Israel will not experience a nuclear attack within the next twenty years

I have greatly enjoyed this, my first debate. I thank my opponent for his civility and his heart-felt arguments. He clearly believes in his arguments very strongly, unfortunately this belief seems to run so deep that he will not let details such as evidence or logic get in their way. At the risk of going off topic, voters may well be interested to look up some of his other debates 'Islam is an evil religion' etc. 'I have presented a ton of evidence, whether or not you choose to accept it is a different thing.' Unfortunately for my opponent's argument, he has indeed cited a number of sources, however on closer inspection none of them seem to actually back up what he is saying. I refer readers to previous rounds for my detailed analysis of how his 'evidence' fails to back up the statements he places immediately before or after them. 'This is a different source.' I'm not quite sure what my opponent means by this. The quote he aparently refers to was copied from his arguments, so I don't think he means I am misrepresenting him. Perhaps he means that this quote does not support his statement that 'Iran will have fully functional weapons in a year or two' which it doesn't, or perhaps he means it is a different source as I requested, however as I was asking for a source that did back up his presenting of possibilities as facts, my point stands. I'm a little confused. Oh well, maybe I'm missing something. 'It matters, because Barack Obama wants to establish a friendship with Iran, contrary to Bush.' As I said before, surely this glimmer of hope for diplomacy makes an attack by Iran less likely, not more. 'In seven hours (7 h) the radioactive radiation decreases from 1000 R to 10 R. In two months there are *very* small traces of nuclear radiation, not threatening anything.' My opponent offers no source for this data so I can only assume he has plucked the figures from thin air or is himself a radiation fallout specialist. I did some research of my own: 'The residual radiation hazard from a nuclear explosion is in the form of radioactive fallout and neutron-induced activity. These are intermediate weight isotopes which are formed when a heavy uranium or plutonium nucleus is split in a fission reaction. There are over 300 different fission products that may result from a fission reaction. Many of these are radioactive with widely differing half-lives. Some are very short, i.e., fractions of a second, while a few are long enough that the materials can be a hazard for months or years.' source: http://www.fas.org... 'there are other towns in Israel than Jerusalem' Of course there are, but my point was that if Iran were to attack 'the major cities' as my opponent was previously suggesting this would surely include the capital. (Definately a city, not a town) 'Then where was Obama during the conflict of Gaza? He NEVER said he supported Israel's actions. He just hid in the corner and shut his mouth.' I offered my quote to prove that Obama had expressed support for Israel, contrary to my opponents assertion: 'He has not expressed his concern for Israel a SINGLE time. Never, ever.' As far as the despicable assault and seige of Gaza goes, Obama clearly made a calculated decision that he would lose more respect from liberals and moderates than he would gain support from Zionists by supporting it. He (unlike many world leaders) did not condemn it either but as you point out avoided commenting on it. 'the writer of this article is clearly biased' The Obama quote is from a Pro-US, Israeli newspaper, if it is biased in favour of anyone it is clearly not Iran. '1. The chief of IAEA said that Iran could have nukes in six months. (http://blog.wired.com......) EU: http://www.upi.com...... USA: U.S. officials have said repeatedly they believe Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.' My opponent is once again [yawn] apparently misreading his own quotes. When I ask for evidence other than unsubstantiated claims he just comes with more of the same, (please note 'could' and 'believe' in the above quotes.) 'I gave some reasons why they would leave the holy cites alone and nuke the cites e.' [sic] ? Cities? sites? cited? leave them alone, nuke them? Once again, I am confused. 'Look at the three links I provided. (http://blog.wired.com......) (http://www.upi.com......) (http://www.time.com......)' 1.Iran could have nukes (note could) 2.Iran close to nuclear capability (thats nuclear power by the way, not nuclear bombs) 3.Iran's nuclear threat (thats a percieved threat, rather than any kind of direct threat that anyone has made) Yet again more unsubstantiated claims. '[quote]Please direct me to a quotation of his where he states such an intention [please not the same non-quote again][/quote] If you don't accept evidence, there is little point in debating. "United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives." Yes this is the same quote (although quoted correctly for once) and in no way a direct threat or a statement of intent. 'FOX is financed by Republicans. CNN is quite liberal' Was not aware of this , thanks for enlightening me, I thought they were both as bad as each other. Perhaps I will give CNN more credibility in future. 'they did not make up Vladimir Putin's statement nor the visit he paid to Iran.' I never said they did, but neither do they refer to it as anything other than a peaceful business arrangement. 'It's kind of the same as: Actual quote: "We will nuke wicked and zionist country X who has been a disgrace to God." Quoted: "We will nuke country X." It's the SAME meaning.' Actually its more like: Actual Quote: America sucked under the Bush administration. Quoted: America sucks. It completely transforms the statement from refering to a specific regime to refering to a nation as a whole. And either way it is not a threat and has nothing to do with nukes. '1 is claimed by IAEA (unbiased), USA (slightly biased), and UN (unbiased).' The US is clearly completely biased in this issue, as for the other two it is debatable how biased towards US they are. '2 is claimed by the Iranian President (non-US biased, non Israel-biased).' When does he ever specifically talk about nuking Israel? '3 is claimed by Vladimir Putin and the Iranian president.' No, a military pact is not claimed. '4 is claimed by the Iranian president.' No, he has expressed a desire that they be destroyed but never that he wants to actually do it. '5 is claimed by Barack Obama's actions.' Well at least my opponent now accepts that it is not claimed by Obama's words. But he has not really been in office long enough to take much action. And what action should he be taking? Nuking Iran perhaps? Imposing sanctions? 'Therefore, number 6 is fulfilled.' Hardly. 'So, accompanied with the threat of Iran ***is the threat of TERRORISM.***' This is one of the more convincing arguments my opponent makes. Perhaps if he had begun this debate talking about this kind of terrorist nuclear attack, rather than the kind of politically sanctioned nuclear airstrike we have been discussing up till now then this debate might have been harder for me. I think that my opponent and myself were both somewhat negligent in not defining what was meant by 'nuclear attack' in the initial rounds. Observant readers will have noticed that my opponent made an aborted attempt to define the term in round one. However I thought from the start that we were discussing the politically sanctioned variety rather than the terrorist kind, and it seemed as if my opponent was too. Some sources that deal with nuclear attack as seperate from terrorism: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3572655.stm www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/03/terrorism-nuclear-biological-obama-white-house Oops, I'm running out of space, thanks to readers, voters and my oppo