Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: Iran

BBC Question Time and a latter-day Cassandra

On BBC Question Time last week a panel which included the comedian Russell Brand, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips was always going to be entertaining.

It was all going well for Melanie Phillips with both Brand and Johnson saying what a nice person she was personally; then someone asked a question about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Mel could not resist a fusillade against that country.

Unfortunately, in mentioning Iran’s nuclear intentions, she let slip the word ‘Israel’, the passepartout to frenzied delusional politically correct zeitgeist–embracing stupefaction. Cries of ‘paranoid’ and much booing followed.

It did not help that Phillips often comes a close second to David Icke when it comes to provoking audiences’ derision, but only when she speaks about Israel.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the rest of the evening she was a paragon of sense and considered response with audience tacit approval.

When it came to Iran she failed to make her point dispassionately. A British audience does not like what it perceives as hysteria. Melanie needs to improve her presentation when it comes to issues about which she is really passionate such as Israel or Iran and the threat it still poses.  Saying that Iran needs to be ‘neutralised’ is not language likely to win an argument in today’s PC climate.

The idea that a country’s leaders want to bring about Armageddon because of a religious belief in the Mahdi is about as credible to a Question Time audience as Icke’s reptiles.

But that’s the point – is it that far-fetched?

In fact Johnson and Ed Davey seemed naïve in the extreme about Rouhani’s moderateness  and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

They are not alone. On Twitter Zbigniew Bzrezinski just tweeted:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is disappointed that a moderate won the Iranian elections. I wonder why?”

This was retweeted by none other than Javier Solana former Secretary General of NATO and the Council of the European Union.

Now you could see the tweet as ambiguous. It could be viewed as supporting Netanyahu’s scepticism. But it does not. It is suggesting that Netanyahu is disappointed because a ‘moderate’ undercuts his argument to attack Iran, which Bzrezinski does not support.

So these two highly influential and, presumably, well-informed politicians cannot see what is so blindingly obvious about Rouhani.

Firstly he is clearly playing ‘Mr Nice Guy’ precisely to fool gullible Westerners and relieve the pressure of sanctions on Iran.

Secondly he is no moderate.  He is only moderate like Goebbels was a moderate Nazi compared to Hitler. He is implicated in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires and his son apparently committed suicide because his father was too extreme.

But it hardly matters because he is just a puppet of the Supreme leader Khamanei. It is he not Rouhani who decides policy. And Khamanei selected him as a proper candidate for the presidency. In other words, he is pre-approved by a religious despot.

But let’s get back to the proposition that Iran intends a bomb in order to annihilate Israel.

Would Iran bomb Tel Aviv? Does that make sense? Or is the threat enough to big-up Iran in the region so it establishes itself as the major power. Is the bomb not a national testosterone implant?

If Iran were to nuke Israel it would have to figure in the fall-out both literal and figurative.

If Israel is to be removed to give the Palestinians back their land and create a Palestinian state (something I believe would never happen if Israel were eliminated) nuking the land that Palestinians claim and rendering it uninhabitable for decades or centuries does not seem a good strategy.

If the Iranians decide to leave Jerusalem standing,it still deprives the Palestinians of their state in any realistic form unless millions want to ‘return’ to die of radiation.

An what of the reaction of Russia, India and the United States to a country ready to use a nuclear weapon? Surely the US at least would see it as an act of war and NATO would surely react.

But, according to Melanie, this logical, reasoned calculation does not apply to Iran because it has taken leave of its political senses and subordinated them to religious belief and necessity.

Is Melanie destined to become the Cassandra of the West crying ‘I warned you’ as night descends on Western civilisation?

Only time will tell.

Durban III – the farce that is now the UN

When the United Nations was formed after World War II it promised a new world order in which the nations of the world would co-operate to advance human rights, peace, international law, and improved living standards for the people of the world and the security of nations.

In this time the UN and its associated agencies such as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF (Children’s Fund) have carried out remarkable programmes which have changed the lives of millions.

But the UN is failing to promote democracy and human rights because the very body, the UN Human Rights Council, responsible for this has been allowed to be hijacked by a succession of human rights abusers whose main objective is to delegitmise Israel and focus disproportionate attention on that one country. This fact is reinforced by the absurd and farcical presence of an agenda item aimed at just one country – Israel.

154 countries voted for that agenda item to remain for the next five years. This alone tells you how the world is obsessed with a piece of land the size of New Jersey.

To add insult to this injury the UN has now elected Iran as a vice-president of the General Assembly while Qatar is currently its president.

This presents a wonderful opportunity for these countries to push forward what is known as Durban III the 3rd Israel hate-fest disguised as a human rights conference supposedly dedicated to combat “Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” which actually advanced all those abuses.

In 2001 at Durban a fringe NGO conference meeting made an infamous declaration:

Article 164 states targeted victims of Israel’s brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods have been in particular children, women and refugees. Article 425 announces a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state…the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel. Furthermore, Article 426 talks of condemnation of those states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, acts of genocide.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were shameful signatories.

When it comes to Israel, the UN and NGO’s it can truly be said that the animals have taken over the zoo.

One could hardly have devised a bigger lie or blood-libel than this declaration, a declaration which, by singling out one state, reduces the effectiveness of NGO’s in combating the very crimes they were formed to monitor.

In 2009 Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an appearance in Geneva at ‘Durban II@ and guess what his subject was? This year he’ll be back and with the added reward of UN Gneral Assembly vice-presidency.

On September 22nd 2011 Durban III will take place in New York.

Anna Bayevsky has written a devastating critique of the likely course of this event. I recommend you read her article in full but here’s a flavour of it:

It is instructive to recall what Qatari General Assembly president Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser will have to commemorate. At the first Durban conference on “combating intolerance and xenophobia” the head of Qatar’s delegation, Abdul-Rahman H. Al-Attiyah, declared: “all the Israeli heinous violations are justified as a means to bring back every Jew to a land that they raped from its legitimate owners and denied them their right to claim it back.”

Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazaei, lost no time to make it clear what his country plans to do with its new status as a U.N. role model.  “Membership in the General Committee is a good opportunity to assert fair positions in the world order…[and] be instrumental in planning the meetings of the Assembly and the arrangement of internationally significant issues for inclusion in the agenda of the Assembly,” Khazaei told Iranian PressTV. He then specifically cited the “important issue” of the “Durban Conference focusing on racial discrimination.”

No subtle diplomatic skills are required here. At Durban II, Ahmadinejad, again denied the Holocaust and the “pretext of Jewish sufferings.” At last year’s General Assembly he declared that 9/11 was an inside job and Jews control the world: “the U.S. government orchestrated the attack…All values, even the freedom of expression, in Europe and in the United States are being sacrificed at the altar of Zionism.”

The US, Canada and Israel have already decided to boycott this event. I guess they just don’t want to take part in a reverse Nuremberg.

 

BBC bias complaints: contrasting reactions

When pro-Israeli groups in the UK  believe the BBC to be biased they write in, make phone calls, blog, write letters to newspapers.

When the anti-Israel elements think the BBC is biased they resort to violence.

BBC studios in Manchester have been attacked by a mob of 800 protesters.

More than 800 people marched through the city centre and down Oxford Road, where the crowd surged at the BBC’s entrance, smashing its front doors.

One man climbed to the top of the building to plant a Palestinian flag and there were at least three arrests.

Protesters said they were also angry about the BBC’s coverage of Israel.

Protesters from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who organised the demonstration, chanted slogans including: “BBC tell the truth.”

Protesters smashed glass doors and there were at least three arrests

Talat Ali, 40, organizer from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “This is a peaceful demonstration against the attack that has taken place on the Gaza flotilla.

Yeah, about as peaceful as the terrorists who ambushed Israeli commandos.

“We are not happy with the way commanders boarded vessels and butchered people.

“We are not happy with the biased news given by the BBC.”

Is it not ironic that when the BBC finally becomes more even-handed in its coverage this upsets those with a mindset that is impervious to truth and evidence.

This is intimidation of a free press. The protesters should know that this is not Iran – not yet, anyway.

Israel exposes UN Human Rights Council’s bias

Ambassador Leshno-Yaar (Archive UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre)Today, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Mr Leshno-Yaar, explained to the UNHRC who the real criminals were and how it is failing in its duty towards countries where the built-in bias against Israel and for Islamic countries is a total disgrace and discredits the UNHRC and by association, the UN itself.

One can only imagine the glee with which the statement was delivered. You can find it here.

But it is so good I cannot resist reprinting the whole thing.

Statement by H.E. Aharon Leshno Yaar
Permanent Representative of Israel
Statement on the 7th Session
Universal Periodic Review on the Islamic Republic of Iran
Human Rights Council

Mr. President,

Iran’s wide-scale and escalating attacks on its own citizens is the type of matter that this body was designed to address.  As documented most recently by UN General Assembly Resolution 64/176, of 18 December 2009, Iranians are prevented from realizing their most basic human rights and freedoms.  Women, minorities – Arabs, Azeris, Baha’ais, Christians, Sunni Muslims, Jews and their defenders — are all discriminated against.  There is no freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. This is not a matter of regional politics or looking for another opportunity to remind all of us of the dangers that Iran’s leaders seek to bring upon its neighbors. Instead, today’s meeting in Geneva is about the threats that Iran’s rulers make, day after day, upon their own people.

The work of this Council on the human rights situations in Iran needs to go far beyond today’s periodic review.

The State of Israel recommends to the Islamic Republic of Iran:

1. End incitement to hatred, including statements that show contempt for General Assembly Resolution 60/7 (2005) and 61/255 (2007), on Holocaust remembrance and Holocaust denial, respectively;

2. Cease all actions as a third state proxy and refrain from financing, organizing, training, supplying, and equipping non-state actors committing acts in violation of international law;

3. Commute all death sentences, in particular all executions of political prisoners, and abolish, in practice, public executions by hanging and stoning;

4. Comply with its obligations under article 37 of the CRC and article 6 of the ICCPR and prohibit executions of persons who at the time of their offence were under the age of 18;

5. Eradicate in national legislation, and in practice, torture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment;

6. Repeal or amend all discriminatory provisions against women and girls in national legislation; and,

7. Eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination against persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or other minorities, and also LGBT.

Thank you.

In other words: you are a bunch of cowardly, double-standard peddling, biased, self-righteous bigots, unworthy of the exalted name you give yourself. The UNHRC is really the UNCDI: the United Nations Council for the Destruction of Israel.

Home truths from abroad – Danny Ayalon at the Council of Europe

Danny Ayalon at the Council of Europe / Jaques Denier

Danny Ayalon at the Council of Europe / Jaques Denier

On Jan 26, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon attended a debate in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe on the Middle East situation. The debate was also attended by Mohammed Ashtiyeh, the Palestinian Minister of Public Works and Housing.

Ayalon, as reported by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wanted to stress that Israeli has been willing to negotiate for some time but the Palestinians won’t come to the table:

We have been alone sitting at the negotiating table for nine months, since the creation of this government, but we are still waiting for the Palestinians to take their seat,” Ayalon continued. “There is absolutely no reason to place more obstacles than were placed before, we once again reiterate our call for the Palestinians to meet with us without preconditions from either side.

The PA has been consistent in demanding all settlement activity including East Jerusalem cease before it comes to the table. It should be noted, however, that the settlements as an excuse for not negotiating can be placed fairly and squarely at the door of President Obama. If he hadn’t insisted that Israel stop activity as part of his personal outreach programme to the Muslim world then the PA would not had fastened on to it as a prerequisite. It should be noted that in all the previous negotiations settlements were never a prerequisite.

Ayalon went on to remind the Council and Mr Ashtiyeh that previous Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert had both offered the Palestinians over 95% of the West Bank and Gaza but these offers had been rejected.

We are only here participating in this debate because these overly generous offers were rejected, concessions are required of both sides

In 2000 Yasser Arafat rejected the offer without a counter offer and walked out much to the consternation of the Saudi intermediary, So what did Mr Ashtiyeh have to say? All he could come up with is that the Palestinians are foregoing 78% of historic Palestine but as Minister Ayalon pointed out:

there has never been a Palestinian state in history and the word Palestine is Roman in origin and not Arabic. The purpose of giving this name was to erase the connection between the Jewish People and their land

This is the crux of the Palestinian tragedy: in 1947 the Arab League tried to destroy the nascent Israel, legally constituted by vote of the same UN that the same Arabs including the Palestinians now want to use to accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza. They didn’t accept the Jewish presence then and they still don’t over 60 years later. They avoid negotiation or walk out even when they get more than 95% of what they are asking for because they don’t actually want a solution that will accept Israel and define permanent borders. What they want, both the PA/Fatah and Hamas is the total destruction of Israel. Whereas Hamas has a more Islamist, ideological reason (they hate Jews, basically and consider all of Israel occupied Palestine) the PA pretend that they want to negotiate but ultimately they too want to destroy Israel and this has never changed.

You can criticise Israel’s policies all you want, but if for the Palestinians ‘peace’ means the destruction of Israel then how to you go about negotiating? How do you trust?

One of Israel’s tactics is to pretend that the PA doesn’t want to destroy Israel; they co-operate on security matters, they remove two-thirds of all roadblocks that were and remain such a burden on normalcy in the West Bank. There is technological and medical co-operation. There is a kind of political stasis on the West Bank which suits the PA. Life is improving, the economy is booming, violence is reduced, the Israeli presence is reduced. There are tensions with settlers, there is still fear on both sides but it’s a whole lot better than it once was. Meanwhile the PA continues to use incitement in its schools and seeks to deny and obliterate Jews and Jewish history and its associations with the Land in its schools and in its media. This is their road to peace. They are prepared for the long haul. A hundred years or so and counting.

Danny Ayalon, like Tony Blair in London this week, seems to have gone to Strasbourg with a particular message and warning about Iran.

Ayalon also noted that he was addressing the plenum the day before the international community commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz 65 years ago on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Tomorrow, decent people will commemorate this day. However, certain nations like Iran will not commemorate this occasion and will continue to deny the Holocaust while seeking to the means to perpetuate another one. We must remove the Iranian threat. Just as Hamas and Hizbullah can reach all of Israel with their rockets, so Iran can reach into the heart of Europe with theirs,”

Israel’s strategy vis-a-vis Iran is becoming clear: they don’t want to go it alone. They want to alert the West to the Iranian threat and for the US and Europe to take the initiative in removing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.


Ahmadinejad and the history deniers

That nice Mr Ahmadinejad from Iran is at it again.

Having found himself in hot water at home because of accusations of a rigged election, he has apparently sought to unite the people against, you guessed it, the Jews.

Ho hum.

His latest Holocaust denial came on Quds (Jerusalem) Day:

He is reported to have said:

“[The Holocaust] a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim”.

He also repeated the canard that the Zionist entity (Israel) was created as a result of this supposed lie.

Not only is this historically illiterate (and this faulty historical narrative can be heard in many places, not just in the Middle East) but he and those like him are attempting to create another Holocaust. But this time it isn’t the physical extermination of the Jewish people (although that is a much desired outcome for Hamas and Hizbollah to name the prinicpal culprits) but this time the Holocaust will begin with the extermination of Jewish history.

Anyone who knows anything about the Jewish people will know that history is central to identity. This is true of most nations but for Jews it defines them even more deeply because for 2000 years they were scattered across the nations of the world with only their history to unite them.

That history was not just one of persecution, migration and expulsion but also a history of yearning for a return to the Land, to the holy city of Jerusalem whose importance in history is solely due to its Jewish history. Without the connection to the Land, to Israel and Jerusalem there would be no Jewish people at all. Look at Jewish liturgy: the Torah, the three daily services, literature, poetry, art.

The Jews and their ancestral land have always been two sides of the same history: the People and the Land.

Now you can argue, and I’m sure you will, about the right to that land today and it’s an argument of history that is a valid one to discuss. And it should be because there are so many lies and misconceptions about the Jews’ return to the Land.

But if you accept that, whatever you may think of Israel and the events of the last sixty or hundred years, that Judaism and the Jewish soul identify completely with that land, (and it is a spiritual as well as a religious and historical connection), then you will see that to deny that connection in effect denies the existence of the Jewish People and its right to exist; to exist anywhere, not just in Israel.

And this is what Ahmadinejad does, but it is also what is taught in the Middle East; not just by the perverted purveyors of hatred that are known as Hamas and Hizbollah but by clerics, publishers, academics, politicians, archaeologists, teachers and broadcasters across the Middle East. They daily trot out lies which deny that Jeruslaem was the site of the two Jewish Temples, deny any Jewish connection whatsoever to the Land and characterise the Israelis and, therefore, of course, all Jews, as part of a (Zionist) plot to deprive them, the Palestinians and the Muslim umma in general, of their land. And part of this ruse perpetrated originally by a few hundred thousand Jews was to fabricate or exaggerate their own suffering to prick the conscience of those who persecuted them, or allowed them to be persecuted, and thereby allow them to steal the Land. That ruse, they claim, was the Holocaust.

And don’t take this lightly. because those who deny history – the ‘history deniers’ (Richard Dawkins uses this term in rather a different context in his latest book) who use it now against the Jews will and, in fact, do use it against everyone else. They denigrate and deny others’ holy books whilst being ready to kill the denigrators of their own, they deny what happened on 9/11 whilst in a breathtaking example of double-think and hyprocisy, celebrate it as a victory over the Zionists who they also say carried it out!

Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis on the Holocaust and you won’t be surpised to find that he found it was a lie.

You can get a flavour of it here: http://www.pmw.org.il/holocaust.htm which shows very starkly that the oh so moderate Palestinian Authority is Holocaust-denying to its rotten core.

So Ahmadinejad is not alone. He is part of a vast army of Muslims who actively seek to deny Jews their history, any land whatsoever and in some cases, their lives. And it is widespread because it is promulgated and taught not just in the Middle East but across the world.

Peace or surrender?

King Abdullah of Jordan, on a visit to Bucharest, has said that Israel

“must decide whether they want to observe this opportunity and become integrated in the region or whether they want to remain a fortress … and keep the Middle East hostage in conflict”

as reported by Arutz Sheva. The opportunity he refers to is the Saudi Peace Plan/Ultimatum reiterated in Qatar last week in terms of “take it or leave it”.

The Saudi plan offers recognition of Israel from all Arab countries but in return Israel must withdraw from what are known as The Occupied Territories, there must be an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and (and here’s the killer punch), there must be a just solution to the “problem” of Palestinian refugees.

So in return for the dubious benefits of “recognition”, whatever that really means, Israel must return to the 1949 ceasefire lines and potentially allow into Israel hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians against whom it has been fighting an existential war since 1967. This influx will turn the Jewish State into something quite different. In no time, Jews would be a minority in their own country and there would be two Arab states, no doubt with the intention of confederating as Palestine and thus bringing about the end of Israel.

Security issues (massive), housing, health, the economy would all suffer to the detriment of Israelis. And where would these returnees go? Would they have the right, having kicked the Jews out of the West Bank, to start to kick them out of Ashkelon and Haifa?

In Qatar an ultimatum was issued. See my post “Israel must agree to its own destruction” – Arab League This is more of the same from a previously tacit source – namely king Abdullah.

It’s as if the enmity generated throughout the world by Operation Cast Lead, the move to a right wing government in Israel and the pleasant noises (for Arab ears) emanating from the new administration in Washington have emboldened the Arabs in the belief that the time is ripe to land a killer blow on the Israeli chin or maybe a kick somewhere lower down.

All this might be considered a first round negotiating position, but three significant players are completely ignored in this equation: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

Also on Arutz Sheva this report Hamas: We Will Not Recognize Israel-Period

Hamas leader Ismael Haniya reasserted his faction’s principled refusal to recognize Israel, calling it “the Zionist entity” and claiming it to be an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, according to the Palestine Times. He said that Hamas wouldn’t abandon its principles under pressure. “We will not cave in to pressure, we will not betray our people’s trust, we will not recognize the illegitimate Zionist entity. This has always been our stance, and it will never change.”

Haniya suggested that when it comes to recognizing Israel, the Palestinian Authority represented only itself and not the entire PA Arab population.

Let’s analyse this.  Israel is “an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. So what is it this “principled” people want to do with Israel? 

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” 

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

(http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm)

Hamas are a little hypocritical when it comes to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, don’t you think? Just go to PalestinianMediaWatch (www.pmw.il) to see the depraved depths of their hate-filled rhetoric, their “educational”materials, their blood-libels and then tell me who are the racists and Nazis in the Middle-East.

Hezbollah and Iran have a similar genocidal animus against Israel and the Jews. Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, Islamic Jihad are not exacty Israel or even Jew-friendly.

So let’s see what happens when the Saudi dream is realised. Israel’s borders will be open, the security wall dismantled and those whose professed aim is to kill all Jews and destroy Israel will have a free pass across its borders, along its coastline, in its airspace. Their agents and accomplices will move freely among Jewish Israelis.

So the small matter of the Right of Return for Palestinians is nothing less than a formula for the destruction of Israel and the removal of all rights to self-determination of Jews. So the other points in the formula a little moot. Of course, compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries in 1948 are not part of the equation.

Do the Arab nations really expect this government of all governments to agree to a new Jewish Holocaust? 

Of course they don’t. But what they do want is to be seen as moderate, offering a “peace solution” which Israel will reject out of hand and they can write another chapter in the Book of Historical Revisionism to say “the Jews didn’t want peace. We had no choice but to continue the struggle. They bring it upon themselves.”

Sudan, the convoy and who the real terrorist states are in the Middle East

Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has dropped a very big hint that earlier this year, probably January, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) bombed a convoy of illegal arms on its way to Gaza from Tehran via Sudan and Egypt.

As with the alleged bombing of a Syrian nuclear plant the countries involved are reluctant to admit anything happened because it shows them up for what they are – terrorist states.

It seems there as a cosy little alliance of murderers and genocides (both actual and aspirational) consisting of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Sudan.

A Sudanese minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem told an Arabic news channel that many had been killed in the air strike. Arutz Sheva reports:

a Sudanese spokesman claimed that “more than 100 people” had been killed in the air raid, which he termed “a genocide, committed by U.S. forces.”

When asked how he knew the attackers were American, the spokesman said: “We don’t differentiate between the U.S. and Israel. They are all one.”

This man’s contempt for the word ‘genocide’ in whatever language he was using is an indication of the mentaliy of these atrocious people in the Sudanese government who make Mugabe look like a benevolent democrat.

Meanwhile his government is committing genocide in Darfur supported by the Iranian axis of evil.

Meanwhile Iran WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.

Meanwhile Hamas WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.

Meanwhile Hezbollah WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.

What an attractive little group of murdering, Jew-hating, fanatical, tyrannical,  warmongers they are.

Hey, maybe we can talk to them and persuade them to talk about peace and reconciliation.

Hey, maybe they are really quite nice people with a grievance.

Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they’d all settle down and turn to stamp collecting.

Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they would pursue democracy, peace, education, equality for all their citizens, including women; maybe they wouldn’t teach their children to hate, to glorify murder, to corrupt their own religion.

Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they wouldn’t continue in their stated objective of destroying Israel.

Hey,  maybe Iran really is just developing a nuclear energy programme.

Hey, maybe they wouldn’t dream of threatening Israel and the West with a nuclear weapon.

Hey, maybe Israel isn’t a terrorist state after all.

Hey, maybe Israel is the front line against these these monsters.

Hey, maybe we can learn from Israel how to defend the free world.

Maybe.

Cheer leading for genocide

Whilst President Omar al-Bashir thumbs his nose at the ICC and world opinion, Iran and Hamas have rushed to Khartoum in a solidarity mission.

These two august regimes have denounced the International Criminal Court’s warrant. These are the same regimes who accuse Israel of genocide of the Palestinians.

There is no doubt that the Sudanese government and its supporter’s activities in Darfur represent the clearest example of genocide and war crimes imaginable. But Iran is sending the speaker of their parliament, Ali Larijani whilst Hamas have despatched Moussa Abu Marzouk their second in command in Damascus.

After the ICC warrant  was announced, al-Bashir expelled foreign aid workers further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, an act itself which could be considered a crime against humanity. 2.7 million people have been forced out of their homes and villages. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Tens of thousands of women and young girls raped. 

By supporting such a regime Iran and Hamas show their true colours.  Yet we still have people in this country (UK) and around the world who believe them to be a bulwark against the West, the vanguard of anti-Zionism and the heroes of Islam. 

Meanwhile, the BBC has reported here that the Arab League us asking the UN to defer the warrant for a year.

But look who Sudan’s biggest supporter is. None other than the Tibet-annexing, freedom-suppressing Chinese government who effectively have aligned themselves with Hamas and Iran by complaining to Ban Ki-moon about the warrant and then blocking a French security council statement. For the Chinese their strategic interests in Africa are more important than the lives of millions of Africans – no surprise there.

Meanwhile, on March 3rd, the Libyan ambassador to the UN compared Gaza to Nazi concentration camps. The double standards of the Arab League and many Islamic regimes on the question of Darfur are breathtaking in their hypocrisy.

Iran’s Hogwarts Hogwash

For those of you who doubt that anti-Zionism does not equate to anti-Semitism just look at a recent TimesOnline article by Daniel Finkelstein here:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2009/02/harry-potter-an.html

Iranian TV is ludicrously promulgating Harry Potter movies as part of the Zionist global conspiracy, Jewish corruption of the world’s moral fibre and so on and so on into ever more demented rhetoric. (NB that Zionist=Jewish and please note carefully what is said in the video which makes it clear that Iran makes no distinction between Zionists, Israelis and Jews)

And all this is done by seeming academics in smart suits speaking calmly and eruditely. It would be hard to keep a straight face if it were not so scary.

Although I can’t believe that many Iranians really believe this sort of twaddle, nevertheless, it can, drip by poisonous drip, erode their ability to think rationally.

In the Arab world especially there is an ongoing vicious Jew-hating propaganda industry which now seems to have spread to Iran (which is not an Arab state, of course).

In 1933 much of Europe was primed for genocide. In 2009 it seems that much of the world is moving inexorably toward agitating for a second Holocaust whilst the would-be perpetrators deny the first one.