A lot of people are directing our attention to Rupert Murdoch's speech to the American Jewish Committee, "I'm not Jewish but--" Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes:
Here is the transcript of Murdoch's speech to the AJC. I found the following lines interesting:
Tonight I say to you: Maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel.
[...]
And if we are serious about meeting this challenge, we would expand the only military alliance committed to the defense of the West to include those on the front lines of this war. That means bringing countries such as Israel into NATO
[...]
The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight.
And what is the response to this saber-rattling. Note Idrees Ahmad's interpretation of Obama's important Nowruz (new year's) message to the Iranians: it's a bombshell for the Israel lobby.
We must bring Algerie Francaise into NATO!
How is it a 'bombshell for the Israel lobby'? I don't understand. As a Iranian-Jew whose family fled religious persecution during the early days of the Islamic Revolutin, I know I speak for many other Jewish Iranians when I say that Obama's new message and tone with Iran, and efforts at outreach, are only good for Iran, good for the Jews, and good for Israel. I disagree vehemently with your attempt to spin this Nourooz message into a 'bombshell.'
I sometimes wonder if the admins of this site, and the frequent commenters, are aware that not all Jews and Israelis are of "white European stock." My wife, an Israeli, is from Moroccan lineage. Her family was forced out of their home in Marrakech in the '50s by the local Muslim population because of their Jewish identity. "Brown Jews" make up close to half of Israel's population, and most of them can tell you stories about lost homes, destroyed lives, religious persecution, pogroms, violence, and the like. Where is our story? Why is it that white American Jews seem to either ignore, or remain ignorant of, the plight of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the Middle East? To you people, it's all about white European Jews "colonizing Palestine" and destroying the indigenous population and culture. Perhaps you should point your righteous indignation elsewhere, where it is equally, if not more, deserved.
As for Iran, talk to any modern Iranian in or outside the Islamic Republic, Muslim or otherwise, and they will tell you that the Arab conquest of Iran 1300 or so years ago was the true "Nakba." Prior to the Islamicization of Iran, ours was one of the most tolerant, most advanced nations on earth. Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews and other faiths coexisted for centuries under the protection of the monarchy in peace. But hey, who cares about that, right? It's all about those evil white Zionists! They are the worst thing to happen to the Middle East since Christ … right?
On the occasion of the Persian New Year, President Obama has videotaped a personal statement to the Iranian people which is being portrayed in the Western media as a significant change, in both tone and substance, in American policy and an effort to "reach out" to Iran. However, reading the principal substantive portion cited below, one must have serious doubts that it will be viewed in this light by many Iranians.
"My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties…This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect. You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create."
One may well agree that improving relations between the two countries "will not be advanced by threats", but who has has been threatening whom? Has Iran been threatening a "preventive" (i.e., unprovoked and aggressive) attack on the United States? Has Iran been insisting that "military action" remains "on the table" if the United States does not bow to Iranian demands?
One may also agree that no country's "rightful place in the community of nations" should be reached "through terror and arms". Yet it is the United States which brought "shock and awe" (the American marketing term for "terror" when unleashed by the United States) to the region six years ago this month, and it is the United States which spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined.
One may also agree that the "true greatness" of a country is demonstrated through "peaceful actions". Iran has not invaded another country in over two centuries. The same can scarcely be said of the United States.
One may, finally, agree that "greatness is not the capacity to destroy". America has, most recently, destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq and applauded the destruction of Gaza, and, for decades, it has possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on Earth many times over. Its capacity and proclivity for destruction shape its unique "place in the community of nations".
This peculiar effort to "reach out" to Iranians, which any rational Iranian who actually heard or read the words could be expected to view as condescending and insulting, is logically consistent with the line in President Obama's inaugural address in which he offered an outstetched hand to unspecified Muslims (subsequently identified as Iranians) if they would unclench their fist. Who has been brandishing a clenched fist at whom?
The Meaning of Reaching Out
EHRAN, Iran – Iran played down President Barack Obama's new video message to the Iranian people on Friday, saying it welcomed the overtures but warned that decades of mistrust can't easily be erased.
Obama released the video to coincide with the major Iranian festival of Nowruz, a 12-day holiday that marks the arrival of spring and the beginning of the new year in Iran. In the video, which has Farsi subtitles, Obama said the U.S. is prepared to end the strained relations if Tehran tones down its combative rhetoric.
But in the first government reaction to the video, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press adviser said "minor changes will not end the differences" between Tehran and Washington.
"Obama has talked of change but has taken no practical measures to address America's past mistakes in Iran. If Mr. Obama takes concrete actions and makes fundamental changes in U.S. foreign policy toward other nations including Iran, the Iranian government and people will not turn their back on him," Ali Akbar Javanfekr told the Iranian state-run English-language Press TV satellite station.
It wasn't clear how many Iranians were able to see the video, which was not aired on state television in Iran on Friday. It was likely shown on Farsi-language TV stations beamed in from outside of the country, but many Iranians don't watch television in the first days of long Nowruz holiday that is normally filled with family gatherings or vacations away from home.
Iran Plays Down New Obama Video Message
The original NYTimes version of the story reported only on Obama's message, which you could at least possibly interpret as conciliatory. Later they paired it with the message from Shimon Peres: Obama and Israeli Leader Make Taped Appeals to Iran
Peres said this, according to the Jerusalem Post:
President Shimon Peres issued an audio greeting to the Iranian people, urging them to shake off the rule of "an oppressive and fanatical regime" and return to relations of peace and harmony with Israel, which, he recalled, the two countries enjoyed when the Shah was in power, until 1979. He called on the "noble Iranian people" to eschew the rhetoric of hate and even offered a greeting for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, in Persian.
Israel Radio, which operates a channel in Persian, aired the message, also conducting an interview with Peres where he recalled a visit to Iran in the 1970s and recounted his visits to Iranian military bases and praised the "gracious" demeanor of the Shah.
He dismissed the apparent hordes of supporters seen in televised speeches given by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "sycophants or people who are afraid [of the regime]."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461631803&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
If it wasn’t calculated by the Israelis to undermine Obama’s message (I think so), then certainly it was meant to inflame the Iranian regime. . .
Did you notice that Lobby & neo-cons are attempting to get Murdoch to block promotion and distribution of Mark Rudd's autobiographical book, "Underground"? See following link:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/will-murdoch-publish-book-by-anti-american-anti-semitic-terrorist/