Mohammad of Vancouver writes:
It was first reported on Iran's Press TV that Iran has asked Interpol to investigate the role of high Israeli officials in the war crimes committed against Gaza. After that, the news that the International Criminal Court is considering the case got reported in the UK's Guardian, and later on Haaretz, which said that Israel rejects the charges.
Here are some on the list Iran has accused:
1 Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
2 Defense Minister Ehud Barak
3 Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
4 Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi
5 Commander in Chief of the Israeli Air Force Ido Nehoshtan
6 Commander of the Gaza war -- Operation Cast Lead -- Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant
What is Iran's message through this diplomatic move? As I have written earlier here, Iran is moving further away from seeking justice in its old ways (fatwas and assassinations) towards an internationally-recognized system of seeking Justice. Israel should recognize this and change its boring old rhetoric of intending to directly retaliate for whatever it considers to be Iran's crimes.
Because whether it is denying the Holocaust, or intending to wipe Israel off the map (and in a sense, all of us one-state solution people are basically in agreement with wiping the Zionist apartheid Israel off the map, we just want this done through referendums and mutual consensus and the establishment of a secular yet multifaith democracy), or supporting the resistance in the region, Iran's crimes can also be addressed in an internationally-recognized system of seeking justice.
Iran is an ancient state whose first monarch King Cyrus goes so far back he was mentioned in the Old Testament and the Quran. Cyrus is also the fellow who set the Jews free and went to war with the Roman Empire so that Jews could have Jerusalem. Iran was certainly not created by the UN. The question remains, Can Israel as a relatively young state learn to respect the international body that created it in the first place?
Whoa, Phil!
While I'm an avid follower of your blog, I in now way endorse your "agreement" that Israel in any form should be wiped off the map. Nor do I agree that "all . . . one-state-solution people" are in such agreement. Some Anti-Zionists may feel that way, but I expect most of them, now that Israel is 60 years post founding, would wish that Israel just morph a little through democratic process into a more secular and less racist state, one that can build positive relationships with its neighbors.
Also, Cyrus predated the Roman Empire by about 600 years.
"As I have written earlier here, Iran is moving further away from seeking justice in its old ways (fatwas and assassinations) towards an internationally-recognized system of seeking Justice."
Bull.
Sometimes you are either cynical or gullible. When did you drop your standard of skepticism?
"all of us one-state solution people"
When did you flip this way? Your last declaration was that you favored a two-state solution.
Numero 7 on that list should be Micky Mouse.
A one state solution is an Islamist jihad solution and the only way you'll get any normal sane person in the West to say otherwise is with a beheading sword against their neck.
Hail Irania, Irania rules the Phools! :-)
When did you flip this way? Your last declaration was that you favored a two-state solution.
At a certain point, cancer spreads very fast.
Your Cyrus is anachronistic. Alexander the Great defeated the Persians long before the Roman Empire found its way to the Eastern Mediterranean. The Parthians, bunch of Iranian-speakers, flourished 600-odd years later, and did take Jerusalem not long before the Arabs took it themselves. The Jews slaughtered many Christians when the Parthians took the city.
Whether the mullahs are ready to embrace international institutions remains to be seen. One can hope so.
Its hard for me. I do see Phil periodically. I want to be able to smile and wish him success.
He prefers to divide families though.
This was Mohammad's post guys, chill. And I agree with the part that these people should be tried. but so are the Iranian leaders behind the killings of 1988 and various other acts.
It is hypocritical of the Iranians to say this but I agree it.
Witty ("bull"), why do you say Iran is not moving towards internationally recognized system of justice?
Doppler, what would be a good form of Israel for U? We don't know what you think is acceptable, other than you want Israel as a state to continue–how should the Palestinians exist with that–clarify how so.
Thanks, the both of U.
@ Suzanne
"A one state solution is an Islamist jihad solution and the only way you'll get any normal sane person in the West to say otherwise is with a beheading sword against their neck."
Is the USA a "Islamist jihad solution"?
Should a "normal sane person in the West" support ethnocentric states? Theocentric states? Especially
when they don't have any oil?
Mohammad: "Because whether it is denying the Holocaust, or intending to wipe Israel off the map…or supporting the resistance in the region, Iran's crimes can also be addressed in an internationally-recognized system of seeking justice."
Either this is poorly worded, or you are conflating all manner of disconnected issues, which is a favorite Zionist ploy. In fact, a Zionist ploy has always been to equate "Holocaust denial" with resistance to Zionism, just as a favorite Jewish Zionist ploy has been to equate the New Testament with anti-semitism in order that it by marginalized and eventually outlawed as well.
Just like the pre-Reformation Church, the entire corrupted Western left-liberal Establishment is using the force of law to prohibit what it considers thought crimes (even though thought crimes are by definition 100% subjective). Every individual or nation, including Israel, and Iran, should be judged by their behavior, not by an expression of their thoughts. Holocaust denial (or reductionism), just like denial of Christ's divinity, just like proselytizing the New Testament, is no crime, nor should it be treated as one.
But Jewish Zionists and many of their left-liberal enablers (as well as their hellfire and brimstone Christian Zionist partners) seem to think that whoever holds the power should be able to put the force of law behind their own (often deeply warped) definition of thought crimes.
If international law ever wants to get consensus legitimacy, it better completely drop the enforcement of thought crimes laws from its agenda pronto.
"Its hard for me. I do see Phil periodically. I want to be able to smile and wish him success.
He prefers to divide families though.
Posted by: Richard Witty"
This is really a cheap shot, Witty. You disagree with his POV on what's best for the USA and the whole
human race. He should stick to what you think is best for global jewish continuity, right?
You are the ape, not Phil. We know who you are, and what your values are–thanks for the info. Btw,
why don't you take to the air, and fly to Israel? Hypocrite. Go ahead, live through your indoctrinated son, protected by the goy soldiers and tax payers.
Witty Bitty…how about we buy you a one way ticket to Iran?
I heard they're hiring stone-throwers there for adultress executions.
"Iran is moving further away from seeking justice in its old ways (fatwas and assassinations)"
We have a fatwa in our family against hitting curbs with our front tires. Now if the only lonely democratic state in the middle east with a small moustache would also stop assassinating people it has declared to be vermin to be destroyed . . .
er, when was the last time Iran assassinated anyone? (like a paraplegic in a wheelchair, or an American college-girl, or some woman and her family waving a white-flag in Gaza).
The fringe keeps trying to make it about Israel but Iran is the international concern.
BTW–has anybody else noticed how the Iranians on this blog are presumably in the West & sucking our blood while despising us?
Political exiles, which I assume they were, are usually grateful for Western freedom. But not these Iranians it seems.
Why are they here? What is their loyalty?
They despise the West and spend all this energy discrediting Jews. Only an idiot can't figure out what their true agenda is.
I have to laugh at how people who despise this country–Islamists and their leftie friends…have the AUDACITY to question MY allegiance to this country.
You are the most despicable, evil minded, corrupt degenerates on the planet. Maybe Idi Amin was slightly worse than you…but that's about it.
Bitty,
Because Phil and I dialog here so frequently and periodically via e-mail, I assume that a portion of his comments publicly are partially in direct dialog with me.
I generally respect his candor and encourage his introspection, his "religiosity".
There are times when Phil gets polemic, insulting, sadly periodically borderline racist, in ways that seem consistent with his moorings, but inconsistent with many others. I prefer a more respectful standard towards others. Its NOT about criticizing policies or honestly and candidly declaring his political goals. Those are reasonable activities. Even Allan Dershowitz applauds dissenters that do that, dissent.
Its about tone, and editorial framing.
I don't see Iran changing in fact yet. I see what might be a smokescreen until they are prepared for something more assertive, more aggressive.
I would extend the same degree of respect for Iranians as the Iranians here have extended to Jews. Human beings, many nice, diverse, friendly, but their internal and external politics are inconsistent with that niceness.
And, it extends to aggression by proxy extra-legal militias, and denial of another people's right to self-associate, affirmed by international law and UN.
Suzanne: "has anybody else noticed how the Iranians on this blog are presumably in the West & sucking our blood while despising us?…They despise the West and spend all this energy discrediting Jews."
Compare: has anybody else noticed how the Jews on this blog are presumably in the West & sucking our blood while despising us? Jews despise the West and spend all this energy discrediting Christians
—
Apparently certain "liberal" Jews were never really liberal after all, only posing as liberal to open society up in order to work themselves into positions of power and authority so they could eventually impose their own set of illiberal bigotries on society as a whole.
And PS…Apparently the Iranians in Iran are not radical and Islamist-minded like some of the nitwits posting on this blog. I want to make that distinction because this is not a stain on the Iranian people. They are prisoners in a mullah theocracy.
Turnspeak is a dirty trick. I'll spell it out since you're too dense to pick up on it:
Any attempts to use turnspeak on me is ignored. I see the first 3 words of turnspeak and I skip the post altogether.
Ed.
I think it should also be pointed out that Danny Ayalon, Knesset member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, is firmly united with John Hagee's Christian's United for Israel (CUFI).
Danny Ayalon wrote the letter, from Israel, that was included with the DVD "distributed to 28 million homes this fall to gin up fear of "radical Islam" as an anti-Obama factor in the election and enduring anti-Muslim bigotry in American society." (Source: jewsonfirst.org)
From the jewsonfirst.org site:
Rabbi Philip Bentley of Agudas Israel Congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina, said that Reform Movement organizations ought to protest Ayalon's intervention in U.S. politics. "The Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judiasm ought to register a strong protest against this mailing and against former Ambassador Ayalon for lending himself, his organization, and his title to the Hagee organization," Bently said. "If we are silent we have only ourselves to blame if Hagee makes inroads into our movement."
As does Ayalon in his letter, Brog (who is Jewish) argues in Standing with Israel that Jews should appreciate — not shun — Christian Zionist support for Israel.To see what David Brog, CUFI's Executive Director, did to get right-wing American Jews to go along with John Hagee's organization, go here.
It should also be noted that the campaign to hook up and align the Likud party with American fundamentalist Christians was Menachem Begin's idea in the 1970s.
Once the Scofield Bible became the fundie Christian's big book in the early 70s, it was an easy matter. The Scofield Bible was written and rewritten between 1906 and the 60's to include the political ideas that the Zionists wanted to prevail, such as Jews are entitled to the land of a nation called Israel. But Israel did not exist in 1906. The Zionists knew it would and were planning it then.
What Scofield did was annotate the King James Bible to claim certain passages meant certain things. (New fundie Bibles written for the flock in the past 25 years lifted those annotations wholesale. The annotations are now touted as the original Bible words in specific fundie Bibles.) American Zionists like Samuel Untermyer paid Scofield to do it during a four-year hiatus in Switzerland. Scofield was a Texas pastor who took up the profession after two years in a KS or OK jail for stealing his mother-in-law's fortune.
Suzanne: "I'll spell it out since you're too dense to pick up on it"
LOL. When it's to their advantage, American Zionists earnestly fulminate against Muslims like Father Coughlin fulminating against the Jews, but when used against them, they mock such fulminations as the province of bigots, extremists and hyper conservatives and start getting all ironic. Yet another example of situational ethics; yet another example of Zionist double standards and chameleon behavior.
There is something profoundly dishonest about the the way Zionists think, process and operate. Perhaps its time to send them into the wilderness for another forty years of wandering and contemplation. Maybe they'll come out the other side ready to join the community of nations as a productive team player instead of a show-boating, ball hogging, game-throwing team back-stabber in hawk to the mob, aka the worse angels of human nature.
Ed. :-)
That's an improbable request, an Arab majority country that has a "secular yet multifaith democracy"
PS: We should send the Christian Zionists and certain authoritarian Judeophile Leftists wandering in the wilderness with them. Obviously they don't "get it" either. (Boy, that's one traveling carnival/freak show I'd like to see.)
""The question remains, Can Israel as a relatively young state learn to respect the international body that created it in the first place?
Posted by Philip Weiss at 12:58 PM in Iran, Israel/Palestine, Mohammad of Vancouver"">>>>>>>>>>>>
In a word…No.
Israel will not learn.
The Israelis and the zionist are digging deeper and deeper into their own insanity. It's in their DNA,they can't be salvaged.
Everything we critics have said about Israel for the past seven years has proven true…everything we predicted about Israeli agression continuing and becoming more insane has come true.
Israel will not change.
The only real question is how much more damage they will do to the region and to the US ..and the jews themselves…before they go down.
Israel and the wingnut zionist like the ones that appear here have already damaged the Jewish community in the US and those elsewhere around the world.When and if the US has had enough of the zionist and Israel ..and that is a growing trend…where will Jews go this time? Will they flee back to Germany and Poland?
History keeps repeating for the Jews, over and over, every century, their delusions and grand, entitled chosen ones, plans always fall to ruin in the end. And they begin over again everytime with the same victimhood role and delusions of grandeur, that their failure and perscution are all because of anti semitism.
Nope, they never learn. It's a movie re-released and re-made every century and the plot never changes.
American, do you want America and Israel not to change? Now you are really close to SOG, chris, Thom, whom do I forget? Just the other side of the Janusface.
I posted an article on the Protocols on another thread, since you mentioned your interest. Now I wonder if you can understand it's implications. Personally I wouldn't mind some ancestors of German Jews to come back here; but I am not too fond of a replay, and I firmly trust American democratic forces.
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MRW, your link doesn't work. Rebutting Obsession. Was it this?
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Richard, you should differentiate between Phil's views and mails from his correspondents he considers interesting but must not necessarily agree with.
I left you a final note in our NF exchange where you won 1.000 points. By the way below you find the research, I had in mind in our first encounters concerning the Protocols. Remember? The site is in German, but there is a section termed Downloads …. beneath Forschungsschwerpunkte/main areas of research, were you find two English articles on the topic by my absolute favorite in the field, except Cesare G. deMichelis. I was very, very puzzled about Hadassah Ben Ittos book, which I bought, when it was published based on the German blurb Michael Hagemeister cited in:
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – Between History and Fiction
you may be interested in this too:
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion an the Myth of a Jewish Conspiracy in Post-Soviet Russia
and no I am gone for a few days.
basically the comment section for this post is like this:
witty
witty
witty
suzanne
fake suzanne
witty
fake witty
suzanne
these people still operate on the assumption that the sheer physical amount of discourse can alter reality. Blame this on french romantics guys like Derrida and Deleuze. The only people still fooled by this post modern post structuralist BS are the zionists. Suzanne or one of her doubles keep referring us as the fringe. I think she forgets to check the stock market once in a while. We may be the fringe, but the mainstream of opinion out there has lost more than its 50 per cent of net worth compare to the top of the bubble.
It feels good to be fringe these days. Those who didn't have anything anyways are getting stronger everyday compare to those who were worth a billion last year and now are worth more than a few hundred million :) lets see where this go. 5000? 4000? 3000? the toilet? the toilet without paper? A number 2 turned bloody? we will see.
witty: "He prefers to divide families though."
Sometimes families need to be divided, as when people took sides over the civil rights issue. And if in the end you can't bring them around, well life is too short. You move on.
Mohammed,
You once presented yourself as preferring the voice of reason to the voice of agitation.
There is content presented that you could address rather than the childish assault on the messenger.
I, like Phil, have a lot of free time these days.
Just for reference, on the state of economy, Iran is not doing so well these days. It is so dependant on the price of oil, that is 1/3 of what it was a year and a half ago, but still has the same fixed costs of governance and most commerce.
Phil is at least self-inquiring to an extent. He criticizes US policy, and the policy suggestions of his cousins of cousins. I'd like to hear your self-inquiry on Iran.
I've even stated my criticism of Israeli law as far as title to land.
Do you have the courage? I get that there might be real danger if you expose named names or even family, so please don't put your family at risk if that is plausible, but at least acknowledge your self-censorship to yourself.
There is NOT that real danger for dissent in the US or in Israel. There are threats to reputation, say like Finkelstein or Kovel, but I would suggest that they have thousands of colleagues who are losing their jobs for economic reasons far far more than political.
@ Witty comments why he disapproves of Phil:
" I prefer a more respectful standard towards others. Its NOT about criticizing policies or honestly and candidly declaring his political goals. Those are reasonable activities. Even Allan Dershowitz applauds dissenters that do that, dissent. Its about tone, and editorial framing."
I completely disagree. Phil is all about honestly criticizing policies and thereby declaring his political goals–to end such policies. In constrast, to use Witty's example, Dershowitz applauds dissenters on
one hand while smearing them constantly as bigots with his other hand.
Here Witty projects his SOP method of hiding his emotional core concern: "its about tone, and editorial framing." For a good example of this guise, see and hear Eichmann testifying in Jerusalem
I don't see Israel changing in fact, except for the worse. I see the diaspora here in the USA desperately trying to erect a revised smokescreen to re- prepare fading USA public opinion for something more assertive, more aggressive on the part of Israel.
I would extend the same degree of respect for Likud-style Zionists as they here have extended to Non-Jews. Human beings, many nice, diverse, friendly, but their internal and external politics are inconsistent with that niceness.
And, it extends to aggression under color of law by the state of Israel, and denial of another people's right to self-associate, affirmed by international law and UN.
LeaNder
Here are the two links. I keep forgetting that philipweiss.org puts itself in front of html links a commentor wants to add.
The Ayalon Letter
link to jewsonfirst.org
The Obsession page
link to jewsonfirst.org
I want to make that distinction because this is not a stain on the Iranian people. They are prisoners in a mullah theocracy.
And Suzanne is merely advocating for bombing the shit out of them, so that the mullahs won't keep her beloved Zionist empire (move there, babe!) from beating, bombing, and bulldozing to eternity.
Bottom right fang, darling. Just a small red smudge. Somebody get the girl a napkin.
Mohammad–I truly loved your last comment.
May the new cry around Wall Street be "Flush! Flush! Flush!"
Harvard and Yale have both lost a few billion off their endowments, so there may be a reduced number of future war criminals graduating these next few years. Also a real pity.
Witty is really far too nice and civil for the haters on this board. I have to admire his restraint as I tend to fight fire with fire.
I've made it pretty clear that I will have civil exchange with people of sound mind and balanced perspective.
There are few here, so I don't really see my purpose as being one of soothing calm and extending the olive branch.
There are adult-minded Muslims who recognize Israel's right to exist and aren't bent on imposing unlikely conditions on an I/P peace…so as far as I'm concerned, Mohammad has no excuse and should know better.
Suzanne, you recognize Iran's right to exist as an Islamic state, right?
they're one Islamic state among many, MM. What's your point?
A two state-solution is impossible. The backbone of Israel depends on the support of the settlers. However, Israel is seething with racism now. I wonder how it could survive in 20 years when the number is Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories are substantially larger than the Jewish population?
Iran is adopting norms associated with international institutions just as the ICC and interpol, however, Iran is still a revisionist state and will not see the full adoption of international norms until they are applied universally and are based on fairness and justice. Unfortunately, I don't think international norms will be applied to Israel anytime soon.
Maybe since you're in favor of violently overthrowing the theocrats of Iran, it would be kosher for another state to try to violently overthrow the Zionist regime?
Zionist idiots of course are well-known for their principled consistency.
Blame this on french romantics guys like Derrida and Deleuze. The only people still fooled by this post modern post structuralist BS are the zionists…
Interesting point, Mohammad. I have also been arguing in various places over the last few days that deconstructionism, as it is more widely known now, is an intellectual fraud and a smokescreen behind which liberal individualism can muster its forces and gain a breathing space. I trace it to the emergence of feminist studies, and what were called 'subaltern' studies, among the students of Lacan, and I see it as an evasion of class analysis, because like liberal philosophy in general it attributes an excessive autonomy to cultural forces, such as 'discourse.' I always recommend returning to Lacan and Althusser, even though they were categorical opponents; they were the last of the structuralists.
I wouldn't have described Derrida or Deleuze as 'romantics', though. That is yet another stream of culture, with its own problematics, which don't even pretend to revolve around any sort of 'theory' that I can see, except possibly a sort of spenglerian right-wing notion of european 'decadence'.
Burnt Marshmallow–your head is soft. The critical element is willing market. If you're thinking of Israeli Arabs, then you're essentially writing their death certificate.
Please wake up. Thank you.
Right, Suzanne, because the Iranian regime is going to be more humane to violent insurgents than Israel would be? Wait, what was your point again?
Do you ever wonder how you're able to type faster than you can think?