Post To The Left

Ummm OK but the point of this thread (before jbg tried to kill it by going off on a tangent about the American Revolutionary war) was that you can't discount the history of the Arab nations. Entrepreneurial spirit depends on a free democratic society something that Arab nations have never really been allowed to experience due to first the colonial exploitation and then cold war power plays that supported corrupt Arab leaders who were only interested in staying in power. Therefore you can't compare Arab nations and Israeli. Individual Arabs are just as entrepreneurial as Israelis for proof all you have to do is look at Arabs living in Western free and democratic societies.

But think what you're saying. The Americans overthrew the British because at the time of the American revolutionary war the art of war was fairly equal for any army. Buy some muskets seize some artillery and you have an army. The American revolutionary war was one of two fairly equal forces fighting each other. There is no way you can compare that with Arab nations trying to force off the colonial yoke against brutal British oppression (that wasn't present during the American war) and a huge advantage with the British and French colonial forces fighting with modern armies and weapons like poisonous gas.

I never said that the British didn't try. The British during the American Revolution tread lightly with the civilian population of the American colonies as by some estimates only about 30% of the population supported the Americans the rest being either neutral or pro-British. The conduct of the American War didn't include the gassing of civilian populations or genocide against the natives as it the case with other British wars against non-AngloSaxon peoples.

I never said that the preemptive attack wasn't justified. I was just agreeing with you that before the 6-day war the armies, air forces of Israel and the Syrian-Egyptian alliance as well as other Arab countries were more or less on equal footings. My point is that during the Yom Kippur War at the assistance of Kissinger President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to supply massive amounts of Israeli war material. Material that altered the war because of the American support. Since then American support to Israel has been enormous and in 2009 it received 7 million dollars a day that it can use to buy superior American armaments. Israel has the regions strongest military, has had for decades and a large amount of nuclear weapons to act as a deterrent.

So you're comparing a campaign where the British military by and large only targeted the American army (killing 8000 soldiers in combat throughout the American Revolutionary War) to the British massacres of the Boers, Indians, Kenyans and of course the brutal oppression of Arab nations and use of poison gas to suppress Arab attempts of independence in Iraq?

That's why I said after the Yom Kippur War. As shown clearly by my post I stated that during the 6 Day War Israel was equally armed with its neighbours. Which is why is launched a surprise attack that destroyed the Arab forces.

British technology to oppress its colonial subjects had progressed light years from late 1700s to Iraq War of Independence in the 1920s. Not to mention Britain's use of kiddy gloves when dealing with "English" colonies like American and Canada but using the intense brutal total war methods with other races i.e. Genocide in Kenya, Gassing innocent Iraqi civilians in the British Mandate of Iraq.

I was thinking more of Israel's AirForce http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf

Algeria is one case in their war of Independence against the French. In 1960 its population was around 10 million. The French attempts to hold on to Algeria in the Algerian War killed an estimated 1,500,000 according to the Algerian government and 960,000 according to the French.

During the war of independence Israel was so successful because there was no Arab unity. Each power Egypt, Jordan, Syria was just after its own territorial gain and didn't work at all together, Israel was able to easily defeat these independent armies. Jordan the only really strong trained army had an agreement with the Israelis to stop at the West Bank and not take any land allocated to the Israelis under the UN partition which it did (The Israelis did fight and win control of Sea access in the Negev). During the 1967 war the Israeli State was in danger of its equally armed neighbours but it solved that problem by a preemptive strike that eviscerated the Syrian and Egyptian fighting forces. During Yom Kippur War at the assistance of Kissinger President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to supply massive amounts of Israeli war material. Material that altered the war because of the American support. Since then American support to Israel has been enormous and in 2009 it received 7 million dollars a day that it can use to buy superior American armaments. Israel has the regions strongest military, has had for decades and a large amount of nuclear weapons to act as a deterrent. Israel most certainly does have "unconditional military and diplomatic backing" from the USA but not only that they have unconditional American support on the UN diplomatic front. Through its veto on the UN security council the US has vetoed ANY UN resolution against Israel.

The Americans never had to deal with the sheer brutality of first their colonial (Britain, France) oppressors and then later these American backed or formerly Soviet backed Arab rulers. When the Arabs tried to raise up in Iraq they were literally gassed into submission by the British. Then later Arab leaders came to power in one way or another which were then propped up by huge amounts of American or Soviet aid even though their suppression of both human rights and entrepreneurial spirit (via state planned economies) was horrible. America or the Soviets could have used their support to change the oppressive nature of these regimes but instead just handed over incredible amounts of aid that propped up these oppressive states. It is doubtful that they could survived without this money or could survive now as many states regimes are still funded by American tax payer money (Egypt still gets billions a year to keep the regime in power).

Wow "at least one language" that's casting the net a little too big

Israel's entrepreneurial spirit and integrity is a result of its democratic society and the freedoms it provides to Israeli citizens. Arab countries, due to their oil, have for generations been exploited and oppressed by first colonial powers such as Ottoman, French, and British Empires. Then after the Arab countries were granted or won their independence they were exploited by a new type of colonialism via the Soviet and American power plays during the cold war that installed and supported horrible dictators in countries like Egypt and Iraq. These native tyrants suppressed any type of personal freedoms that would spark entrepreneurial spirit as they viewed these advances as a threat to their power. Where as other countries like Iran, in a type of Blowback, the American puppet was overthrown for a new type of dictatorship in the form of the Islamic Republic. If the Arab countries were allowed to develop in the freedom that Israel and its Jewish citizens enjoyed then they too would be as innovative. One only has to look at Arabs that move to nations that have democratic freedoms to see successful, entrepreneurial individuals.