andrewdelvard

Found this.
Interesting.

daiscooby

Yeh but only 3 countries ever attacked at any one time !!.
The old thinking used to go Isreal can win as many times as it likes, it can only lose just once.

turboman786

Can we now compare 'defence' budget of Israel per person with that of the Arab world......and can we then wonder where they get all this cash from.....

andrewdelvard

Without that defence budget Israel would cease to exist.

turboman786

Good point Andrew. The fact is that it is always going to be very hard for a country to exist when surrounded by hostile countries. Sure, America may be doing its best to keep these countries on a tight leash, but as said above, Israel has only to lose once and the games over.

ProperCharlie

I can't really see what the *size* of Israel has to do with anything. The Lebanon isn't very big. Kuwait isn't very big. How did these places come about in the first place? Some bright sparks in the West got their pens out and drew some lines:

"Right, lets make a little place by the coast to make it easier to control shipping..."

"Kinda like this?"

"Yeah that loks fine"

"What shall we call it"

"How about "Oil Terminal?"

"Nah, too obvious. How about, errr, Kuwod?"

"Kuwod..., I reckon we could work with that...."

turboman786

Well said Charie...personally I obect to OUR tax money going to help israel...........just dont see why we should help such an oppressive state in any way...we should be taking sanctions against them, not flippin helping em!

daiscooby

Kuwait has been a Kingdom city state for hundreds of years, possibly over a thousand. I went there once under unhappy circumstances once, **** all but sand and goats, oh and oil and a huge **** off city.

ProperCharlie

turboman - i have mixed feelings about israel. reading stuff like Primo Levi makes me sympathetic to the reasons for its existence,but they shouldn't expect to get away with carrying on like they do. also thier current (US inspired?) policy is totally misguided. any fool can see that they are making their own problenms worse.

dai - i'm sure that there are historical precendents for the place called Kuwait; however its present form owes a lot to western intervention and support.

daiscooby

Not a precident, its been around for 100's of years. It was a British protectorate for a while, but always was a soveriegn state.

ProperCharlie

Ok Dia; I will believe you for the time being. Once I've researched the history of the ottoman empire thoroughly I'll be back with some more conclusive evidence.

Charlie.

daiscooby

BruceWarne

Israel was one of South Africas's biggest allies during Apartheid - quite a few interesting weapons were co-developed between SA and Israel.

If the Arabs had a very much different skin colour to the Jews, you can bet that the world would have done more.

Lost of similarities between Israel/"Old" SA (not just racial oppresion) - both are surrounded by fanatical enemies. Because of that, both will retaliate with disproportional force...I can remember early 80's, a car bomb exploded in Pretoria killing about 40 people...The next morning the mirages and bombers passed over our primary school - on their way to bomb the living **** out of ANC offices in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and probably a few other places too.

ProperCharlie

Ok; as far as i can determine Kuwait was loosely part of Basra and under a degree of control from Bhagdad. Basically the Brits decided to prop it up cos they were worried that the Germans would collude with the Ottomans and take the place over. Iraq does not recognise the sovereignty of Kuwait:

"Although Kuwait was, technically, part of Basra, the Kuwaitis had traditionally maintained a relative degree of independence. In the late 19th Century, Iraqi officials were demanding that Kuwait totally submit to Iraqi rule. In May 1896, Shaikh Muhammad bin Sabah was assasinated by his half-brother, Mubarak al-Sabah (the Great) who, in early 1897, was recognized, by the Ottoman sultan, as the qaimmaqam (provincial sub-governor) of Kuwait.

It is commonly believed that Mubarak's coup was assisted by the British government."

Do I win?

daiscooby

From the Kuwait Emmbassy web site:

1672 :
The approximate date of the establishment of Kuwait town, when Barrak bin Ghurair was the Amir of the Bani Khalid.
1716 :
Approximate date of the Al-Sabah Family's arrival in Kuwait.
1752 :
The approximate date of the election of Sabah Bin Jaber from the Al-Sabah family to be the first ruler of Kuwait.
1762 :
Abdullah Bin Sabah, the second ruler of Kuwait, came to power.
1765 :
C. Niebuhr, the Danish traveller, visited Kuwait which he referred to on his map as "Grane".
1773 :
Kuwait was attacked by an epidemic and most of its inhabitants died.
1783 :
The Kuwaitis defeated the tribe of Bani Ka'ab in the sea battle of Riqqa.
1812 :
Jaber I came to power.
1859 :
Sabah II came to power.
1866 :
Abdullah II came to power.
1871 :
The Al-Tab'ah disaster, in which many Kuwaiti diving ships were sunk, was caused by a massive hurricane between India and Oman.
1886 :
The first Kuwait currency was minted in copper during the reign of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sabah II.
1892 :
Mohammad I came to power.
1896 :
Mubarak Al-Sabah came to power.
1914 :
"Al-Subaihiya Conference" was the first international conference to be held in Kuwait.
1915 :
Jaber II came to power
1917 :
Salem Al-Mubarak came to power.
1921 :
Ahmad Al-Jaber came to power.

Currency does imply it was a sovereign state does it not

Although part of the Ottoman Empire it was autonomous, sort of like Monaco or Andorra - but with oil !!
Go on I'll call it a draw, but if you persist we will start on Qatar and who knows where it will end, global armaggedon probably

ProperCharlie

Ok draw it is.

However your source is biased. Can you imagine the Kuwait Embassy website saying:

"Ok it's a fair cop; we don't really exist. Our sole purpose in life is to perpetuate western interference in middle eastern affairs."

daiscooby

Charlie

turboman786

Getting back to the thread topic, what has the size of Israel got to do with anything?

The zionists often point to the size as kind of making the Israeli issue into a david/goliath ( israel/arabs world) situation

in reality we all know who goliath is ......and we all know what happended to him despite his mean size and perceived strength and power........

ProperCharlie

There's a good reason why Israel is small. Creating a new state in somneone else's land is always going to be unpopular. If they had decided to make it the size of france I somehow doubt the plan would have worked.

south-star

Its nothing to do with size,its about who controls the holy city of Jerusalem.
If you asked the arabs for a 1km square piece of the Sahara they'd probably let you have it.If you asked for the the land containing Mecca.........

Holy Ghost

this may sound like a stupid question but it's not meant to be.

taking a step back, why do the arabs still hate the jews and the jews still hate the arabs? my biblical knowledge is hazy at best.

i find it truly amazing that both sides still maintain and suffer the prejudices of the good book.

Billbill

Something to do with humanities ability to rationalize differences as a threat?

akshay67

Arabs are almost all Muslim, so follow the Quran and then you have the Jews and the you have your Biblical knowledge.

Where is the link ????!!!

Contradiction in terms mate!

[Edited by akshay67 - 5/24/2003 9:49:04 AM]

Chip

Going off on a tangent here but there was once a question posed on Family Fortunes which asked the contestants to name a dangerous race with answers expected like Grand National, Indy 500 etc.

Contestant quickly pressed the buzzer and said "the Arabs". Cut.

Chip.

turboman786

LOL@chip!

MooseRacer

my biblical knowledge is hazy at best.

That's worrying coming from you Holy Ghost!

Billbill

Holy Ghost has a few holes in it?

moses

see in the bible , word of man and not God, its a long story, some are words of God , some of historians, rabbis, idealogists etcetc and doctrines of men.


it says God promised the SEED of abraham the land of such and such etc etc, according to the law the eldest has more rights and im not arguing , but eldest and first born of abraham was ishmael the father of the arabs, jews say the land was promised to isaac's lot, no way isaac is our uncle and a holy prophet, the land was for the seed of abraham and when father abraham died he didnt have a square foot of land by the way according to the bible so it contradicts, ishamel and his little brother(half brother) isaac had to buy the land of the sons of such and such to bury father abraham and their mum mother sarah.

and God said in the bible abraham sacrifice thy only son, it seems God forgot his only son wasnt isaac , his only son for 13 yrs was ishmael he was the one who had to be sacrificed in the vision and God saved him , it was a test. see what i mean

so if someone says prophet musa as in moses brought the torah from God we believe it but we dont have the original form.

i put this question to a rabbi and asked him dear teacher, do u say the torah we have today came in the time of prophet musa, he said yes every word to the letter and then i said dear teacher so why does it in the last book of the torah does it say prophet musa was 125 yrs old when he died and till this day no one knows where he is buried, so that means it isnt from God , coz God knows where he is and not from joshua and not from prophet musa, so it has to be the historians, he was a lil stunned and couldnt answer it properly, see what i mean

Billbill

At least you gave the gentleman something to think about.

Billbill

Not like some of the TeleEvangelists that profess the be the "Word of God!"
And they have a large following.
The following contributes large sums to support said individual.

It's hard to follow these "wild hairdo" prophets who spout their rhetoric. Has it allways been the same through history?