Avigdor Lieberman is an extremist politician who is comfortable with his reputed comments that tens of millions of Egyptians should be killed (by bombing the High Aswan Dam) if Israel feel threatened. But I don’t think he’s stupid or out to alienate potential voters. I think you are drawing a long bow with the quote you have provided.
Lieberman speaks his mind; if he wanted to say nuke Gaza he would have been explicit. When he said “Do to Hamas what the US did to Japan …” he meant keep on bombing them with everything that works, till they stop fighting. The Americans used more than just nuclear weapons. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Lieberman would no doubt be aware of it. That IMO is what Israelis would have understood he meant. They wouldn’t have expected a nuclear bomb over Gaza as too many of them would have seen it and nobody wants to be that close to a nuclear bomb going off. If a Hiroshima-size bomb would have been dropped over Gaza , the majority of people in Sderot would have died from it. They would have included quite a few Lieberman voters. The distances there are incredibly small. Forget about Sderot, Tel-Aviv is 71 kms (44 miles) away. Can you imagine any US politician advocating nuking a city in Mexico that far away from a major US city? Last year the Israeli air force had to give up using the sonic boom weapon over Gaza as air inversion conditions meant that half the children in Israel got scared to death as well. No Israeli politician would like to be thought a fool and advocate nuking Gaza. Lieberman is evil but not stupid.
Sol Salbe
Melbourne Australia
Related posts:
- Lieberman hinted at nuking Palestinians
- ‘J Street’ drives its wedge: Lieberman & Lieberman
- Forget about Iran! Lieberman adopts Obama’s Af-Pak priorities
- Should have seen this coming: Lieberman makes Netanyahu look warm and cuddly
- The fact that Lieberman is not exposed and savaged in the U.S. is testimony to one thing, the Israel lobby
{ 10 comments }
Here is a quote from an assessment of Israeli nuclear capability.
"…The Israelis have developed, by several accounts, low yield neutron bombs able to destroy troops with minimal damage to property.[112] In 1990, during the Second Gulf War, an Israeli reserve major general recommended to America that it “use non-contaminating tactical nuclear weapons” against Iraq.[113]"
112. Hersh, op. cit., 319.
113. Amos, Deborah, Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 105.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm
Maybe Lieberman has been chatting with the "Israeli reserve major general".
Hm. I saw a TV report before the elections in Israel. And they showed some Israeli politician (may be from Labour, in any case opposition to Lieberman) who asked some pro-Lieberman people if they are out of their minds if they or Lieberman suggested nuking Gaza. He asked if they didn't realize that this would also destroy Israeli towns etc.
So the nuking Gaza thing was certainly in the air to some extent back then among Liebermaniacs.
I'm certain that "no option is off the table" as far the IDF is concerned in its effort to displace the Palestinians, and Lieberman's rhetoric certainly sounds as if it could include the nuclear option (the Hiroshima tragedy is what is etched in one's mind concerning America's use of force). However, I do agree with Sol. It may be Lieberman's fantasy "final solution" to simply exterminate the Palestinian people, but to do so with nuclear weaponry would be to render Gaza unihabitable by Israeli land-poachers.
The IDF, then, has a simple strategy. Commit war crimes, use white phosphorus weapons on women and children, turn infrastructure to rubble. Terrorize the populace with drones, decimate three-generations of families while they're drinking tea in a courtyard. Force them into the arms of Jordan. Then redraw your borders triumphantly. The only problem with that neat little strategy is that the rest of the world despises you for it.
Or he could mean what the Americans ultimately did in Japan – got rid of the imperialist forces and by occupation and molding of the Japanese political system, help to create a productive and peaceful ally of the United States.
"Or he could mean what the Americans ultimately did in Japan – got rid of the imperialist forces and by occupation and molding of the Japanese political system, help to create a productive and peaceful ally of the United States."
So, Harry, are you suggesting the US invade both Israel and the occupied territories and remold their systems into secular, democratic governments that don't kill innocent people and practice apartheid?
No "Witty's Critic", I was suggesting that Israel invade Gaza and pacify it like the US did for Japan. I don't think that the Israeli government practices Apartheid at all or that it deliberately targets innocent people. In fact, the Jew-free principle of the Hamas government speaks to apartheid and we know, based on their bombing and missile attacks, that they do target innocent people. Why any liberal minded person would support Hamas and its methods is well beyond me.
So, the Palestinians left their traditional homeland and went around the world invading other homelands like the Imperial Japanese?
Yes, Harry, I knew you meant that–you seem to be that sort of person who only sees the atrocities that are committed by one side.
Harry Fenton – The issue is not support for HAMAS, per se, but a refusal to condone and pay for the systemic practice of terrorism by the state of Israel.
Harry's out to lunch, protected by goys–forgive them, they have limited financial resources–and Harry's friends mean to keep them in that way,
Comments on this entry are closed.