IDF v Hezbollah: The Rematch Summer 2015?

I would rank it high since 1945 although still not poster child status or among the highest with nearly extreme vast majority of its abuses conducted outside its borders. Many of the abuses since 1945 relate to cold war like Vietnam war like My Lai massacre occurred,coups like 1953 Muhammad Mossadegh in Iran, 1954 Guatamala, support of dictators like Mobutu Sesko of Zaire(today's Congo) and apartheid(both of which other Western countries like United Kingdom especially under Thatcher supported justifying it as part of struggle against Communism), support of brutal Latin American dictators(which Israel shamefully supported with apartheid South Africa) during dirty war of the 1980's many of them trained by school of Americas . Since the fall of Soviet Union, the biggest human right abuse was invasion of Iraq in 2003 on false claims of wmd and ties to Al Qaeda and the costly aftermath. Support of repressive Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is another issue. However as horrid as these regimes the alternatives Muslim brotherhood or ISIS is not much better if not worse especially ISIS.

 

Wonderful... I forced you to do some research.... and BTW the ousting of the The Arab conqueror from Andalous/Spain is the utmost comparison for the case of Israel...
This for us means a <precedent> to create a New Int. Law to satisfy all the people... Mind you Jews are a people too...

You do not call the Islamic/Arab conquest legit but you surely do not do a darn thing about it here.

 

"UN report gives Hezbollah the green light
Analysis: A report which creates a moral and legal symmetry between Israel and Hamas cannot reflect reality, but its conclusion that the IDF made excessive use of fire should serve as a warning sign against what might happen to Israel in the international arena during the next Lebanon war."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4671655,00.html

Any "moral and legal symmetry between Israel and Hamas" would begin by comparing how many Jewish homes Hamas has bulldozed since 1967 with the number of Palestinian homes destroyed by Israel.

"Homes Demolished in Israel and Palestine

"0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians,
and over 28,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished
by Israel since 1967."

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stat/homes.html

 

You do not call the Islamic/Arab conquest legit but you surely do not do a darn thing about it here? You realize that occurred in 7th century 1,400 years ago meaning none of us can do anything about it. You didn't force me to do any research( other then double checking on you calling Mesoptamians a minority group since I knew it was ancient name for Iraq) , I knew all the information in the post you cited. Spain is utmost comparison? Reconquest of Spain in 1492 was part of process becoming a state . Israel since 1948 has been a state that is early UN member and is recognized by most countries in the world. At the time there was also no international law. New international law doesn't need to be created. The problem is that like any military occupation lasting nearly 50 years given it's nature tend to be abusive. No one here is saying Jews aren't people.

 

lol why can't these mighty 'legal scholars' bring themselves to just post the list of Arab atrocities in this century? Are they too ashamed? Do they know for a fact that it would render their entire strawman posting history here ridiculous?

The answer is a resounding 'Yes!' for the last two questions, beyond all doubt. Their pitiful 'posting last' campaign is truly sad.

 

The Muslims/Arabs of today do not follow rule/regulation/conference/law etc., they behave exactly like they did to the conquered countries including 'Spain' with impunity.

Thousands upon thousands of Christians and Yazidis women and children are being killed, decimated and so forth and no one in the Big 'O' administration have the temerity to confront these marauders and put a stop to the slaughter.

But you see Israel as a culprit here, there is something wrong...

 

maybe you haven't been following the news, but Syria and Iraq are fighting ISIS the best they can, while the USA is bombing them daily.

 

How many Japanese straw men (and women) did Arabs burn last?

 

Once again you have not made your <homework> in depth.
These opponents need boots on the ground, and all the bombings are <show of>, most of the planes return with a full load to base.

They had several triumphal parades for miles and miles... the planes could have bombed these <parades> and weaken the lot... But no one had the fortitude to do what must have been done then... maybe it was an order <let them pass> who exactly knows...

The only reason the marauders are successful it is because the great powers have not yet decided to stop them and the murderers are aware of that.

Of course, I am wrong and you are right?

 

The Muslims of today behave exactly like they did to the conquered countries including Spain with impunity? The 7th century Islamic conquest didn't have any massacres with one exception execution of hundreds of males of the Banu Qurayza tribe; a Jewish tribe in Arabia that allied with tribes opposed to Muhammad. Most of the various Islamic empires and caliphates didn't force conversation on Jews and Christians since they were viewed as people of the book and protected as dhimmi in return for paying jizya tax and restrictions. The 7th century Islamic conquest wasn't that brutal especially for the times when conquest and war was constant, conquest wasn't comparable to something like Crusades later on, Mongols conquest, Alexander the great's conquest where entire cities were slaughtered etc. During the dark age while Europe consisted of feuding kingdoms recovering from aftermath of fall of Roman Empire, Baghdad under the Abbasid caliphate known for House of Wisdom where ancient Greek, Roman writings were translated; and Cordaban in Spain under the Moors were centers of learning and science. Many advancements in science include mathematics where algebra and Hindu-Arabic numberal system were developed, astronomy with invention of astrolobe, development of chemistry from alchemy, advancements in medicine like formation of pharmacies. Ibn al-Haytham who lived in Egypt under Fatimid caliphate helped form scientific method and was involved in advances in several fields of science; because of this he is regarded as the first true scientist. During this time period Cordova was regarded as most modern city in Europe due to paved roads, raised sidewalks for pavements, and during night ten miles of street were lit by lamps. This was hundreds of years before paved streets in London and street lamps in Paris. The Moors also had 17 universities while rest of Europe had two. Moorish Spain also had 70 libraries while one in Corovova had 600,000 manuscripts when Europe had no public libraries. The Moors also introduced crops like orange, lemon, peach, apricot, fig, sugar cane, dates, ginger and pomegranate. Paper spread to Europe after Moors and Abbasid learned how to make paper from the Chinese. The golden age of Judaism was also in Spain after Moors took over Spain. The age ended when extremists Islamic dynasties like Almoravides and Almohades preceded by 1066 Grenda massacre. Later Islamic conquests like Seljuk Turks and into India where there many massacres since initially Muslims didn't view Hindus as people of the book due to polytheistic nature of the religion. Regarding ISIS. Obama is working with an Arab coalition against ISIS. Understandably Obama doesn't want American troops on the ground involved in this fight. The PA and Abbas is not interested in violence with attacks since end of second intifada has been lone gunmen attacks with security officials including Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen, Abbas also maintains security cooperation with Israel. 2008 talks between Abbas and Olmert were months away from completing a peace deal with Bibi since returning to power in 2009 has refused to go back to point of those talks. ISIS and Israeli Palestinian conflict are a separate issue. Throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict both sides have been culprits. Currently, of the two sides Israel especially Bibi and the right are being intransigent. Bibi and his government refuses to seriously negotiate with Abbas including going back to point of 2008 talks .
http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15-facts-on-the-moors-in-spain/
http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HIST101-9.3.1-AbbasidDynasty-FINAL.pdf

 

Arab atrocities? Lol. More Western projection of their violent past.

 

Addenda:
Muslims land in Spain 710 CE - 718 CE
Muslim Expelled from Spain/Andalous 1609 CE after 899 years of subjugation...

1609 CE is not really that far from 2015...
It is high time for Israel to emulate Spain!!!

 

Again no matter how times you say Spain is not a relevant example. At time of 8th century conquest, conquest was the norm for the times. At the time of 8th century conquest there were no Spanish nation or state at the time Visigoth a Germanic tribe ruled over Spain. After reconquista and unification of Aragon and Castille throne in 1492 is when notion of Spanish nation begin. Israel has been a nation and state since 1948. Thus, there is nothing for them to emulate since they have their state and country and not in middle of establishing it. It should also be noted after formation of Spanish nation and shortly afterward Spanish empire all of Spanish empire eventually became independent. Spain also tried to control Portugal and was briefly united in 1580 but their union fell apart ending in 1640. The Spain example in addition to not being relevant doesn't change reality of conflict. If you want to keep West Bank then understand you are turning Israel into a binational/Arab state or apartheid state consisting of two populations opposed to each other in bitter conflicts for many decades if you continue denying citizenship to West Bank Arabs.

 

You keep on repeating your <mantra>...

Here is a Video that would give you and those who think like you something to ponder.

Mother of Israeli-Arab Zionist Muhammad Zoabi on &#8216;MasterChef&#8217; Says &#8216;I am a
Proud Zionist&#8217;

~Shiryn Ghermezian The Algemeiner June 25, 2015 4:03 pm

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/2...-master-chef-says-i-am-a-proud-zionist-video/

Video
https://vimeo.com/131652887


The mother of Israeli-Arab Israel supporter Muhammad Zoabi expressed pride
in being a Zionist as she appeared as a contestant on the latest season of
the popular cooking show MasterChef Israel.

Sarah Zoabi introduced herself to viewers as an &#8220;Arab, Muslim, Israeli,
proud Zionist&#8221; from the northern city of Nazareth. When one of the show&#8217;s
judges asked her to elaborate on her nationality and beliefs, she said, &#8220;I
believe in the right of the Jewish people to have their own country, which
is the state of Israel, the holy land.&#8221;

&#8220;I&#8217;m sure that the people who hear me will say: &#8216;what, have you lost your
mind? How can you say you are a Zionist?&#8217; I want to say to all the Arab
[citizens] of Israel to wake up,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;We live in paradise.
Compared to other countries, to Arab countries &#8211; we live in paradise.&#8221;

The contestant also elaborated on her loyalty to Israel, saying she doesn&#8217;t
have &#8220;another state&#8221; or &#8220;another flag&#8221; with which she identifies. She added,
&#8220;With all due respect to [the Arab] nation, this doesn&#8217;t imply treason. I
never harmed anyone.&#8221;

Praising the Jewish state, she said there is no other country where she
could receive the same freedoms as in Israel. She asserted that 100 percent
of Israeli Arabs would prefer living in Israel over Palestinian rule, if
given the choice.

&#8220;No one will agree. That&#8217;s what I believe,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It will cost me, I
know that. Same way it cost my son. I&#8217;m the mother of the Arab boy, Muhammad
Zoabi, who&#8217;s life was threatened and who faced death threats over his
opinions.&#8221;

Her son, Muhammad, was forced to go into hiding last summer after he
publicly expressed support for Israel. At the time, he published a video
online calling for the the return of three Israeli teenagers &#8211; Naftali
Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah &#8211; who were abducted and murdered in
June by Hamas terrorists in the West Bank. He found shelter at the home of
an Israeli terror victim in Israel before fleeing to the U.S.

Muhammad resurfaced in January with a post on his Facebook page. He said his
need to go into hiding was partially a result of his effort to &#8220;show the
world the real face of regular Arabs and Muslims who&#8217;re simply sick of their
leaders&#8217; corruption and unlimited hate.&#8221;

Muhammad is a cousin of Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Haneen Zoabi, whose
provocative anti-Zionist activism nearly cost her her Knesset seat.

Watch the video of Sarah Zoabi on MasterChef Israel below:
https://vimeo.com/131652887

Nota Bene : This Vimeo does not have an English transliteration but rather an English translation that is <absolutely correct> word by word and I vouch for it.
________________________________________
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

 

and kick out their Jews?

 

I never said Jews don't have a right to their own country. Israeli Arabs while do suffer discrimination I do agree are much better off than other Arabs living in the middle east. This is due to Israel within green lines having everyone equal under the law and under civil law and rule with corresponding rights that come with that. However the same can't be said in the West Bank since Palestinians are subject to military law while neighboring Israelis are subject to civil law and has corresponding rights that Palestinians lack due to being under military law. Holding onto West Bank means Jews can't have their own country since they lose their majority. At the same time Israel can't call itself fully democratic when you have an Israel where Arab houses are constantly demolished due to Israel refusing housing permits while settlements grow even though some of them like Hebron, Yitzhar, and Itamar harass and attack Palestinians with impunity. At the same time Israel can't call itself fully democratic when you have an Israel where hundreds of Palestinians held at any time without being charged for a crime(administrative detection). At the same time Israel can't call itself fully democratic when you have Arabs being ruled by a court system where conviction rate is 99.7% and they can be denied seeing their lawyers for 90 days. As long as there is an Israel cuts off municipal services like trash, sewage, and water to villages( Arab villages annexed to East Jerusalem after 67 war that after construction of fence Israelis cut off these services with PA barred from helping due to these villages falling under Israeli jurisdiction) it can't call itself fully democratic.

 

Your calculations are awfully incorrect... all that you have regurgitated has been found to be unsupported by facts...
Please read Caroline B. Glick's book <The Israeli Solution>... ISBN 978-0-385-34806-5 and let us carry on from there.

 

Caroline Glick is a racist prick, and unworthy of reading.

 

The American Israel-Demographic Research Group study she cites is not recognized as valid by most people. In the book she also points out that 1997 census by PA predicted by 2015 Jews would lose their majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river. That prediction is not that far off with Jews 50% of population between Jordan river and Mediterranean(this is based on Israeli census bureau for Israeli population including Israeli Arab population and Palestine's consensus bureau for West Bank at 2.7 million and 1.7 million for Gaza which is consist with CIA world factbook and 2013 civil administration document that put population of Palestinians in West Bank at 2.657 million) . Below is haaretz article on the study. The article notes the group's claims aren't corroborated by demographic experts in Israel or around the world. The article ends with Assaf Sharon noting "The annexation of the territories means a binational state. You can be for or against it, but you can't deny it."
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/02/population-israelpalestine-projected

"In May 2012, the Palestinian population of the West Bank stood at 2,657,029, according to a Civil Administration document obtained by Haaretz. In addition, the document points out, there has been a 29 percent rise in the Palestinian population since the year 2000.

However, over the past few years, a fierce battle has taken place over the number of Palestinians living in the territories.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group has been trying for eight years to prove that the Palestinians have managed, with great sophistication, to inflate their true population by 1 million people, and that the real figure currently stands at about 1.5 million people.

The group's claims are not corroborated by demographic experts in Israel and around the world, but Israeli right-wing activists and politicians have adopted them, including Economy Minister and Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and former defense minister and foreign minister Moshe Arens.

Right-wing activists say that if there are only 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, there is no "threat" to Israel's demography &#8211; referring to the state's desire to maintain a Jewish majority &#8211; and no need to launch negotiations over a Palestinian state. Instead, they say, it's time to talk about annexing Palestinian territories and their residents to Israel.

Hotovely says that in the long term Israel can naturalize all West Bank Palestinians and still remain a Jewish state, and Bennett's views are similar. "There are 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and 400,000 settlers, and nobody's going anywhere," Bennett recently said in an interview with the Washington Post.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group is led by former diplomat Yoram Ettinger. The team responsible for the data includes Los Angeles businessman Bennett Zimmerman, historian Roberta Seid and physicist Michael L. Wise.

The group published its first paper in 2005 in what was seen as a move to block the Gaza pullout by disputing the accepted demographic figures. The paper contests the Palestinian Authority's censuses of both 1997 and 2007.

These censuses were the only ones held in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 and were supervised by the Norwegian government. Based on these studies and figures from the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces, the United Nations and the Shin Bet security service, the Palestinian population in the West Bank is usually estimated at between 2.6 million and 2.7 million.

But according to the American-Israeli group these numbers are distorted. First, the group says these numbers include 300,000 Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel counts as Israeli Arabs. Second, the group says Palestinian demographers include people who left the West Bank many years ago. Third, it says figures for population growth don't jibe.

"These are not necessarily lies," Ettinger said. "But the Palestinians count differently. The problem isn't them; the problem is with those who accept their data without checking. For example, in the matter of the births there's a very imprecise fact there, to say the least."

The group points to the decline in the Arab birthrate throughout the Middle East. According to Ettinger, the birthrate of Jewish women in Israel is higher now than that of women in neighboring countries.

"What this group is doing borders on crime, it's a macro deception," said Prof. Arnon Soffer, a geography professor and a severe critic of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group . A 2004 meeting between Soffer and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was considered a milestone in Sharon's decision to embark on the Gaza disengagement.

In 2007, Soffer co-wrote an article called "The Tricky Million-Person Gap." According to the piece, all 21 assumptions of the American-Israeli group are flawed.

"Take for example the issue of mortality," Soffer told Haaretz. "The Jewish population has the normal number of elderly compared to the rest of the world. The Arab population does not have as many elderly people and so the mortality rate is lower." Among Israeli Jews, six people die annually out of every 1,000, compared with 2.5 in the Arab community, Soffer says.

"The members of the group also say that every year between 60,000 and 80,000 people leave the country. So if we're patient, in a few years the last Arab will turn off the light," Soffer said.

"Believe me, I've been at all the border crossings and there is no such thing. It's nonsense. They also claim that the figure of 400,000 Palestinians living abroad should be subtracted. But what about the number of Israelis living in New York?"

The debate boils down to whether there is a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. According to Ettinger, Jews make up 66 percent of the population between the river and the sea. And due to the change in birthrates, this majority is stable. "There is no Arab time bomb, there is a Jewish tailwind," he said.

According to Soffer, there are 6.2 million Jews and others in Israel, 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank. There are 1.6 million Israeli Arabs, not including Druze. Thus there are 5.8 million Arabs and 6.2 million Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Soffer also talks about 60,000 people who have entered Israel illegally, 120,000 tourists who have outstayed their visas, and 300,000 Palestinians who have entered Israel since 1967 and live here, as well as foreign workers. "We are now 49 percent between the Jordan and the sea," Soffer says.

"If this were an academic debate, it wouldn't be worth my while to deal with [the group]," Soffer said. "But suddenly Bogie [Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon] tells me we don't have a demographic problem."

According to Dr. Assaf Sharon, academic director at Molad, a left-wing think tank, "The debate over the future of the territories is important enough to hold based on real facts and data. The so-called facts in the ideological right wing's strategy are baseless. Rightists forget that a lie repeatedly told does not become the truth. The annexation of the territories means a binational state. You can be for or against it, but you can't deny it."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.532703

In addition there is Ian Lustick's article "What counts is counting: Statistical manipulation as a solution to Israel's "Demographic problem". " Lustick is an American political scientist that is an expert on MIddle Eastern politics and history. Lustick notes Yoram Ettinger and its three other primary authors for study aren't demographers by training. The only expert in demographic was Nicholas Eberstadt who was not an author or contributor to analysis and was singled out by the study for special expression of gratitude. As mentioned before demographic experts including Israelis disagree with the report. ZSW ( last name of the authors) of study allege allege that there is a million person gap in number of Palestinians in West Bank. ZSW claim 325,000 can be deducted from 1997 census of the territories due to West Bank and Gaza Palestinian Arabs living abroad and used as part of the base population of these territories for purposes of projection forward. The PCBS(Palestinian Central Bureau of Stastic) didn't do that and formerly responded by explaining "The population projections of PCBS are constructed upon the 1997 census data as a base enumeration of the population after excluding the foreign visitors and those living abroad on regular basis...[T]he Palestinian estimates of the population provided by the PCBS are for the Palestinian people living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip they exclude Palestinians living abroad if they carry Palestinian identity cards." Here is some more excerpt from article

"SW justify their critique of supposed Palestinian practices regarding non residents by emphasizing their preference for a &#8220;de facto&#8221; count of the Palestinian population, rather than a &#8220;de jure&#8221; count. A &#8220;de jure&#8221; estimate is an estimate of the number of people usually resident in the country or officially listed as living in the country by the authorities. A &#8220;de facto&#8221; count, according to ZSW, means only including people actually living in the West Bank and Gaza at the time of the census. This would exclude anyone traveling abroad, or living abroad, temporarily, for whatever amount of time,thereby lowering the population estimate. This decision is justified by citing the Israeli practice during Israel&#8217;s rule of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1990s of estimating the&#8220;de facto&#8221; number of &#8220;residents actually present in the Territories at any given time;&#8221;22and by citing a fifty-year-old United Nations document to the effect that &#8220;For purposes of international comparisons, the de facto definition is recommended.&#8221;23However, although ZSW note that census figures for Israel itself include residents not actually present in Israel (those absent for less than one year), they do not make this allowance for Palestinians. Nor do they report the fact that neither the Israeli census of 1995 nor the most recent census in 2008 were based on enumeration of people actually living at the time of the census in Israel.In other words, while using Israeli Census Bureau statistics and practices to justify low estimates of the Palestinian population, ZSW avoid using current and standard Israeli practices of census-taking and population estimation as guides for how Palestinian should properly use data to produce population estimates.The fact is that Palestinian descriptions of the 1997 census use almost exactly the same language used by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics to distinguish those &#8220;residents&#8221; who were counted from those who were not. As noted, the ICBS standard is to include as residents Israelis who are abroad but who have not been abroad for more than one year.

The report claims that real population base for West Bank and Gaza in 1997 as lower by 648,000 people than number used by PCBS. However Lustick notes that claim carries several problems.

"Thirdly, ZSW support their figure for the base population that is considerably lower than the PCBS number of 2.783 million by challenging PCBS projection and counting procedures. ZSW argue that the real population base in 1997 for the WestBank and Gaza should be treated as 648,000 persons lower than the number used by the PCBS. They seek to support this argument in two ways: by extrapolating Israeli estimates for West Bank and Gaza Arabs in 1995 forward to 2004; and by extrapolating other Palestinian data for adult and child populations in 2004&#8211;2005 &#8212; data taken from school registration and electoral registers for 2004&#8211;2005 and from Palestinian Ministry of Health Data from 1997.They justify their procedures by arguing that they are counting real things &#8212; registered births or voters or school children &#8212; rather than relying on samples and projections. Their use of Israeli statistics based one extrapolation suggests, however, that ZSWdid not apply this principle consistently. They may or may not be justified in treating extrapolated Israeli estimates from 1995 as reliable, but aside from trying to protect the quantification process which will lead to the conclusion they favor, it is difficult to understand why they would not report the significant doubts that the ICBS has expressed about the accuracy of its estimates concerning the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza during this period. The fact is that the 1995 ICBS projection that ZSW rely upon was an extrapolation of the last official estimate made by the ICBS, the estimate it produced in 1993. But even that 1993 estimate was not an &#8220;enumeration&#8221; of the sort ZSW make much of endorsing. According to the ICBS itself, its 1993 estimates were themselves &#8220;based on the census of population which was conducted in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Area in September 1967&#8221; &#8212; i.e., an Israeli enumeration which had occurred 26 years earlier.In particular, from the beginning of the first Intifada onward, the ICBS reported significant obstacles to gathering reliable information, including within expanded East Jerusalem. For example, in the Statistical Abstract of Israel for 1993, the ICBS noted that &#8220;ince the end of 1987, the enumerators of the survey could not do their work in East Jerusalem as planned, so only households which could be contacted by phone were surveyed. Consequently, data on non-Jews in East Jerusalem should be approached with caution.&#8221;Elsewhere it observed that &#8220;[d]ue to the events in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Area, there are difficulties from the beginning of 1988 in collecting statistical data. As a result, the quality of the data is poorer in a number of respects than in previous years.In fact, in 2005, the head of the Demography Department at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, praised the PCBS data and projections as &#8220;conducted according to accepted international procedures and the census process was correct.

Another problem Lustick noted in rounding on some of the group's numbers.

"Their argument also benefits from what appears to have been a propensity to round numbers in directions beneficial to their argument. For example, ZSW cite figures provided by the Palestinian authorities in January 2005 showing 1.523 million eligible voters (i.e., Arab adults) in the West Bank and Gaza not including those living in expanded East Jerusalem. From this number they subtracted the 200,000 residents eligible to vote but living abroad, producing an estimate of 1.323 million Arab adults living in the West Bank and Gaza, excluding expanded East Jerusalem. This figure is rounded down by ZSW to 1.3 million. They then cite a Palestinian figure to the effect that 50% of the Palestinian population was comprised of adults to produce a &#8220;maximum&#8221; estimate of 2.6 million Palestinians present in the West Bank and Gaza in 2005, excluding those living in expanded East Jerusalem.29However, we can see how much work was done to massage these figures into this low number, by noting three choices they made:1)ZSW used a January 2005 Palestinian statement for a registration extrapolated estimate of the adult population of 1.623 million rather than the December 31, 2004 Palestinian statement which registered the figure of 1.7 million.2)They rounded down from 1.323 million to 1.3 million after subtracting residents living abroad from the lower January figure.3)They rounded up the Palestinian estimate for the adult proportion of the population from 47.5% to 50%.The number resulting from these choices is their estimate of 2.6 million as a &#8220;maximum&#8221; estimate for the total Arab population in 2005 of the West Bank and Gaza excluding expanded East Jerusalem. But if we take away these rounding decisions, the number resulting from the same arithmetic operations is 3.15 million &#8212; a difference of 21%. This figure is considerably closer to 3.43 million &#8212; the official Palestinian estimate of the 2004 population of the West Bank and Gaza, excluding expanded East Jerusalem &#8212; than it is to ZSW&#8217;s assertion that the population of those areas in mid-2004 was 2.49 million.30Leaving aside these problems with their methods, we can nonetheless note that ZSW&#8217;s treatment of the base population element in the formula for arriving at the West Bank and Gaza Arab population in 2004 reduced, or appeared to reduce, the expected population of these areas in 2004 by only 648,000. This was still far short of the dramatic one million plus gap their argument required."

In ZSW's study on calculating natural increase doesn't correspond to how actual demographic experts count it. This is shown in the excerpt below

"Next we consider ZSW&#8217;s treatment of the second ingredient in their population calculation formula: natural increase. The question is how ZSW distill information about fertility and death rates among Palestinian Arabs between 1997 and 2004, and how their analytic choices affect their calculations. A key decision they make is to reject the PCBS technique (standard among professional demographers) of using surveys of births and deaths among sample populations to establish fertility, death, and natural increase rates.Instead, they adopt the practice of counting Arab births as only those registered with the Palestinian Ministry of Health. They then corroborate this lower count by citing school registration figures that were lower in the early 2000s than would have been consistent with the size of a cohort based on higher fertility rates. These choices did reduce the number of Palestinian births and, therefore, young children present in the West Bank and Gaza in 2004 by 238,000. However, this procedure entailed ignoring Palestinian births not registered with the PA&#8217;s Ministry of Health as well as many Palestinian children not registered in schools under the violent and unstable conditions prevailing in the Palestinian territories during those years.31The ZSW study has very little to say about Palestinian death rates, although the authors charge that PCBS figures for Palestinian deaths are, along with births,higher than they should be. Interestingly they refrained from &#8220;auditing&#8221; those figures. If such an audit had been carried out, and if ZSW&#8217;s hunch about Palestinian overestimation of death rates were found to be correct, that would have eliminated some of the missing persons ZSW needed for their argument. A pattern is clearly visible in ZSW&#8217;s treatment of Palestinian data. Figures that produce high numbers &#8212;PCBS census figures, fertility rates, and projections &#8212; are treated to extreme skepticism and subjected to elaborate &#8220;audits&#8221; to seek evidence of inflation. By contrast,ZSW treat the work of Palestinian agencies that produce low numbers &#8212; Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, and figures for voter registration as unproblematic.No questions are asked about possible reasons for underestimates or incomplete assessments these statistics may represent.32

The report also notes about ZSW's report on immigration

"In their study published at BESA, ZSW begin their treatment of the contribution of migration to the population of the Palestinian territories in 2004 by providing a four paragraph critique, supported by a graphic display of the inclusion by the PCBS in their calculations of high estimates for Palestinian immigration into the West Bank and Gaza for the years 1997 to 2003. Based on Israeli Border Patrol data suggesting that approximately 15,000 Palestinians immigrated annually into these territories in these seven years, and taking into account emigration of Palestinians that they say occurred in greater numbers on average than immigration during these years, &#8220;the total overestimate of the PCBS totaled 310,000 between 1997 and 2003.&#8221;33What is striking about this section of their study is the emphasis they put on this high Palestinian estimate of Palestinian immigration, despite their acknowledgement that the PCBS made changes in its own immigration estimates to take account of the abrupt halt to Arab immigration into these territories following the collapse of the Oslo process in 2000.34Responding to the revised Palestinian figures, ZSW present their judgment that instead of 310,000, the real PCBS overestimate based on migration was 131,000. In sup-port of this judgment, they refer to unsubstantiated newspaper articles and Israeli BorderPatrol reports of Palestinians entering and leaving the territories. Serious questions have been raised about the reliability and completeness of Israeli Border Patrol data on Palestinian immigration and emigration, though these are not mentioned by ZSW.35Another category of data used by ZSW under the general heading of migration is Arab immigration from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel. ZSW treat Arabs who left the West Bank and Gaza to live in Israel as a special case of emigration, worthy of separate treatment. Just as they accuse the PCBS of &#8220;double-counting&#8221; Arabs who live in expanded East Jerusalem because Israel counts those Arabs in its totals, so too do they accuse the PCBS of double-counting Arabs who live in Israel. As will be recalled, the PCBS does count expanded East Jerusalem Arabs, but rejects the idea that this entails any double-counting because the PCBS does not count how many Arabs are living in Israelproper. PCBS has rejected this migration-related accusation of double-counting as well.Not only does the PCBS not count Arabs who have left the West Bank and Gaza for Israel twice, it claims to not even count them once. Indeed, any Arab who receives an Israeli ID card is automatically removed from the West Bank and Gaza population registry.3"

In addition Lustick notes

"One important and explicit decision made by the &#8220;Team,&#8221;40 as the entire group of analysts and writers associated with these studies has referred to itself, pertains to their definition of the category of &#8220;Jewish.&#8221; The fact is that approximately 330,000 of the nearly one million immigrants who arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union,are not Jewish by Israel&#8217;s definition of the term. There are likely more immigrants who are not Jewish but who claim to be legally, but the figure of 330,000 refers only to those who arrived without contradicting their categorization as non-Jewish. They did not need to, because a relationship to a Jewish grandparent, or a spouse of a Jew, rendered them eligible to immigrate into Israel as citizens without being Jewish. This is a demographically significant proportion of the large &#8216;aliya(immigration wave) fromthe former Soviet Union.The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics treats this population as &#8220;non-Jewish,&#8221;including them within categories such as &#8220;other,&#8221; &#8220;unclassified by religion,&#8221; or &#8220;Christians.&#8221; Instead of following ICBS practice, Ettinger,et al.include this population en masse as part of the &#8220;enlarged&#8221; Jewish community, or as within a category of &#8220;Jews and their affiliates,&#8221; or as those who &#8220;wish to be called Jews.&#8221;41Since non-Jews of this sort comprised a substantial majority of new immigrants into Israel during the late 1990s and early 2000s, this move is particularly helpful to their argument that projections of Jewish immigration to Israel made by the ICBS and outside experts are sig-nificantly lower and more &#8220;pessimistic&#8221; than they should be. This generosity toward calculating a larger Jewish population reflects the overallvolte faceof the authors.Toward data about Arabs, they adopted a rigorous and vigilant attitude regarding the possibility that more Arabs might be included in estimates of the West Bank and Gazapopulation than is warranted. With respect to Jews, they treat questions about whether individuals should or should not be actually counted as Jews as &#8220;splitting hairs.&#8221; Afterall, they assert that the &#8220;heart of the matter&#8221; is the impact they will have &#8220;on the Arab proportion of the total population.&#8221;

In the post I you cited all I did was cite facts
The report also notes

" we have seen, ZSW repeatedly accuse the PCBS of inflating population esti-mates by &#8220;double-counting&#8221; Arabs living in Jerusalem or in Israel as if they are living inthe West Bank or Gaza. As part of this (unwarranted) critique, ZSW stress that the properway to estimate a population is via the enumeration of individuals actually residing at the time of the census in the districts whose population is being assessed. In this regard,they have invoked, as the &#8220;normal definition&#8221; of a census, as &#8220;based on the enumeration of individuals according to their existence in the area of enumeration at census moment,regardless of their usual place of residence.&#8221;43This is what they require for the counting of Arabs, but when it comes to their counting of Jews they do not follow this rule.For example, as part of their argument that Jews produce more babies than Arabs by an increasing margin, they display longitudinal data for Israel which not only include births of non-Jewish non-Arabs (as was just noted above), but also births of Jews located in the West Bank and Gaza, not in Israel. Although ZSW argue that West Bank Arabs living in Israel should not be counted in population estimates of the West Bank, they themselves use Israeli Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza as if they were living in Israel. This canbe proven by noting that in their display of a rising curve of Jewish births, 92,600 Jewish births are registered as having occurred in Israel in 1999.44This figure is a rounding up-ward of the 92,572 figure for the ICBS&#8217;s total number of &#8220;Jews and others&#8221; born in Israeland the West Bank and Gaza in 1999 &#8212; including 86,607 babies born in Israel proper and 5,965 babies born in the West Bank and Gaza.4"

On the issue of fertilty Lustick notes

"An increase of 16,000 in the annual number of Jewish babies born, over ten years,compared to a decrease of 2,200 Arab babies in the same time interval, may seem signifi-cant. But by failing to note how many more Jews there are in the country than Arabs, ZSWobscured the higher birth rate of the Arabs. Furthermore, by focusing only on babies born(fertility) and not on natural increase, which would include deaths, the implications of the much younger profile of the Arab population is hidden. Taking all these figures into account,we see, for example, that according to the ICBS, the Arab natural increase rate was 23.5 (perevery 1,000 residents) in 2010 and 2009, down from 31.9 in the 1996&#8211;1999 period compared to a Jewish natural increase rate of 14.9 in 2010, up from 11.7 in the 1996&#8211;1999 period. In other words, despite a downward trend in Arab fertility and an upward trend in Jewish fertility, the Arab rate of natural increase in Israel remains 58% higher than the Jewish rate"

 

The ZSW study also uses faulty claims of mass Jewish immigration with Lustick noting
"To bolster their &#8220;demographic optimism,&#8221; ZSW cite a study by Ezra Zohar, a scholar associated with a think tank based in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, the Ariel Center for Policy Research.53In their 2005 AEI slide presentation, ZSW quoted Zohar&#8217;s 1988 projection of an annual Jewish immigration rate of 50,000 to 100,000(an estimate that proved to be five to ten times higher than the actual net rate of Jewish immigration in recent years). According to Zohar, high levels of Jewish immigration to Israel are to be expected based on past spurts of immigration, including during times of security stress. It is worth considering just how weak a reed this argument is, and yet how firmly it is grasped by ZSW. Zohar says that even heightened security risks do not reduce or threaten Jewish immigration. &#8220;Aliya has defied security risks, as evidenced by the 1957&#8211;1966 wave of Aliya, in spite of escalating Palestinian terrorism, and by the 1968&#8211;70 wave, despite the War of Attrition with Egypt.&#8221;54However, between 1957and 1966, not only was the average annual rate of Jewish immigration below 50,000,but there was in fact virtually no terrorism during that period. On the other hand, Zohar ignores the precipitous drops in Jewish immigration following the bloodletting of the1973 War and even more dramatically following the outbreak of the second Intifada.Without acknowledging their own apparent &#8220;pessimism,&#8221; Ettinger and ZSW actually abandoned Zohar&#8217;s benchmark of 50,000&#8211;100,000 annual Jewish immigrants.They instead based their projections on a figure of 15,000 as the annual net migration of Jews into Israel &#8212; the average of the ICBS&#8217;s &#8220;high&#8221; and &#8220;medium&#8221; variants.55Yet even these lower claims are difficult to justify. Because of very low immigration rates and steady emigration rates, the annual net migration of Israelis (including non-Jews) has registered near or below 10,000 ever since the year 2000.56Indeed, in contrast to their criticism of ICBS projections as unduly pessimistic, the actual migration balance for the period 2002&#8211;2008 corresponded quite closely to the ICBS&#8217;s &#8220;low variant&#8221; scenario for that period as published in 1995.5
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/s...s/Lustick_MEJ_What Counts Is the Counting.pdf

 

August 2, 2015

"Anticipating Iran&#8217;s Arming of Hezbollah, IDF Deploys Iron Dome Defense Systems

"The IDF recently deployed Iron Dome anti-rocket defense systems on the border with Lebanon in preparation for a possible attack by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror organization, Fox News reports.

"Israel fears that the recently signed nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers will infuse billions of dollars into the Islamic Republic&#8217;s global terror network, enhancing violence in the region and threatening Israel.

"In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Col. Yoni Marom, commander of Israel&#8217;s Active Defense Air Wing, said that the military drills and deployment of defensive systems were not a direct reaction to recent events. He explained, however, that Hezbollah and other terror organizations close to Israel&#8217;s borders presented a potentially heightened threat."

http://unitedwithisrael.org/anticipating-irans-arming-of-hezbollah-idf-deploys-iron-dome-defense-systems/

I find it hard to praise Obama, but he didn't fold on Iran, and, hopefully, he will demand Israel end its siege on Gaza and release all Palestinian political prisoners before he pulls his golden parachute.