Fordtunate Son

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Military Pron - Modern Israel

Oct 10, 2023, 3:58 PM

I prattle on quite a bit about ancient Israel, but in light of current events I thought a quick look at Israel’s modern history might be interesting. Timely, ya know. Israel’s a pretty new country, and they’ve had a rough time of it since day one. Arabs and Israelis. Israelis and Arabs.

It’s not the same God that’s the problem. It’s the same land.

The Holy Land has been a hotbed of military action from the day Joshua crossed the Jordan, but this post will only cover the last 75 years. After a while the players and the plays get kind of predictable. Like a Garret Riley offense.

There’s a rotating gallery of puppet masters behind this stuff, every time. Usually, the most violence comes on the brink of peace, by those who don’t want peace. Or violence can come on significant dates. I doubt it’s a coincidence that 2023 is the 75th anniversary of modern Israel’s existence. Happy sapphire jubilee.

So here’s the story of how we, and modern Israel got here. Including the most recent Holy Wars.

THE iconic example of thrash metal, for you fellow headbangers.

During WW1, the British took the Holy Land from the Turks, with the help of the Arabs, ironically. The Turks had owned it for over 1000 years. They made a movie about the fight.

And right after the Brits and French got Arab help to win the war, the British and French cut the Arabs completely out of any land deals to reward them, whatsoever. Surprise!

Back then, the land was called the British Mandate, and the Brits administered all the Arabs that lived there, rather than giving them self-rule. There were some revolts, as there always are in occupied lands, and the name was changed to British Palestine from the 1920’ till the 1940’s. Just lines on a map, separating ethic tribes and a few minor cities.

After WW2, lots of people thought it would be a swell idea to give the Jews, who had been scattered across Europe since Roman times, a home of their own again. The idea had been around sine the 1800’s, but after WW2 it really got some steam behind it.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Work will set you free

Now the British, being a world empire, had lots of land available as to serve as a new crib for wayward Jews. One was near the Caribbean in British Guyana. Sort of a Jewish Jamaica, mon.

British Guyana, Jews for Ganja

Another possible Jewish homeland was the isolated island of Madagascar, right off the African coast. Jungle Jews, maybe.

The population of Jews was so small they could have gone almost anywhere. Even today, the populated area of their country is about the size of LA County. Maybe 10 million people.

That is one hella lot of concrete. Those hills at upper left center are the Hollywood Hills. And the hills just left of that, in the same range, are the Beverly Hills. Swimming pools. Movie Stars. Texas Tea.

In fact, a tiny chunk of Saskatchewan, or even North Dakota, would have been MORE than enough land for all the Jewish refugees in the whole world. So, so much available land.

There’s nobody there for 200 miles in any direction. And there’s nothing to do other than the visit world’s tallest radio tower. The Jews would have loved it. But that land wasn’t offered to them.

Anyway, North Dakota didn’t matter, because the Jews didn’t want just any land. Of all the land in the whole wide world, they wanted one, and only one, tiny little spot.

Not in the Caribbean sunshine and warm waters of Guyana, not in the tropical island paradise of Madagascar, and not the fertile Great Plains of the American West (though they might have if it was offered.)

They wanted a bone-dry desert, in their mortal enemy’s back yard. They wanted their old home of 2000 years ago.

The Judean Desert. There’s nothing green about either milk, or honey.

We have a Judean desert in America, too, except no one lives there. And we call ours The Badlands.

But, there’s no place like home, so, the British said “Sure, we can grant that to you.” And they drew some lines on a map, and said “Everywhere these Palestinian guys don’t live in large numbers, you can have.”

Israel, 1948. Jews in yellow, Palestinians in Brown, Landlocked “International City” of Jerusalem in center.

And the Jews flowed in, like milk and honey. They made a good move about it in 1959.

The only problem was that there were Palestinians everywhere, not just in the populated areas. And for them, the solution sounded like this:

“We all agree that homelessness is a real problem. So our solution is to give the homeless as place to live – in your back yard.”

Naturally, the Palestinians didn’t think too much of being declared a homeless shelter. And so, literally on the day Israel became a country, as they were raising the new national flag in 1948, the Arabs attacked the new nation of Israel. Talk about a Coming Home Party.

15 May, 1948

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israel vs. Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, across 3 months.

Israelis fighting for their homeland

Arabs fighting for their homeland

British and French generals and politicians drinking tea

Israel won that first war, against all odds (with a lot of American and British hardware and intel), and remained a nation.

And so, not quite 20 years later, an Arab coalition attacked again in 1967, across 6 days. Because of the technological advantage Israel had, the 6-day war was an Arab wipe-out.

The 6-Day War- 1967

Arabs

Hotties

Like all modern wars, both the 48 war and the 67 war were proxy tests of superpower equipment as well.
Look! Nixon has the 6th Fleet, just like today.

And again, against all odds, but with great technological superiority, Israel won. But this time Israel decided to take and keep a little booty. Not only did Israel defend their own lands, they took Arab lands, and kept them. These were the Golan Heights in the North, the West Bank (of the Jordan) in the middle, the Gaza Strip in the South, and even the whole Sinai Peninsula.

The map gets redrawn again, by war.

Before the war

After the war. Israel decides to keep everything.

So now, not only were the Arabs pixxed that the Jews were in their neighborhood at all, now the Jews were actually occupying land that had been allocated to the Arab states when Israel was created in 1948. Ouch. That had to sting.

Angry, angry, Arabs.

So, just 6 years later in 1973, the Arabs came back at Israel again. Not so coincidentally on Israel’s 50th birthday. On the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Arabs invaded. It was sort of like a Pearl Harbor attack, but on Christmas Day.

Now this was one tough war. The 1948 war and the 1967 war hadn’t been easy, but this one was different. The Arab coalition of Egypt, Syria and all the usual suspects really thought this one through, and their technology was much, much, better than in 1967.

Syrian T-62 Tanks in the Golan Heights

Israeli (British) Centurian tank

This was a REAL game changer. Russian made anti-air missiles. They took away Israel’s overwhelming air superiority.

We don’t often get directly involved in proxy war (that’s kinda the whole point), but the 1973 Yom Kippur war was so close that in the middle of OUR war, in Vietnam, we started airlifting supplies to Israel. That’s a sure sign of serious desperation. Shid was serious. Real serious.

Operation Nickel Grass. DIRECT resupply to the Israelis during their war, by American C-5s.

But even with the Arab coalition’s advantages in air-defense and complete surprise, they STILL managed to fugg it up.

In the Sinai, they screwed up so badly that the entire Egyptian Third Army (and they only had 3) got trapped in the desert without supplies, including water. Which is kind of important. Egypt went from attacking Israel, to begging them not to let their men die of thirst.

And the Israelis would have done it too. It got so bad that the Soviets said they would send troops to Egypt to save the 3rd Army if they were not released from the desert. We went on nuclear alert fearing the worst. Finally, Nixon stepped in and said “we can’t have mass annihilation, of them or us,” and convinced the Israelis to let the Egyptians go home for the peace.”

That’s as embarrassing as it gets. A COMPLETE reversal of fortune. Almost as bad as fumbling on the GD goal line and giving Duke a scoop and score. Bad, just bad.

Screenshot-181

There have been other minor border and zone occupation changes since then, but the lines have stayed pretty much the same since 1973. In 1982 Israel went into Lebanon, with our help, to quell cross-border attacks by the Palestinians. Israel eventually pulled out, but the bad blood ultimately led to this:

“…the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.

— Osama bin Laden, 2004

In the 90’s Israel gave the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip some limited autonomy, and pulled their troops out in 2005. But tensions have been high ever since, and here we are today, trodding over the same ground and the same issues, since 1948, and long before that. And Israel is still fighting her neighbors.

At this point we are reliving history over the exact same ground. Because in 1099, the first Crusaders set up a Christian (not a Jewish) state in Muslim Territory called the Kingdom of Jerusalem. For 200 years it was fought over till the Crusaders finally withdrew in 1291.

Running over the same old ground…what have found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.

Twenty-five years from now, 2048, will be Israel’s 100th birthday. Can Israel make it as long as the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Time will tell. Till then, enjoy some smokin’ hot babes.

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Arrogant AF in the work place, but friendly as hell outside of it. Loved living life, being social, all as mentioned above. Tel Aviv is a lovely place to visit when rockets aren’t reigning down. I did have a Palestinian/Arab cuss me out as he drove by on his moped though.

Jerusalem is where you really feel the tension amongst everyone. Our tour guide carried a .45 because he was responsible for our safety, in his words. And if you’re not Arab, don’t even think about going up too far at Temple Rock - I know this because I had an Israeli and an Arab tilt there rifles at me while yelling Stop. My bad.

And there are few things hotter than a good looking woman carrying an Uzi. Especially if they are in uniform, hungover from the previous night reeking of liquor, but still able to function as needed. HAWT.

Military Pron - Modern Israel

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