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Netanyahu uses Iranian earthquake to praise Israeli ‘humanity’ and denounce Iranian ‘hatred’

on 12 Comments
Nov. 12, 2017: In this photo provided by the Iranian Students News Agency, ISNA, destroyed buildings and a car are seen after an earthquake at the city of Sarpol-e-Zahab

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using the earthquake that has killed more than 500 people in Iran to score political points against Iran. “Our humanity is greater than their hatred,” he said.

Speaking by video to a major American Jewish group in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, Netanyahu said he offered disaster aid to Iran and Iraq:

I’ve said many times that we have no quarrel with the people of Iran. Our quarrel is only with the tyrannical regime that holds them hostage and threatens our destruction. But our humanity is greater than their hatred. Israel continues to be a light unto the nations and this is what I am proud of. And all of you can be proud of Israel’s morals and Israel’s might.”

The Times of Israel says the offer was turned down.

According to an official in Netanyahu’s office, the offer was immediately rejected.

“This shows the true face of the Iranian regime,” the official said.

Iran surely has its reasons. The country has been isolated from western trade, finance, and tourism for decades in some measure because of Israel’s ferocious criticism of its regional rival. Netanyahu over and over likens the Iranians to Nazis, characterizes the Iranian regime as “evil,” and he and his allies in the U.S. have issued threats to attack Iran. Along with Saudi Arabia, now.

The earthquake struck Sunday in western Iran. The death toll so far is 530 in Iran and another 9 in Iraq.

Netanyahu’s talking point about Iranian “hate” was echoed by the former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, who is working now for an Israeli thinktank. Shapiro tweeted:

Sadly, Iran hates Israel more than it wants to find earthquake victims buried in the rubble. Turned-down top-notch disaster relief out of hate.

(Our publisher, Scott Roth, then slammed Shapiro for moving from U.S. diplomacy to doing “hasbara” for Israel. As we reported, Shapiro recently embraced Israel as a “miracle,” “gift” and “jewel”.)

In a second video describing his offer, Netanyahu said Israel extends aid out of kindness (in Haiti, the Philippines and Mexico) because Jews know what it’s like for the world to turn its back on them.

“Closer to home we have treated thousands of Syrians… Syrian civilians…. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. Too many times in my people’s history the world failed to act when it could, the world failed to do the right thing. So we have a special sensitivity to help those in need….This is Israel, compassionate caring kind.”

Eli Valley expressed cynicism about Netanyahu’s offer: 

Photo-op rejected, hasbarah talking point reinforced.

Scott Roth called Netanyahu’s offer “disingenuous”:

When Israel stops causing human catastrophes then it will get credit for helping when a natural one occurs.

More from Roth:

It takes a special kind of chutzpah to be righteous after the country you’ve been trying to wreck refuses your “aid” after a natural disaster, AND then you try to score cheap hasbara points against said country.

 

 

Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is senior editor of Mondoweiss.net and founded the site in 2005-06.

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12 Responses

  1. eljay on November 16, 2017, 11:50 am

    … Netanyahu said …

    … Israel continues to be a light unto the nations and this is what I am proud of. …

    King Bibi appears to be channelling jester Jack Green. Israel is a deliberately and unapologetically oppressive, colonialist, (war) criminal and religion-supremacist state. That’s neither “light unto the nations” (unless it’s the sort of sickly light cast by Saudi Arabia, Mali, African “hell-holes”, China and 19th-century America) nor anything to be proud of.

    … And all of you can be proud of Israel’s morals …

    Israel’s “morals” (Zionists sure do like to redefine words!) are its collection of past and on-going acts of injustice and immorality. Nothing there to be proud of…unless you’re a Zionist.

  2. amigo on November 16, 2017, 1:06 pm

    ““I just saw the pictures of the destruction in Iran and Iraq from this week’s earthquake. And I saw these heartbreaking images of men and women and children buried under the rubble. ” nietanyahu

    Unless it,s Palestinian , men ,women and children.

    No rush to demonstrate Israeli humanity by the Light unto the nations.

  3. marc b. on November 16, 2017, 1:48 pm

    so israel is involved in the assassination of iranians on iranian soil, and the sabotage of iranian infrastructure, and sputters on about the existential threat from the emerging ‘shia crescent’, yet refuses entry of israelis into its territory. what ingrates.

  4. Kay24 on November 16, 2017, 4:16 pm

    The zionists have no humanity when it comes to the Palestinians. Or else they would have ended the occupation decades ago, and stopped stealing their lands.

    Here you go, two despicable players in the ME, conspiring to attack their common enemy, and trying to make a case for it. Now if only they could convince the US to help do their dirty work.

    Israeli Military Chief Gives Unprecedented Interview to Saudi Media: ‘Ready to Share Intel on Iran’
    Israel and Saudi Arabia are in full agreement about Iran’s intentions, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot tells Elaph, noting the two states have never fought each other
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.823163

  5. just on November 16, 2017, 9:37 pm

    Netanyahu/Israel lied… again. Quelle surprise:

    “Israel Claimed Iran Refused Its Offer for Humanitarian Aid. Red Cross Says Otherwise

    Sources close to Netanyahu said Iran’s ‘true face’ was revealed when it refused Israeli earthquake aid, but according to the Red Cross, Iran didn’t even receive his offer

    Israel did not receive an “immediate refusal” from Iran or Iraq following its offer to send humanitarian aid after last week’s earthquake, contrary to statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

    During Netanyahu’s speech to the Jewish Federations conference (GA) in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the prime minister announced Israel offered to help the earthquake victims, an act he said indicates Israel’s moral values. Soon after, the Prime Minister office sent reporters a statement saying Iran immediately refused the offer, and this shows the true face of its regime. However, an inquiry by Haaretz revealed that the statement is not true.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the organization that received Israel’s offer, confirmed to Haaretz that neither Iraq nor Iran asked for help or were even aware to the Israeli offer. They also said that the Israeli government was told as much.

    “We can confirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) received an offer of support from the Israeli authorities. They expressed their willingness to send relief supplies and technical assistance to the victims of the earthquake at the Iran-Iraq border, through the ICRC.

    “Neither of the two affected countries, however, has at this stage requested international assistance to respond to the needs, and we informed the Israeli authorities accordingly. Should this change, the ICRC stands ready to support its Red Cross Movement partners in providing a humanitarian response and in channeling donations accordingly,” Marc Kilstein, ICRC’s Washington D.C. based spokesperson, told Haaretz in a written statement. …

    Immediately after the speech, an official from the Prime Minister office released to Israeli reporters a statement to be attributed to a “source within the Prime Minister office”. In the statement, it said “Israel approached the Red Cross and received an immediate refusal. This shows the true face of the Iranian regime.”

    Haaretz spoke with ICRC officials and learned that this is not an accurate representation of the events. Alyona Synenko, spokesperson of the Israel-based ICRC branch, explained that when a natural disaster happens and a country requires international help there is a procedure, of which Israel is aware. If an affected country cannot deal with a disaster, it will approach ICRC and ask for help, and ICRC will then coordinate the assistance from donor countries and aid organizations.

    However, Syneko explained, this was not the case after Sunday’s earthquake hit the Iranian-Iraqi border, killing at least 530 people and leaving 70,000 homeless. Generally speaking, Syneko said, “it is extremely important for us that humanitarian assistance stay away from politics. It must be based on the needs of the people.” 

    David Keyes, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson for foreign media, said in a response that “Israel offered aid on the 14th and was told by the Red Cross that Iran did not want any help.”

    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.823263”

  6. mcohen.. on November 16, 2017, 10:47 pm

    earthquake is bad but a dam wall breaking will cause more ruin.a flood of water.maybe Netanyahu will send an ark in 8 days

  7. DaBakr on November 16, 2017, 11:05 pm

    Just pw making excuses for the small minded nature of Israel’s arch enemy: the mullah regime and its irg, who keep an iron grip on any meaningful freedom’s on the nation’s citizens who don’t want to live under strict sharia law. Besides, if the mullahs wanted to cut off any positive propaganda bibi may have scored all he had to do was say, “thank you, we will take the aid through the Red cross, not directly through Israel”. Either the Iranians and pw are inane fools or really are small minded and hard hearted tyrants.

    • John O on November 17, 2017, 2:35 pm

      @DaBakr

      That’s the trouble with people.

      You go to the UN with a cartoon Iranian bomb; you tell Iranians they are the no.1 exporters of terrorism in the world; you try to buy bunker buster bombs and second-hand B52s to drop them on Iranian targets; you kill Iranian scientists; you use the Stuxnet computer virus against them. Then they have a natural disaster.

      You offer them help.

      Then you act all offended when they say, “No, thanks.”

  8. on November 17, 2017, 1:29 am

    No shame – it’s what makes the Zionists so despicable.

    Offering aid so that they can send thier mossad agents to do their reconnaissance or execute another Iranian.

  9. Ossinev on November 17, 2017, 10:38 am

    It`s a well known fact that the ICRC along with a host of other International Institutions are blatantly Anti – Semitic and hopelessly biased against the Ancient Homeland and when they dispute Zioland claims they are lying except when they appear to support Zioland claims when they are miraculously transformed into respected International Institutions.

    As for the Yahoo. True compassion would have been to state something to the effect that Israelis lament the tragedy and loss of life and simply advise that the offer of assistance is still there and will be provided if asked for. As a lying hypocritical arrogant Hasbara spewing scumbag he is of course totally incapable of either true compassion or true statesmanship.

  10. James Canning on November 17, 2017, 1:55 pm

    Iran is willing to accept Israel within its pre-1967 borders. Full stop. And Bibi Netanyahu is fully aware of this fact.

  11. kma on November 18, 2017, 2:49 pm

    Israel says it doesn’t hate Iranians but wants to blockade them with sanctions and bomb them like all the other people it “doesn’t hate”.

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