From: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Rebel attack kills 5 Israeli soldiers,
Date: 8 Nov 1992 05:24:33 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
Reply-To: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.23.70

In article 21739@seas.gwu.edu, dsloan@seas.gwu.edu (David M. Sloan) writes:
>
>bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay) writes:
>: In article <1992Nov3.144931.20365@nysernet.org>, Alan Stein writes:
>: > What I will point out is
>: >documented fact, although you will probably try to dismiss it as
>: >Zionist propaganda.
>: 
>: >On May 15, 1967, Egyptian forces returned to the Sinai, in violation
>: >of the agreements ending the 1956 war.  On May 17, Cairo radio
>: >proclaimed "All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which
>: >wil put an end to Israel."  
>: [...]
>: >On May 18, Cairo Radio's Voice of the Arabs announced the following:
>: 
>: >"As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force
>: >to protect Israel.  We shall exercise patience no more.  We shall not
>: >complain any more to the UN about Israel.  The sole method we shall
>: >apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the
>: >extermination of Zionist existence."
>: 
>: As for "documented", I challenge you to provide 
>: documentation for either of these "quotations".  Haha, good joke.
>: 
>: Brendan.
>	Ask and ye shall receive.
>	
>	The first quote is from Isi Liebler's THE CASE FOR ISRAEL, page 60.
>	The second quote is from the same book page 70.
>If you're at Australian National University, you should be able to find it, 
>as it was published in Australia.

OK, I looked at Leibler's book and regret to say that it is just another
junky propaganda text in the manner of Myths and Facts.  In fact, the
similarity to M&F in its selection of "quotations" is remarkable to the
extent that there is obviously a common ancestor.  Neither acknowledges
this, and neither makes much effort to document its claims.  References
to real history sources are almost absent.  Given that "quotations"
and claims appear that I know to be false or out of context, I see no 
reason to take the others seriously.

On these two "quotations":  it is worth noting what constitutes
"documentation" in the case of a radio broadcast.  In other words, what
does a genuine historian need before he/she can use these "quotations"
without being laughed at by other historians?  In decreasing order of
quality, 
(a) A page-citation to a reputable transcript service.  Two which could
be expected to have monitored those broadcasts are the US Foreign
Broadcast Information Service, and the British Broadcasting Commission
Monitoring Service.  Both publish extensive transcripts which are
widely available.
(b) A transcript from the broadcasting station.
(c) A report of the broadcast in a contemporary newspaper, preferably
not one in an "enemy" country.
(d) A report from a named eye[ear!]-witness.
(e) An account from a historian of accepted high reputation.

Neither M&F nor TCFI provide any of these.  That doesn't mean the 
broadcasts never happened, but it casts serious doubt on the quotes.
This is especially true because both are presented as unconditional
Egyptian proclamations of war at a time when Egyptian official 
communiques were denying that Egypt intended war.   The only similar
pronouncements that I've seen documented FROM THAT TIME had the 
conditional structure "We want peace, but if Israel attacks us, Israel 
will be destroyed".  If such conditionals appeared in the two broadcasts,
I would not expect either M&F or TCFI to tell us; that is their nature.

Brendan.

  




>						Dave