Does Iran's President wants Israel wiped off the map? (moral, Earth)

[greatcalgarian]

This is not written by me:
To raze Israel to the ground, to batter down, to destroy, to annihilate, to liquidate, to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map - this is what Iran's President demanded - at least this is what we read about or heard of at the end of October 2005. Spreading the news was very effective. This is a declaration of war they said. Obviously government and media were at one with their indignation. It goes around the world.

But let's take a closer look at what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. It is a merit of the 'New York Times' that they placed the complete speech at our disposal. Here's an excerpt from the publication dated 2005-10-30:

"They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan. Let's take a step back. [[[We had a hostile regime in this country which was undemocratic, armed to the teeth and, with SAVAK, its security apparatus of SAVAK [the intelligence bureau of the Shah of Iran's government] watched everyone. An environment of terror existed.]]] When our dear Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian revolution] said that the regime must be removed, many of those who claimed to be politically well-informed said it was not possible. All the corrupt governments were in support of the regime when Imam Khomeini started his movement. [[[All the Western and Eastern countries supported the regime even after the massacre of September 7 [1978] ]]] and said the removal of the regime was not possible. But our people resisted and it is 27 years now that we have survived without a regime dependent on the United States. The tyranny of the East and the West over the world should have to end, but weak people who can see only what lies in front of them cannot believe this. Who would believe that one day we could witness the collapse of the Eastern Empire? But we could watch its fall in our lifetime. And it collapsed in a way that we have to refer to libraries because no trace of it is left. Imam [Khomeini] said Saddam must go and he said he would grow weaker than anyone could imagine. Now you see the man who spoke with such arrogance ten years ago that one would have thought he was immortal, is being tried in his own country in handcuffs and shackles [[[by those who he believed supported him and with whose backing he committed his crimes]]]. Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world."
(source: www.nytimes.com, based on a publication of 'Iranian Students News Agency' (ISNA) -- insertions by the New York Times in squared brackets -- passages in triple squared brackets will be left blank in the MEMRI version printed below)
It's becoming clear. The statements of the Iranian President have been reflected by the media in a manipulated way. Iran's President betokens the removal of the regimes, that are in power in Israel and in the USA, to be possible aim for the future. This is correct. But he never demands the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He reveals that changes are potential. The Shah-Regime being supported by the USA in its own country has been vanquished. The eastern governance of the Soviet Union collapsed. Saddam Hussein's dominion drew to a close. Referring to this he voices his aspiration that changes will also be feasible in Israel respectively in Palestine. He adduces Ayatollah Khomeini referring to the Shah-Regime who in this context said that the regime (meaning the Shah-Regime) should be removed.

Certainly, Ahmadinejad translates this quotation about a change of regime into the occupied Palestine. This has to be legitimate. To long for modified political conditions in a country is a world-wide day-to-day business by all means. But to commute a demand for removal of a 'regime' into a demand for removal of a state is serious deception and dangerous demagogy.

This is one chapter of the war against Iran that has already begun with the words of Georg Meggle, professor of philosophy at the university of Leipzig - namely with the probably most important phase, the phase of propaganda.

Marginally we want to mention that it was the former US Vice-Minister of Defence and current President of the World Bank, Paul D. Wolfowitz, who in Sept. 2001 talked about ending states in public and without any kind of awe. And it was the father of George W. Bush who started the discussion about a winnable nuclear war if only the survival of an elite is assured.

Let's pick an example: the German online-news-magazine tagesschau.de writes the following about Iran's president on 2005-10-27: "There is no doubt: the new wave of assaults in Palestine will erase the stigma in countenance of the Islamic world." Instead of using the original word 'wave' they write 'wave of assaults'. This replacement of the original text is what we call disinformation. E.g. it would be correct to say: "The new movement in Palestine will erase the stain of disgrace from the Islamic world." Additionally this statement refers to the occupation regime mentioned in the previous sentence.

As a precaution we will examine a different translation of the speech - a version prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), located in Washington:

"They [ask]: 'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved. [[[...]]] "'When the dear Imam [Khomeini] said that [the Shah's] regime must go, and that we demand a world without dependent governments, many people who claimed to have political and other knowledge [asked], 'Is it possible [that the Shah's regime can be toppled]?' That day, when Imam [Khomeini] began his movement, all the powers supported [the Shah's] corrupt regime [[[...]]] and said it was not possible. However, our nation stood firm, and by now we have, for 27 years, been living without a government dependent on America. Imam [Khomeni] said: 'The rule of the East [U.S.S.R.] and of the West [U.S.] should be ended.' But the weak people who saw only the tiny world near them did not believe it. Nobody believed that we would one day witness the collapse of the Eastern Imperialism [i.e. the U.S.S.R], and said it was an iron regime. But in our short lifetime we have witnessed how this regime collapsed in such a way that we must look for it in libraries, and we can find no literature about it. Imam [Khomeini] said that Saddam [Hussein] must go, and that he would be humiliated in a way that was unprecedented. And what do you see today? A man who, 10 years ago, spoke as proudly as if he would live for eternity is today chained by the feet, and is now being tried in his own country [[[...]]] Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise. Is it possible that an [Islamic] front allows another front [i.e. country] to arise in its [own] heart? This means defeat, and he who accepts the existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] in fact signs the defeat of the Islamic world. In his battle against the World of Arrogance, our dear Imam [Khomeini] set the regime occupying Qods [Jerusalem] as the target of his fight. I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace [i.e. Israel] will vanish from the center of the Islamic world - and this is attainable."
(source: http://memri.org, based on the publication of 'Iranian Students News Agency' (ISNA) -- insertions by MEMRI in squared brackets -- missing passages compared to the 'New York Times' in triple squared brackets)
The term 'map' to which the media refer at length does not even appear. Whereas the 'New York Times' said: "Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map" the version by MEMRI is: "Imam [Khomeini] said: This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history."

[greatcalgarian]

continue:
Does Iran's President deny the Holocaust?

"The German government condemned the repetitive offending anti-Israel statements by Ahmadinejad to be shocking. Such behaviour is not tolerable, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated. [...] Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed Ahmadinejad's statements to be 'inconceivable'" (published by tagesschau.de 2005-12-14.

But not only the German Foreign Minister Steinmeier and the Federal Chancellor Merkel allege this, but the Bild-Zeitung, tagesschau.de, parts of the peace movement, US-President George W. Bush, the 'Papers for German and international politics', CNN, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, almost the entire world does so, too: Iran's President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust.

What is this assertion based on? In substance it is based on dispatches of 2 days - 2005-12-14 and 2006-02-11.

"The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up his verbal attacks against Israel and the Western states and has denied the Holocaust. Instead of making Israel's attacks against Palestine a subject of discussion 'the Western states devote their energy to the fairy-tale of the massacre against the Jews', Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday in a speech at Zahedan in the south-east of Iran which was broadcasted directly by the news-channel Khabar. That day he stated that if the Western states really believe in the assassination of six million Jews in W.W. II they should put a piece of land in Europe, in the USA, Canada or Alaska at Israel's disposal." - dispatch of the German press agency DPA, 2005-12-14.

The German TV-station n24 spreads the following on 2006-12-14 using the title 'Iran's President calls the Holocaust a myth': "The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up his verbal attacks against Israel and called the Holocaust a 'myth' used as a pretext by the Europeans to found a Jewish state in the center of the Islamic world . 'In the name of the Holocaust they have created a myth and regard it to be worthier than God, religion and the prophets' the Iranian head of state said."

The Iranian press agency IRNA renders Ahmadinejad on 2005-12-14 as follows: "'If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II - which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why the Palestinian nation should pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions.' [...] 'If you have committed the crimes so give a piece of your land somewhere in Europe or America and Canada or Alaska to them to set up their own state there.' [...] Ahmadinejad said some have created a myth on holocaust and hold it even higher than the very belief in religion and prophets [...] The president further said, 'If your civilization consists of aggression, displacing the oppressed nations, suppressing justice-seeking voices and spreading injustice and poverty for the majority of people on the earth, then we say it out loud that we despise your hollow civilization.'"

There again we find the quotation already rendered by n24: "In the name of the Holocaust they created a myth." We can see that this is completely different from what is published by e.g. the DPA - the massacre against the Jews is a fairy-tale. What Ahmadinejad does is not denying the Holocaust. No! It is dealing out criticism against the mendacity of the imperialistic powers who use the Holocaust to muzzle critical voices and to achieve advantages concerning the legitimization of a planned war. This is criticism against the exploitation of the Holocaust.

CNN (2005-12-15) renders as follows: "If you have burned the Jews why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel. Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

The Washingtonian ''Middle East Media Research Institute' (MEMRI) renders Ahmadinejad's statements from 2005-12-14 as follows: "...we ask you: if you indeed committed this great crime, why should the oppressed people of Palestine be punished for it? * [...] If you committed a crime, you yourselves should pay for it. Our offer was and remains as follows: If you committed a crime, it is only appropriate that you place a piece of your land at their disposal - a piece of Europe, of America, of Canada, or of Alaska - so they can establish their own state. Rest assured that if you do so, the Iranian people will voice no objection."

The MEMRI-rendering uses the relieving translation 'great crime' and misappropriates the following sentence at the * marked passage: "Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions." This sentence has obviously been left out deliberately because it would intimate why the Israeli state could have forfeited the right to establish itself in Palestine - videlicet because of its aggressive expansionist policy against the people of Palestine, ignoring any law of nations and disobeying all UN-resolutions.

In spite of the variability referring to the rendering of the statements of Iran's President we should nevertheless note down: the reproach of denying the Holocaust cannot be sustained if Ahmadinejad speaks of a great and huge crime that has been done to the Jews.

In another IRNA-dispatch (2005-12-14) the Arabian author Ghazi Abu Daqa writes about Ahmadinejad: "The Iranian president has nothing against the followers of Judaism [...] Ahmadinejad is against Zionism as well as its expansionist and occupying policy. That is why he managed to declare to the world with courage that there is no place for the Zionist regime in the world civilized community."

It's no wonder that such opinions do not go down particularly well with the ideas of the centers of power in the Western world. But for this reason they are not wrong right away. Dealing out criticism against the aggressive policy of the Western world, to which Israel belongs as well, is not yet anti-Semitism. We should at least to give audience to this kind of criticism - even if it is a problematic field for us.

2006-02-11 Ahmadinejad said according to IRNA: "[...] the real holocaust should be sought in Palestine, where the blood of the oppressed nation is shed every day and Iraq, where the defenceless Muslim people are killed daily. [...] 'Some western governments, in particular the US, approve of the sacrilege on the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), while denial of the >Myth of Holocaust<, based on which the Zionists have been exerting pressure upon other countries for the past 60 years and kill the innocent Palestinians, is considered as a crime' [...]"

The assertion that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust thus is wrong in more than one aspect. He does not deny the Holocaust, but speaks of denial itself. And he does not speak of denial of the Holocaust, but of denial of the Myth of Holocaust. This is something totally different. All in all he speaks of the exploitation of the Holocaust. The Myth of Holocaust, like it is made a subject of discussion by Ahmadinejad, is a myth that has been built up in conjunction with the Holocaust to - as he says - put pressure onto somebody. We might follow this train of thoughts or we might not. But we cannot equalize his thoughts with denial of the Holocaust.

If Ahmadinejad according to this 2006-02-11 condemns the fact that it is forbidden and treated as a crime to do research into the Myth of Holocaust, as we find it quoted in the MEMRI translation, this acquires a meaning much different from the common and wide-spread one. If the myth related to the Holocaust is commuted to a 'Fairy Tale of the Massacre' - like the DPA did - this can only be understood as a malicious misinterpretation.

By the use of misrepresentation and adulteration it apparently succeeded to constitute the statements of the Iranian President to be part and parcel of the currently fought propaganda battle. It is our responsibility to counter this.

http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle12790.htm

[greatcalgarian]

That is the reason why Iran President wanted an open debate with Bush, and he specified that it must be without any censoring, and be direct telecast telebroadcast to every American.

The power of the media in twisting facts can be pretty frightening. In Chinese we call it :
指鹿为马

[greatcalgarian]

From Vancouver, Canada:

Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth
By VIRGINIA TILLEY
Counterpunch
28 August 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Johannesburg, South Africa
In this frightening mess in the Middle East, let's get one
thing straight. Iran is not threatening Israel with
destruction. Iran's president has not threatened any
action against Israel. Over and over, we hear that Iran is
clearly "committed to annihilating Israel" because the
"mad" or "reckless" or "hard-line" President Ahmadinejad
has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel But every
supposed quote, every supposed instance of his doing so,
is wrong.
The most infamous quote, "Israel must be wiped off the
map", is the most glaringly wrong. In his October 2005
speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word "map" or the
term "wiped off". According to Farsi-language experts like
Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he
actually said was "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem
must vanish from the page of time."
What did he mean? In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist
conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not
threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this
line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually
selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as
so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his
audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and
Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and
immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond
recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too,
the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone.
His message was, in essence, "This too shall pass."
But what about his other "threats" against Israel? The
blathersphere made great hay from his supposed comment
later in the same speech, "There is no doubt: the new wave
of assaults in Palestine will erase the stigma in [the]
countenance of the Islamic world." "Stigma" was
interpreted as "Israel" and "wave of assaults" was
ominous. But what he actually said was, "I have no doubt
that the new movement taking place in our dear Palestine
is a wave of morality which is spanning the entire Islamic
world and which will soon remove this stain of disgrace
from the Islamic world." "Wave of morality" is not "wave
of assaults." The preceding sentence had made clear that
the "stain of disgrace" was the Muslim world's failure to
eliminate the "occupying regime".
For months, scholars like Cole and journalists like the
London Guardian's Jonathan Steele have been pointing out
these mistranslations while more and more appear: for
example, Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments at the Organization of
Islamic Countries meeting on August 3, 2006. Radio Free
Europe reported that he said "that the 'main cure' for
crisis in the Middle East is the elimination of Israel."
"Elimination of Israel" implies physical destruction:
bombs, strafing, terror, throwing Jews into the sea. Tony
Blair denounced the translated statement as ""quite
shocking". But Mr. Ahmadinejad never said this. According
to al-Jazeera, what he actually said was "The real cure
for the conflict is the elimination of the Zionist regime,
but there should be an immediate ceasefire first."
Nefarious agendas are evident in consistently translating
"eliminating the occupation regime" as "destruction of
Israel". "Regime" refers to governance, not populations or
cities. "Zionist regime" is the government of Israel and
its system of laws, which have annexed Palestinian land
and hold millions of Palestinians under military
occupation. Many mainstream human rights activists believe
that Israel's "regime" must indeed be transformed,
although they disagree how. Some hope that Israel can be
redeemed by a change of philosophy and government (regime)
that would allow a two-state solution. Others believe that
Jewish statehood itself is inherently unjust, as it embeds
racist principles into state governance, and call for its
transformation into a secular democracy (change of
regime). None of these ideas about regime change signifies
the expulsion of Jews into the sea or the ravaging of
their towns and cities. All signify profound political
change, necessary to creating a just peace.
Mr. Ahmadinejad made other statements at the Organization
of Islamic Countries that clearly indicated his
understanding that Israel must be treated within the
framework of international law. For instance, he
recognized the reality of present borders when he said
that "any aggressor should go back to the Lebanese
international border". He recognized the authority of
Israel and the role of diplomacy in observing, "The
circumstances should be prepared for the return of the
refugees and displaced people, and prisoners should be
exchanged." He also called for a boycott: "We also propose
that the Islamic nations immediately cut all their overt
and covert political and economic relations with the
Zionist regime." A double bushel of major Jewish peace
groups, US church groups, and hordes of human rights
organizations have said the same things.
A final word is due about Mr. Ahmadinejad's "Holocaust
denial". Holocaust denial is a very sensitive issue in the
West, where it notoriously serves anti-Semitism. Elsewhere
in the world, however, fogginess about the Holocaust
traces more to a sheer lack of information. One might
think there is plenty of information about the Holocaust
worldwide, but this is a mistake. (Lest we be snooty,
Americans show the same startling insularity from general
knowledge when, for example, they live to late adulthood
still not grasping that US forces killed at least two
million Vietnamese and believing that anyone who says so
is anti-American. Most French people have not yet accepted
that their army slaughtered a million Arabs in Algeria.)
Skepticism about the Holocaust narrative has started to
take hold in the Middle East not because people hate Jews
but because that narrative is deployed to argue that
Israel has a right to "defend itself" by attacking every
country in its vicinity. Middle East publics are so used
to western canards legitimizing colonial or imperial
takeovers that some wonder if the six-million-dead
argument is just another myth or exaggerated tale. It is
dismal that Mr. Ahmadinejad seems to belong to this
ill-educated sector, but he has never been known for his
higher education.
Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad did not say what the US
Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy reported that he said:
"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and
place this above God, religions and the prophets." He
actually said, "In the name of the Holocaust they have
created a myth and regard it to be worthier than God,
religion and the prophets." This language targets the myth
of the Holocaust, not the Holocaust itself - i.e., "myth"
as "mystique", or what has been done with the Holocaust.
Other writers, including important Jewish theologians,
have criticized the "cult" or "ghost" of the Holocaust
without denying that it happened. In any case, Mr.
Ahmadinejad's main message has been that, if the Holocaust
happened as Europe says it did, then Europe, and not the
Muslim world, is responsible for it.
Why is Mr. Ahmadinejad being so systematically misquoted
and demonized? Need we ask? If the world believes that
Iran is preparing to attack Israel, then the US or Israel
can claim justification in attacking Iran first. On that
agenda, the disinformation campaign about Mr.
Ahmadinejad's statements has been bonded at the hip to a
second set of lies: promoting Iran's (nonexistent) nuclear
weapon programme.
The current fuss about Iran's nuclear enrichment program
is playing out so identically to US canards about Iraq's
WMD that we must wonder why it is not meeting only roaring
international derision. With multiple agendas regarding
Iran -- oil, US hegemony, Israel, neocon fantasies of a
"new Middle East" -- the Bush administration has raised a
great international scare about Iran's nuclear enrichment
program. (See Ray Close, Why Bush Will Choose War Against
Iran.) But, plowing through Iran's facilities and records,
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have found
no evidence of a weapons program. The US intelligence
community hasn't found anything, either.
All experts concur that, even if Iran has such a program,
it is five to ten years away from having the enriched
uranium necessary for an actual weapon, so pre-emptive
military action now is hardly necessary. Even the recent
report by the Republican-dominated Subcommittee on
Intelligence Policy, which pointed out that the US
government lacks the intelligence on Iran's weapons
program necessary to thwart it, effectively confirms that
the supposed "intelligence" is patchy and inadequate.

Virginia Tilley is a professor of political science, a US
citizen working in South Africa, and author of The
One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the
Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock (University of Michigan Press
and Manchester University Press, 2005). She can be reached
at tilley@hws.edu.
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/?q=node/2374

[Ody]

I guess wikiquote/CNN is Zionist propaganda?

[greatcalgarian]

The Bush administration's casual neglect of North Korea's nuclear program indicates that nuclear weapons are not, in fact, the issue here. The neocons are intent on changing the regime in Iran and so have deployed their propagandists to promote the "nuclear weapons" scare just they promoted the Iraqi WMD scare. Republican rhetoric and right-wing news commentators have fallen into line, obediently repeating baseless assertions that Iran has a "nuclear weapons program," is threatening the world and
especially Israel with its "nuclear weapons program," and must not be allowed to complete its "nuclear weapons program." Those who nervously point out that hard evidence is actually lacking about any Iranian "nuclear weapons program" are derided as naive and spineless patsies.
Worse, the Bush administration has brought this snow-job
to the UN, wrangling the Security Council into passing a
resolution (SC 1696) demanding that Iran cease nuclear
enrichment by August 31 and warning of sanctions if it
doesn't. Combined with its abysmal performance regarding
Israel's assault on Lebanon, the Security Council has
crumbled into humiliating obsequious incompetence on this
one.
Like all phantasms, the nuclear-weapons charge is hard to
defeat because it cannot be entirely disproved. Maybe some
Iranian scientists, in some remote underground facility,
are working on nuclear weapons technology. Maybe feelers
to North Korea have explored the possibilities of getting
extra components. Maybe an alien spaceship once crashed in
the Nevada desert. Normally, just because something can't
be disproved does not make it true. But in the neocon
world, possibilities are realities, and a craven press is
there to click its heels and trumpet the scaremongering
headlines. It doesn't take much, through endless
repetition of the term "possible nuclear weapons program,"
for the word "possible" to drop quietly away.
Evidence is, in any case, a mere detail to the Bush
administration, for which the desire for nuclear weapons
is sufficient cause for a pre-emptive attack. In US
debates prior to invading Iraq, people sometimes insisted
that any real evidence of WMD was sorely lacking. The
White House would then insist that, because Saddam Hussein
"wanted" such weapons, he was likely to have them sometime
in the future. Hence thought crimes, even imaginary
thought crimes, are now punishable by military invasion.
Will the US really attack Iran? US generals are rightly
alarmed that bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would
unleash unprecedented attacks on US occupation forces in
Iraq, as well as US bases in the Gulf. Iran could even
block the Straits of Hormuz, which carries 40 percent of
the world's oil. Spin-off terrorist militancy would
skyrocket. The potential damage to international security
and the world economy would be unfathomably dangerous. The
Bush administration's necons seems capable of any
insanity, so none of this may matter to them. But even the
neocons must be taking pause since Israel failed to knock
out Hizbullah using the same onslaught from the air
planned for Iran.
But Israel can attack Iran, and this may be the plan.
Teaming up, the two countries could compensate for each
other's strategic limitations. The US has been
contributing its superpower clout in the Security Council,
setting the stage for sanctions, knowing Iran will not
yield on its enrichment program. Having cultivated a
(mistaken) international belief that Iran is threatening a
direct attack on Israel, the Israeli government could then
claim the right of self-defense in taking unilateral
pre-emptive action to destroy the nuclear capacity of a
state declared in breach of UN directives. Direct
retaliation by Iran against Israel is impossible because
Israel is a nuclear power (and Iran is not) and because
the US security umbrella would protect Israel. Regional
reaction against US targets might be curtailed by the
(scant) confusion about indirect US complicity.
In that case, what we are seeing now is the US creating
the international security context for Israel's unilateral
strike and preparing to cover Israel's back in the
aftermath.
Is this really the plan? Some evidence suggests that it is
on the table. In recent years, Israel has purchased new
"bunker-busting" missiles, a fleet of F-16 jets, and three
latest-technology German Dolphin submarines (and ordered
two more)- i.e., the appropriate weaponry for striking
Iran's nuclear installations. In March 2005, the Times of
London reported that Israel had constructed a mock-up of
Iran's Natanz facility in the desert and was conducting
practice bombing runs. In recent months, Israeli officials
have openly stated that if the UN fails to take action,
Israel will bomb Iran.
But Hizbullah, Iran's ally, still threatens Israel's
flank. Hence attacking Hizbullah was more than a "demo"
for attacking Iran, as Seymour Hersh reported; it was
necessary to attacking Iran. Israel failed to crush
Hizbullah, but the outcome may be better for Israel now
that Security Council Resolution 1701 has made the entire
international community responsible for disarming
Hizbullah. If the US-sponsored 1701 effort succeeds, the
attack on Iran is a go.
As Israel and the US try to make that deeply flawed plan
work, we will doubtless continue to read in every forum
that Iran's president - a hostile, irrational, Jew-hating,
Holocaust-denying Islamo-fascist who has threatened to
"wipe Israel off the map" -- is demonstrably irrational
enough to commit national suicide by launching a
(nonexistent) nuclear weapon against Israel's mighty
nuclear arsenal. The message is being hammered home:
against this media-created myth, Israel must truly "defend
itself."

[kai]

Oh he didnt mean it
Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister, told reporters in Brussels on Monday: "Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...C764F69F9B

Mottaki must have missunderstood as well he thought he said map not time

[greatcalgarian]

Originally Posted by ‡Âlãn‡

I guess wikiquote/CNN is Zionist propaganda?

Western media disinformation service may or may not be solely controlled by Zionists, but Zionist influence is indeniable. However, my own feeling is that US neocon is the actual master in controlling the western media.

Wiki, claim to be neutral, but you do not see Muslim going in to edit the pages? The reason is that Wiki has a very wide audience, and certain control has to be put in place. For example, RF has very little audience, and the Zionist/Neocon/CIA/FBI could not be bother to spend their energy to try to control the flow of opinions in this forum. However, if you look and study carefully, you find lots of time the thread is being hijacked, or purposely inserted inflamatory and heated arguement so that the administrators have a good reason to go in and close off that thread.