remember, was.
(Then there are a minority called the Druse. IIRC, they think the nephew was the Mahdi (Messiah) the other Muslims are still waiting for.)

[dedja]

Just to go on a slight but related tangent ... why is it that the western world seems to condone whatever the Israelis do?

They can invade their neighbours like bombing the crap out of Lebanon and the Gaza strip, illegally occupy land that is not theirs (eg large parts of the West Bank, Golan Heights) and ignore a multitude of United Nations resolutions, all in the guise of 'the Arabs want to wipe us off the map'.

Isn't that what they've done to the Palestinians?

So Israelis have more rights than Palestinians?

What is it that don't I get about all this?

[Jimmy_041]

You cant criticise them or they'll throw the holocaust in your face again.

The PR dept of the Armenians really need to get their act together if they want anything in this world

[Q.]

Zionists control global media

[GWW]

Zionists? Please explain

[dedja]

LOL, and on a serious note, what is the official border of Israel?

[Sojourner]

Just to go on a slight but related tangent ... why is it that the western world seems to condone whatever the Israelis do?

They can invade their neighbours like bombing the crap out of Lebanon and the Gaza strip, illegally occupy land that is not theirs (eg large parts of the West Bank, Golan Heights) and ignore a multitude of United Nations resolutions, all in the guise of 'the Arabs want to wipe us off the map'.

Isn't that what they've done to the Palestinians?

So Israelis have more rights than Palestinians?

What is it that don't I get about all this?

The Israel / Palestinian Conflict is several conflict with various groups of people involved, its not a simply black and white issue. In 1948 TransJordan was home to native Palestinians for millennia and allocated to them by the then League of Nations, yet you never hear any call for a Palestinian state in Jordan. Israel are not innocent in the issue, but they also have been the target of Anti Semites for many years which is also brought into the current conflict.

This clip sets it out pretty well simply from a historical perspective of the facts that have occurred, what has happened, what has been offered and refused over the years.

http://youtu.be/O7ByJb7QQ9U

[dedja]

Yes, aware of the long history and in no way stating that it's all the Israeli's fault as all parties (and there are a few of them) have contributed to this mess.

What I can't understand is the one-sidedness and overwhelming bias in the Israeli's favour.

[Psyber]

Just to go on a slight but related tangent ... why is it that the western world seems to condone whatever the Israelis do?

They can invade their neighbours like bombing the crap out of Lebanon and the Gaza strip, illegally occupy land that is not theirs (eg large parts of the West Bank, Golan Heights) and ignore a multitude of United Nations resolutions, all in the guise of 'the Arabs want to wipe us off the map'.

Isn't that what they've done to the Palestinians?

So Israelis have more rights than Palestinians?

What is it that don't I get about all this?

Back in 1967 there was some justification for occupying these areas as they were the places where guns and rockets were mounted to attack inner Israel - and the same logic applies to continuing to hold those zones now.
Similarly, the invasion of Lebanon was based on the idea that the Lebanese government was either doing nothing to prevent, or even facilitating, the attacks on northern Israel from its territory.
IIRC Israel had done little in the way of attacking its neighbours before then - I freely admit I am relying on memory from being around at the time.
(I haven't had the motivation to research either side's argument as I don't support either group and look for grounds to support their claim.)

I'm not simply taking the Israeli side here.
I have always said that the attempt to re-establish Israel after WWII should not have been supported by western powers out of their guilt for refusing to take the Jews when Hitler offered to let them leave Germany in the 1930s.
It was inevitably going to cause cultural and religious conflict, after the Arabic peoples had held the land since around 650 AD.
(Apart from Christian occupation and rule of parts during the Crusades.)

However, neither the Arabic people's nor the Israel can claim to be aboriginal to that land.
The present "Palestinians" are not the "Philistines" who held the land prior to the old Jewish nation, as the Arabic peoples were then scattered tribes far to the south and east of the region.
Perhaps the Sumerians or pre-Arabic Persians have a better claim, or even the Minoans and their Phoenician descendants, who founded settlements along that coast when Egypt was still only beginning to become civilised?

The whole thing is a bit like the Serbs and Croations each blaming the other side for starting their long term conflict, when both sides have bene being bloody minded for a long time.