Yesterday I said that Ahmadinejad hasn't called for the end of Judaism, he has called for the end of the state of Israel--in something of the way that George Bush called for the end of the secular Arab dictatorship in Iraq. Jerry Slater takes exception:
Bush called for the end of the Saddam Hussein regime, (not voted into office by the people of Iraq), certainly not for the end of Iraq as a state. Moreover, given the history of the Jews, when someone calls for the end of Israel as a state, there is no choice but to see that as the end of the Jewish people who are part of that state.
I accept that I was a little glib about that; though I would point out that the U.S. has now decimated an Arab society in the name of regime change. Another reader, Anne Silver, pointed me to Virginia Tilley's article saying that Ahmadinejad wasn't threatening Jews, he is against the "Zionist regime" of Israel. Do I have a bottom line? Jews are legitimately fearful of existential rhetoric. Everyone needs to get past this stuff.
Iran is a big monkey in the region.
Not benign.
Its an open question how to address their bluster, but to ignore it is to be "ignorant".
You dismiss the importance of Hezbollah shelling civilian Israeli towns in the 90's and during last year's war.
And, you dismiss (or didn't read) of Hezbollah's coup process currently underway.
I don't get Slater's point at all–the history of the Jewish people pretty clearly demonstrates that Jewish survival is not tied to a particular state.
And Mr. Witty, Iran may be a big monkey, but the non-benign King Kong of the Middle East is the US.
The US is not inconsequential.
Iran is not inconsequential.
Its an error to regard them as benign.
You were not. Both you and Slater got the quote wrong, but only your conclusion was correct. The actual quote was 'the regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time'. A clear reference to the Zionist regime.
See:
link to commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
The Iranian press service was the organization that directly provided the translation to Al-Jazeera, from which the Washington Post quoted.
It sounds good to rationalize away, "fanonite" but not truthful.
"Everyone needs to get past this stuff."
Unfortunately the ultra-Zionist chickenhawk's method to accomplish this involves goading the US into nuking Iran.
History is riddled with powerful people who take out their own personal issues on masses of innocent strangers rather than just "get over it."
"The Iranian press service was the organization that directly provided the translation to Al-Jazeera, from which the Washington Post quoted."
Like Ilan Pappe's alleged inaccuracies, I am sure you also have evidence of that?
Your GIYUS.org messenger is clearly not keeping you up to speed, since even MEMRI got the translation right (how could it not, Khomeini's statement is well known)
Richard isn't interested in accuracy but in scare-mongering.
Iran obviously seeks peaceful, profitable relations with its neighbors.
Israel is in need of radical changes vis-a-vis the UN declaration on human rights, the Geneva conventions, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for starters, to be able to exist with normalized relations with its Islamic and Arab neighbors.
Pretty simple, an average Iranian knows full well who equips Israel, pours tons of money into it. They actually live in the region, unlike Americans–even Americans with a super-attachment to Israel. Debate all you want to say about whether the Iranian president meant to say he would erase Israel from the face of the earth, or whether Hillary meant to say she would erase Iran from the face of the earth if it didn't bow to Israel's every action. Nothing said on either side does not involve the American masses. They need to wake up! 9/11 was a wake up call, but not many have awakened.
http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=15816
2005 "World Without Zionism" speech
President Ahmadinejad speaking at "The World without Zionism" conference
President Ahmadinejad speaking at "The World without Zionism" conference
link to en.wikipedia.org
On October 26, 2005, IRIB News, an English-language subsidiary of the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, filed a story on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech to the "World Without Zionism" conference in Asia. The story was entitled: Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map.[1]
juan cole does a great job of interpreting the war of words between neocon sock puppet yorsh bush and mahmoud amadinejad.
http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/bush-lies-about-iran-on-now-ruz.html
" In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a "World without Zionism," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Iran's foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi and that Ahmadinejad was "talking about the [Israeli] regime," which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse.
According to Farsi-speaking commentators including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad's exact quote was, "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Cole has written that Ahmadinejad was not calling for the "Nazi-style extermination of a people," but was expressing the wish that the Israeli government would disappear just as the shah of Iran's regime had collapsed in 1979.
In December, a U.S. intelligence review concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program four years earlier, reversing a previous assessment that Iran was determined to acquire nuclear arms."
Branigan deserves some sort of medal for fearless truth-telling. You can only imagine the sort of pressure he will get over these paragraphs from the Propaganda Corps.
I heard Barack Obama speaking last August, and he said something very interesting. He said words to this effect: "You know how they say that if you repeat a Big Lie often enough, it becomes accepted as reality? Well, the same thing can be said of the truth." If you repeat the truth often enough, you can get it accepted as the truth. Obama, as usual, is right and more– he reminds us that there is hope, that we don't have to surrender to cynicism or the Propaganda Corps in American political life. I think this WaPo article is the biggest success I've ever had in that regard.
Just to give you an idea of how wrong Bush is, here is what Ahmadinejad actually said in a recent interview in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais:
' Throughout its history, Iran has always been a peaceful country. We have not attacked anybody. Everything we are doing is aimed at defending the country. We think that the age of nuclear weapons is over. If they were useful, the United States would not have the troubles it currently has and the Soviet Union would not have disappeared. The Zionists have atomic bombs, but they are failing against HAMAS. We not only think that the age of nuclear weapons is over, but we are also not interested in building them, because we consider that they are against human rights and dignity. Our security doctrine is a defensive doctrine. '
Ahmadinejad isn't saying something new here. I discussed his earlier statement here:
'"Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem there peacefully, through elections:
"Weapons research is in no way part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our path to a solution is elections." '
Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has condemned nuclear weapons, said Iran does not want them, and pledged no first strike with any sort of weapon:
' "Their other issue is [their assertion] that Iran seeks [a] nuclear bomb. It is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules. We have announced this openly. We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building such weapons and their maintenance are costly. By no means we deem it right to impose these costs on the people. We do not need those weapons. Unlike the Americans who want to rule the world with force, we do not claim to control the world and therefore do not need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and our explosive powers are our faith, our youth and our people who have been present on the most difficult scenes with utmost power and faith and will continue to do so. (Chants of slogan, God is great). '
Ahmadinejad says a lot of kooky, bigotted and objectionable things things, and he is a hardliner who has tried to purge liberals. But Bush's propaganda only has the effect of building him up as important and improving his electoral chances.
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/21/2008 03:11:00 PM
This letter to Bush from Ahmadinejad in 2006 proved to me that Ahmadinejad was a pacifist and a thinker (he is a former engineer). Bush totally ignored it, which proved to me Bush was the opposite. Anybody who hasn't read this in its entirety should do so now. By ignoring this letter, Bush helped America miss a historic opportunity to change the tone in the Middle East.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad%27s_letter_to_George_W._Bush_(8_May_2006)
Juan Cole,
Who a week after the UNIFIL report in Lebanon declared that the abduction occurred in Israel, (and had been planned for six months) was still repeating Nasrallah's original statement that it had occurred in Lebanon.
And, Juan Cole, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, have the audacity to claim that Hezbollah is "honest", not an antogonist, a "defender" of the Lebanese.
Don't be so gullible about anybody is the message.
I don't really see that Iranian regional expansionism is:
1. Earned
2. Desirable
3. Just
zionist have to grasp at straws to defend their golden calf, witness wittys comment above.
link to antiwar.com
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Iran, International Peace and Security
by Gordon Prather
In a joint press conference held this week with the head of the European Commission, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the talks with Iran that began on April 21 to "clarify" certain "alleged studies of weaponization" have resulted in "good progress."
What "alleged studies" is ElBaradei talking about?
Well, scroll back to the summer of 2005.
Since February, 2003, ElBaradei and his IAEA inspectors had been conducting intrusive investigations into Iran’s Safeguarded nuclear programs.
And since December, 2003, Iran had been voluntarily adhering to an (as yet) unratified Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement.
Iran had searched for and provided ElBaradei documentation of its past procurement activities for nuclear programs, going back two decades – documentation that Iran had been under no obligation to provide the IAEA at the time, much less obligated to preserve for later inspection.
Yeah, let's be especially discerning regarding the morality and
practical long term affect and effect of USA foreign policy, unlike our elected and appointed government.
The source for the al-Jazeera story is 'agencies', and IRIB story doesn't exist. But again, the question was what Ahmadinejad, not what he is misreported to have said, whoever the source. We have the original quote in Farsi, and more importantly, the Khomeini statement is well known. So whats your point again?
I am still waiting for evidence of Ilan Pappe's alleged shortcomings.
Richard, tell us why if Israel, a state run by Jews for Jews, ceased to exist, that Jews would be in danger.
Cause if you can't, then the all your arguments, end up being nothing but castles built on sand…(should I say fortresses,not castles)
The world, which fears new wars in the Mideast, await your arguments for the need for Israel…
I won't hold my breath..
Base them on evidence and logic…
and no appeals to hysteria please
Imagine a state that declares it exists solely so blacks can have a safe haven, and it continually extorts billions for its survival from western nations instilled with Christian guilt. At the same time, it defines itself as a state for Jews, not Çhristians. Is there a problem?