Well from past events we can pretty much see that the Arabs and their soviet made weapons cannot defeat the Islreali's and their American made weapons. But if it were the case the Isreal would be wiped out with out the nuclear deterent - why would Isreal give them up? To invite destruction

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For real coverage of the Iraq war see
http://michaelyon-online.com/

Conan! What is best in life?
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women

Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a **** how crazy they are!

Kazan,

Don't you know? It's okay for the evil Zionists to be destroyed, as long as the poor Arabs surrounding them aren't infringed upon in any way.

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Hear hear, I agree with wind! No nukes is good nukes. Israel wouldn't be inviting destruction by giving them up. It has the army to defeat the rest of the arab nations put together several times over without having to resort to nukes.

Anyways, the rest of the Arab nations have pretty much given up on Israel.

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it is a mistake to throw out the language of equal worth because of its contingent historical association with Western power.

Oh good gravey. So, Israel is apperantly also un-democratic. Pakistan and Turkey however are awsome under whatever criteria you use.

I suppose you feel Iran is the poster child for true Democracy?

Not so Giorgio.
Even though at the moment Israel has a stronger Military without Nukes, this will not always be the case.

In fact, now is the worst possible time for this FANTASY.

As we speak Iran marches Merrily Towards Nukes and no country's leadership has ever made it's intentions more clear about what to do with them.
There's also evidence Syria may be in early stages of acquiring them.

Even without Iranian Nukes, and just assuming a conventional Missile attack, a technology they are all getting by various means..... Israel could be destroyed without 'winning' or even waging any war.

The surrounding countries, say Syria and Iran, even with conventional Misslie technology and enough ordinance could annihilate Israeli population centers. The first missiles from Syria hitting in 5 minutes; it would all be over in Less than ½ an hour.
What 'IAF'?
Unless Israel had the proverbial 'Mutually Assured Destruction' this would/will always be a temptation.

In fact..
There's never been a nation with a better rationale for Nuke possession than Israel. A small/tiny nation surrounded by 60x as many Arabs on 500 times the land mass that want it's destruction.
Certainly the USA and the USSR don't have such real worries/justification about instant destruction of their large land masses or populations.

Israel has had Nukes for 40 years and at least one, if not two wars, (and 8 or 9 Democratically elected PMs) and has not used them.

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I think you're exaggerating the threat from Iran and Syria, to be honest, beletesri, but I guess there's no real way of knowing. Just remember how tough we thought Iraq was going to be, then remember how like, 1 of their SCUDS actually hit a building.

I understand that Israel is in a very insecure situation (though we disagree on whether this condition was self-inflicted or not). I still don't think it genuinely needs nukes, and the fact that they haven't used them, and that the nukes haven't deterred much in any case, is kind of indicative.

The threat Israel faces is not from the Iranian state or the Syrian state. The Iranian state will not walk over Iraq to get at Israel, it's going through a bunch of internal strife and folks there really aren't happy with Ahmedinejad. Syria is massively embroiled in Lebanon and facing a huge amount of hatred there, as well as Asad's waning legitimacy (his dad did a much better job of being an authoritarian dictator than he is).

The threat it faces is from Palestinian and Lebanese militant terrorist organisations that are not receptive to nuclear threats. Nuclear weapons are big, messy, and crude. The whole Israeli approach to security is kind of messy. The terrorist threat it wants taken care of requires an approach that is as much social and economic as it is military, and having nukes will genuinely not help with that.

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it is a mistake to throw out the language of equal worth because of its contingent historical association with Western power.

Yes, very insecure.

ALMOST AS INSECURE AS THE PALESTINIANS WHO HAVE BEEN UNDER OCCUPATION FRO OVER 40 YEARS BY THE FASCIST ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES.

Yes, I would feel insecure too - IF I WAS COMMITING WAR CRIMES, violating the 4th Geneva COnvention, Occupying territory illegally and thumbing my nose at the world and countless UN resolutions.

Yes - ISRAEL IS VERY INSECURE!

IT HAS BETWEEN 200 and 300 nuclear warheads AND YOU'RE SAYING THAT ITS ISRAEL WHO IS INSECURE??

I think that if I were living in a country nearby Israel - I WOULD BE FEELING VERY INSECURE

Nice anger, foolosophy.

I said that I understood that Israel is feeling very insecure because I wanted to reach out and understand that both sides feel aggrieved in this situation. You know that my personal feelings are clearly that Palestinian people are by and large much worse off than Israeli people.

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it is a mistake to throw out the language of equal worth because of its contingent historical association with Western power.

Why shouldnt isreal have nuclear weapons. They arent going to attack anyone. Except for maby iran, or iraq, or any of the other countries that ARE BOMBING THEM CONSTANTLY AND HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. There are good countries and there are bad countries. Isread=good.

Let me tell you my friend, if any of the other middle eastern countries get nukes. Isreal is not going to tolerate it. The first thing isreal's enemies are going to is nuke all the jews off the planet. And i can tell you they aint going down without a fight.

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"if we were forced to choose just one, there would be no way to deny that Judaism is the most important intellectual development in human history."

- David Gelernter, Yale University Professor

You mean "we." We aren't going down without a fight.

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My enduring personal, original quote: Many mistake what should rightly be called "passivism" for pacifism. Pacifism and passivism are COMPLETELY different.
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Ronald Reagan was not the only one to suffer from Alzheimer's Disease. America did, too.
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"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." --President George W. Bush.
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Los Angeles voters=dumber than rocks.