A world without Israel or a UN without Iran?

October 27, 2005 10:53 AM

Newsfilter:If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of Israel, would anybody listen? Apparently this time they are. While vague threats from Iran are a dime a dozen, "Since 1945, the establishment of the United Nations, no head of state which is a member of the United Nations ever called for the destruction of another member of the United Nations, publicly and clearly, as the president of Iran did." according to Shimon Peres, in demanding that Iran be expelled from the UN for the statement. Much of the world seems pretty upset (including the US, who's destruction was also called for on this merry "World without Zionism" conference), but will it lead to anything, or is it just a ratcheting up of the hyperbole between Iran and the IAEA?
posted by loquax (111 comments total)

I am pretty sure the late Ayatollah Kohemini was calling for the destruction of Israel many years before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office.
posted by chunking express at 10:56 AM on October 27, 2005

Some choice quotes from the address:

"Israel must be wiped off the map"

"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury"

"The world arrogant powers founded the Zionist regime at the heart of the Muslim world as a base for their own expansionist intentions."

...and the reaction:

"It is inconceivable that the head of a nation that is a member at the UN would call for genocide. His call stands against the UN charter and constitutes a crime against humanity." - Peres

"We saw already crazy declarations, and crazy appearances in the past, sometimes we did not take it very seriously. But when you see such a crazy declaration being done by an elected head of state, a member of the United Nations, it is unbearable, you cannot remain a member, or you have to change the charter" - Peres

"Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said the same thing not long ago when he said that one missile from Iran to Israel could destroy the Jewish state. We should know that this type of regime is a very extreme one. We believe that the time has come to move Iran to the [UN] Security Council, and the sooner the better." - FM Shalom

"It just reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran. It underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear operations" - Scott McLellan

"Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community" - EU Statement
posted by loquax at 11:02 AM on October 27, 2005

Tampa Tribune:
A series of Palestinian Islamic Jihad communiqués posted on the Internet was shown to jurors Tuesday in the terror-support trial of Sami Al-Arian and three other men.

Prosecutors used them to bolster their claim that Islamic Jihad attacks are a form of extortion intended to drive Jews out of Israel.

"Either they leave Palestine or we will make it a graveyard for all of them," stated one Web posting, which listed 196 attacks the group claimed between 1984 and 1999.

They were sorted by year and included the nature of each attack: stabbings, bombings, grenades and others.

"Our daggers and rifles will pursue them until the extraction of the last Jew from our land," was one comment from a 1990 attack.


*pinches jihadist's cheek*
posted by dhoyt at 11:03 AM on October 27, 2005

chunking express makes a good point. Who is the true absolute leader of Iran? It's a guy who has been calling for the destruction of Israel/Jews for a very long time. The elected president of Iran can't conceivably stray all that far from Khomeni anyway.
posted by rxrfrx at 11:05 AM on October 27, 2005

Damn fundamentalists!
This guy reminds me of Falwell and Robertson and Dobson in the US.
posted by nofundy at 11:08 AM on October 27, 2005

Generally speaking, whenever an Iranian official opens their mouth you can expect some kind of psychotic raving. It's probably listed in their job requirements somewhere.

However, I'm still sort of surprised on some level that they & the Pat Robertson/Falwell crew don't seem to get along very well. You'd think they were all clones.
posted by aramaic at 11:09 AM on October 27, 2005

chunking express is right, but this is a *political* leader, not a religious one. It's a different thing -- it's analogous to the Pat-Robertson-wants-to-assasinate-world-leaders fiasco versus if President Bush said "I'll kill Hugo Chavez with my own bare hands!" Big difference, right, even in a nation where the politics and religious machinery are much closer together.

I don't see how we can get Iran kicked out of the United Nations. It would set a bad precendent, even if it were possible, which it's not, because of the regional grouping membership stuff at the UN (basically, all the arab countries are grouped together, so they'd have to vote Iran out... my take on Israel and the U.N. regional grouping bullshit at newzionist.com). So it's a big fat pipe dream, and a not so good precedent anyways.
posted by zpousman at 11:12 AM on October 27, 2005

The difference is the presumable increasing capability of delivering on their threat, as well as the comparative period of calm over the past decade or so when it came to this kind of rhetoric. Also, the call for UN expulsion struck me as rather unusual, and more than a little justified (in theory). I have a feeling that the impact on the nuclear negotiations will be significant, either way.

Nofundy: Yeah, me too. Except without the calls for genocide and the active funding of civilian-targeting terrorists. And the nuclear weapons at their presumable disposal. But otherwise yeah, just like Falwell. Oh well, let's shrug this one off and chalk it up to those crazzzy mullahs, right? What's the latest on the Tom Delay indictment?
posted by loquax at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2005

What a coincidence. There is a guy down on the corner three blocks from my office calling for the destruction of Israel. And for an end to fluoridation. And he wants the government to finally tell the "truth" about Area 51. I wonder if he and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get the same newsletter?
posted by tkchrist at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2005

The rest of the world has been saying that for years.
posted by Adamchik at 11:16 AM on October 27, 2005

To be fair, Ahmadinejad should be called a barely elected political leader. I don't think he speaks for much of Iran. (Or, at the very least, Tehran.) Also, in Iran, the religious leaders have more power than the political ones. The Guardian Council is where the true power of Iran lies, and as such, their words really do supersede those of the heads of state.
posted by chunking express at 11:26 AM on October 27, 2005

Meanwhile at Down With The USA Headquarters ...
posted by rolypolyman at 11:28 AM on October 27, 2005

kicking iran out of the u n isn't going to solve anything ... i can only hope that this is empty rhetoric on iran's part and not an indication that they're considering doing some bat-shit insane things ... unfortunately, we can't be sure

i do know that if they were kicked out, the only levers we would have left would be sanctions and force ... and if force was used, i expect all hell to break loose
posted by pyramid termite at 11:29 AM on October 27, 2005

It pisses me off to hear Ahmedinijad say this. His statement is really, really unhelpful for the Palestinian people, and really, really helpful ammunition for the neoconservative movement.
posted by By The Grace of God at 11:29 AM on October 27, 2005

It's so cute that the Iranian president is saying this right when our neoconservatives at the Pentagon have been kibbutzing with Iranian agents.
posted by johngoren at 11:31 AM on October 27, 2005

Should Israel decide to take out--or try to take out--Iran's nuke capability, they can now site this rabid speech as a threat with substantial potential force behind it and thus justify attacking Iran under the Bush doctrine of premptive first strike.
posted by Postroad at 11:32 AM on October 27, 2005

Except without the calls for genocide and the active funding of civilian-targeting terrorists. And the nuclear weapons at their presumable disposal.

Not well read on your home grown fundamentalists, eh?
posted by nofundy at 11:40 AM on October 27, 2005

For what it's worth (and frankly, I don't think it's worth much), Saeb Erekat has condemned the remarks.

I think the atmosphere must be getting a little thin for the hard-core anti-Zionists. The internal Israeli political calculus now favors disengagement, return of land to the Palestinians, and the eventual recognition of their national sovereignty. Hamas is reduced to blowing themselves up in Gaza city and blaming it on Israel, and Iran has to spout apocalyptic crap like this.

The problem is, of course, that this sort of bellicosity is motivated by internal Iranian political considerations. Nothing would help the religious extremists maintain their hold on power more than a strike against them by Israel or the United States. I'm not terribly convinced that the Bush administration has this figured out, though.
posted by felix betachat at 11:41 AM on October 27, 2005

the Bush doctrine of premptive first strike

I look forward to Venezuelan ninjas going after Pat Robertson ...
posted by carter at 11:50 AM on October 27, 2005

The developed world should kick out the respective resident Iranian ambassadors and stop issuing visas to businesspeople, soccer teams, academics, i.e. all the important people from Iran. Which will piss them off.
And when they complain, give them subtle hints that the situation will improve once they start doing something about that lunatic asshole.
posted by sour cream at 11:50 AM on October 27, 2005

I'm surprised Ahmadinejad didn't say BRING.IT.ON. As felix betachat observed, the way to solidify his base is to encourage the US and Israeli hostility.

The best thing for both to do would be to ignore him.
posted by three blind mice at 11:52 AM on October 27, 2005

Wow sour cream, YES... if only they stopped getting visas for their soccer teams! If only the "developed world" kicked out ambassadors will the Muslim world respond!

That's GENIUS.

And when they complain, give them subtle hints that the situation will improve once they start doing something about that lunatic asshole. For that, well, there are no words.

Please, where's the sour cream manifesto!?!? Because, really, you've taken centuries of conflict, turmoil, blood and hate and found the solution. I bow down to thee.
posted by AspectRatio at 11:56 AM on October 27, 2005

With the geographical mass of Israel comprising roughly 5% of the MidEast region, I can see why countries like Iran & Syria want that sprawling superpower to be reined in.
posted by dhoyt at 11:58 AM on October 27, 2005

There is a world of difference between a palestinian textbook, or individual professors, or religious leaders, or random anti-semites/-zionists when contrasted with the publicly disseminated statements to an audience by the "elected" president of Iran. Dismiss them as the ramblings of a madman to his constituency if you wish, but there was a reason he said what he did. Presumably he doesn't actually intend to eliminate Israel, as it would ensure his own country's destruction, but what does he hope to accomplish by making the most serious threats of mass murder against the people of another country? Especially now that he has the power to carry out his threat, by proxy as they've been trying for years, or directly, as they never been able to do in the past. I would really like to understand his line of reasoning in making these comments now, at the height of negotiations between Iran, the US and the EU over their nuclear program, with the US army on their doorstep, and with Russia now threatening to halt sales of civilian atomic energy technology. Perhaps his goal is to actually be kicked out of the UN, at least then they won't have to pay attention to those silly resolutions and rhetorical platitudes.
posted by loquax at 12:04 PM on October 27, 2005

chunking express is right, but this is a *political* leader, not a religious one. It's a different thing --

Actually, no. Khomeini was the Supreme Leader, i.e. he had political authority as well as religious authority.

Timothy Garton Ash:

Khomeini was both the Lenin and the Stalin of Iran's Islamic revolution. The system he created has some similarities with a communist party-state. In Khomeinism, the Guardianship of the Jurist is an all-embracing political principle that is the functional equivalent of communism's Leading Role of the Party. Here, too, you have parallel hierarchies of ideological and state power, with the former always ultimately trumping the latter. The Islamic Republic's ideological half is almost entirely undemocratic: the Supreme Leader is assisted by a Guardian Council, an Islamic judiciary, and an Assembly of Experts. All of them are dominated by conservative clerics. The state institutions are more democratic, with a genuine if limited competition for power. However, the Guardian Council arbitrarily disqualifies thousands of would-be candidates for parliament, the regime controls the all-important state television channels, and security forces like the Basij militia can both mobilize and intimidate voters, so one cannot seriously talk of free and fair elections.

dhoyt, comparing total area is somewhat misleading, because a lot of the Middle East is empty desert. William Polk's The Arab World Today has some maps near the beginning showing arable land in the various countries in the Middle East; it's eye-opening to see how little there is.

loquax: Presumably he doesn't actually intend to eliminate Israel, as it would ensure his own country's destruction --

loquax, I wouldn't assume that. My assumption is that he's perfectly serious.
posted by russilwvong at 12:13 PM on October 27, 2005

Felix Betachat's dead on with this: This is a speech for internal consumption, and meant to secure the continued support of the hard line while ramping up to make internal reforms (most likely some level of capitulation to the IAEA). Without these declarations of bellicosity, the clerics will have no problem forcing the president to resign.
Last year I had a class with a prof from Syria who talked about what it was like to be offered jobs in Iran and Saudi Arabia. He was told by the faculty that invited him that he'd be asked about Israel, and that he would have to endorse the extermination of their populace and "driving them into the sea" if he wanted the job. He was told that no one on the faculty really believed any of this, but that it was the only way to gain employment since everything was run past religious police, and there would have to be a record of his antipathy towards Israel or there was no way that a foreigner could be elected.
What we're seeing is the heady days of post-Stalinism writ in Farsii.
posted by klangklangston at 12:32 PM on October 27, 2005

felix betachat writes "The problem is, of course, that this sort of bellicosity is motivated by internal Iranian political considerations."

That's insightful. I really think the best course of action on the part of Iran's geopolitical opponents is stern condemnation of these remarks. Anything more strident (sanctions, exclusion from international bodies, military attack) is going to feed the conservatives' internal power base. There's a large educated middle class in Iran, and they're sick of the way things are run. We need to engage with this political class while avoiding fueling the fire of nationalism and xenophobia that benefits the religious leadership.

sour cream writes "...they start doing something about that lunatic asshole."

You miss the point: he's not a lunatic, he's a politician. He's got a reason for saying what he says, and I think felix has nailed it. It's a little alarming to see the Iranian government pander to their political base with no regard to foreign relations. I agree with felix that this must indicate a lack of confidence in their base. If they don't have convenient external enemies, they won't have popular support.

The wild card in this situation is, of course, the nukes. Scary, those nukes.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:33 PM on October 27, 2005

Iran should be kicked out. The UN needs to develop some teeth.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 12:34 PM on October 27, 2005

Pretty_Generic writes "Iran should be kicked out."

How would this course of action lead to anything but an increasingly alienated and bellicose Iran? In real terms, it doesn't address the problem at all.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:37 PM on October 27, 2005

With the geographical mass of Israel comprising roughly 5% of the MidEast region, I can see why countries like Iran & Syria want that sprawling superpower to be reined in.

You'd think they'd all be after the lush green fields of Azerbaijan.
posted by COBRA! at 12:41 PM on October 27, 2005

A profile of Ahmadinejad by Christopher de Bellaigue, from the New York Review of Books. (Subscribers only, sorry.)

Ahmadinejad believes that the two key developments in Iranian history are the advent of Islam and the revolution of 1979. He uses them as rhetorical references, ignoring other events that are tainted with Western notions of democracy. (He distinguishes between the Islamic Republic under Khomeini and the Islamic Republic after Khomeini's death in 1989, when he believes that revolutionary ideals were subverted.) If he were not so clearly an earnest religious zealot, you might accuse him of manipulating history and of treating his constituents like simpletons. But from all appearances, Ahmadinejad is sincere and, for many of his constituents, that quality validates his message, which is pious, reactionary, and seems genuinely unsophisticated.
posted by russilwvong at 12:44 PM on October 27, 2005

In real terms, it doesn't address the problem at all.

But. Then it's perfectly acceptable for UN members to publicly advocate genocide.
posted by tkchrist at 12:48 PM on October 27, 2005

Russilwvong: I agree with you, in terms of his desire to eliminate Israel, but I cannot conceive of a scenario where Iran will directly will willfully act to destroy the country in the foreseeable future, either using conventional or nuclear force. It means guaranteed destruction of Iran, by way of Israel itself or any combination of its allies. Of course, who knows what the future brings, but given the current situation, I cannot see Iran behaving so suicidally.
That being said, it could signify an increased willingness to act through their third party agents, and dramatically increase their sponsorship of terrorists acting against Israel (and others) while maintaining the plausible deniability that has protected Iran from reprisal over the years (see for example the Kohbar tower bombings and the Marine Barracks bombing). Everybody knows that half the terrorists in the world are somehow funded by the Revolutionary guard, and that's only slightly hyperbolic. Mere condemnation of the words isn't good enough. If Iran is allowed to hide behind its weapons and pump out money to fundamentalist terrorists, it's only a matter of time before one of them does something that will justify direct action with disastrous consequences. Something more than a slap on the wrist and nasty letters is necessary I feel, not that I have any idea what that is.
posted by loquax at 12:48 PM on October 27, 2005

tkchrist writes "But. Then it's perfectly acceptable for UN members to publicly advocate genocide."

Not it's not, and it should be condemned in the harshest possible language. Diplomacy is tricky, though. A set of simple universal rules doesn't accommodate the complexities of geopolitics. I think the UN serves its role best as a forum; it should act as a policeman only in the last resort. If members want to say ugly things in that forum: well, it's ugly, but at least they're talking instead of acting.

Consider this sentence to contain the standard boilerplate regarding how the UN is a flawed organization that has failed in the past etc.

loquax writes "That being said, it could signify an increased willingness to act through their third party agents..."

This is an excellent point, and a cause for serious concern. We can hope that events on the ground in Israel/Gaza and Lebanon are working to weaken these agents, as they seem to be. Iraq, though, could be a real source of trouble for years to come....
posted by mr_roboto at 1:06 PM on October 27, 2005

what felix betachat said.



*pinches jihadist's cheek*

just enlist, and you'll be able to pinch them real hard, or even literally shit on them! it's going to be fun!


With the geographical mass of Israel

having nukes really helps enhance the little guys' size -- just like steroids, you can try that, too!
posted by matteo at 1:10 PM on October 27, 2005

How about a "World without Islamism" conference?

I doubt such an event could be held without security incidents. Several security incidents.
posted by clevershark at 1:21 PM on October 27, 2005

I liked Loquax's sneaky conflation of anti-zionism with antisemitism. It seems to have slipped by just about everybody here.
posted by jackbrown at 1:23 PM on October 27, 2005

I doubt such an event could be held without security incidents. Several security incidents.

And suicide bombs.

And matteo, only you would react indignantly at someone poking fun at a JIHADIST for chrissakes. Incredible. Enemy of my enemy & all that.
posted by dhoyt at 1:26 PM on October 27, 2005

If he were not so clearly an earnest religious zealot, you might accuse him of manipulating history and of treating his constituents like simpletons. But from all appearances, Ahmadinejad is sincere and, for many of his constituents, that quality validates his message, which is pious, reactionary, and seems genuinely unsophisticated.

The George W. Bush of Iran?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:27 PM on October 27, 2005

Do you mean to say that the religious leadership of Iran is not anti-semitic, jackbrown?

Actually, I am fully aware of the difference, and did not intend to conflate them, however when people call for the *destruction* of Israel, I think it's safe to assume there's more than a little anti-semitism at work. Not that it matters either way.
posted by loquax at 1:28 PM on October 27, 2005

Also, his cute map fails to show Israel's pile of 200 nuclear warheads. Israel being the only nuclear armed power in the region surely tips the superpower balance a LITTLE, doesn't it, Loquax?
posted by jackbrown at 1:29 PM on October 27, 2005

The George W. Bush of Iran?

Nope. The Yasser Arafat of Iran.

Yo jack, not my map. And if it were, I'd say that Israel has never called for the destruction of its enemies, nor has it acted that way, nor has it expressed glee at the thought of marching those Iranian Muslim bastards into the Persian Gulf and occupying their lands.
posted by loquax at 1:32 PM on October 27, 2005

Wow. It's truly a red-letter day. First the Sox win the series, now matteo agrees with something I've said! I feel like anything could happen.

To be fair, I cribbed from that really excellent article by Timothy Garton Ash that y2karl linked a couple of weeks ago. But since it seems to resonate well, I'll amplify myself.

The U.S. is over-extended in Iraq and facing rising domestic dissatisfaction with Bush's adventurism. Israel is tied up in its own internal political struggles over the disengagement from Gaza and is beginning to build tentative bridges to other Muslim states. Europe is, as it has ever been, divided and ineffective on the subject of middle eastern diplomacy.

So, the issue isn't really why would Ahmadinejad say this, but why wouldn't he? There don't seem to be very many practical repercussions on the horizon and the payoff for his rhetorical boldness at home is evident. Demonizing Israel is a ready weapon for muslim despots. For the Iranian intelligentsia and the western-oriented students, seeing states like Pakistan begin to thaw their relations with Israel could be galvanizing. So, Ahmadinejad needs to beat the Jews to keep the boundaries clear.

With that in mind, actually, I'd be in favor of letting things simmer. Israel obviously has to condemn the remarks; any sovereign state would. And the world community also has to respond with outrage. But the real concern is the domestic climate in Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. We oughtn't rock the boat when it's going where we want it to go.
posted by felix betachat at 1:33 PM on October 27, 2005

Loquax: If your conflation was unintentional, I apologize for the sarcasm.

I would in fact agree with you that the leadership in Iran is probably broadly anti-semitic, in addition to being anti-zionist.

I tend to get very irked when people intentionally confuse the two things, in a political context, in the US. It makes it more difficult to debate the ethics of the situation in Palestine.
posted by jackbrown at 1:35 PM on October 27, 2005

The conference where the speech was delivered sounded to me (as best I can remember from the BBC the other night) like a good-old-fashioned "meeting of the party faithful," i.e., I believe everyone present was handpicked for the occasion and thoroughly vetted for their loyalty and whatnot. Take that as you will.
posted by halcyon_daze at 1:36 PM on October 27, 2005

What loquax said.

And if I went to school every day surrounded on all sides by every dysfunctional, paranoid, hypereligious bully in school who threatened to "wipe me off the map" every few months, I'd probably start protecting myself too, especially if I was a fraction of their physical size.
posted by dhoyt at 1:36 PM on October 27, 2005

Ariel Sharon has done far worse than call for acts of genocide: he's actually committed them.

Not that this in any way excuses Ahmadinejad, who really needs to grow up a little, and learn that the kind of inflammatory racist rhetoric used every day by working-class Iranians is not going to impress anyone on the international stage. This kind of speech obviously plays into Bush's hands, as he tries to create the usual wall of lies and exaggerations to persuade Americans of the need for yet another invasion.

Of course Iran does not have the means to attack Israel. Israel has nukes: Iran is accused of wanting them.

Israel has vast quantities of modern weapons: Iran is accused of wanting them.

Israel has been routinely committing racist crimes against Palestinians for sixty years. Iran is accused of wanting to commit crimes against Israel.

Notice a pattern?

So which is worse: impotently ranting about wanting to commit crimes, or actually committing them? Our media certainly seem to have a clear idea.
posted by cleardawn at 1:39 PM on October 27, 2005

We oughtn't rock the boat when it's going where we want it to go.

I tend to agree with you, but then the question becomes why it's going the way we want it to? Because of withdrawals from Somalia and Lebanon and unilateral concessions on the part of Israel to Palestine, or because of the outright rejection of Arafat internationally post-2000 and the response in Afghanistan and Iraq? Not that I'm advocating invasion by any stretch, or have any better suggestion in this case than letting things simmer as you said.

jackbrown - no problem, it was unintentional and merely an attempt to be brief. I do agree that conflation is a problem in discussing the Palestine/Israel issue, but not so much when it comes to Israel and some of its other neighbours.

impotently ranting about wanting to commit crimes
Of course Iran does not have the means to attack Israel.

I think these statments are false, the rest of your comment notwithstanding. Iran is many things, but it is not impotent.
posted by loquax at 1:45 PM on October 27, 2005

"...you might accuse him of manipulating history and of treating his constituents like simpletons. But from all appearances, Ahmadinejad is sincere and, for many of his constituents, that quality validates his message, which is pious, reactionary, and seems genuinely unsophisticated..."

That reminds me of someone.
posted by Mr T at 1:47 PM on October 27, 2005

oops. I guess that was too obvious, sorry.
posted by Mr T at 1:50 PM on October 27, 2005

I would in fact agree with you that the leadership in Iran is probably broadly anti-semitic, in addition to being anti-zionist.

I think the Iranian government tends to use zionists/Israel interchangeably. I don't think they make any distinction.

As for the rest of the semites, there used to be a saying in post-revolution Iran: "the only difference between the West and the Arabs is the dot over the Ain."

So yes, quite possibly broadly anti-semitic.
posted by halcyon_daze at 1:54 PM on October 27, 2005

loquax, that's a good question. And totally germane. I think the U.S.'s willingness to invade to depose dictators sent a strong message to leaders. And it's inability to manage the post-invasion reality sent an equally strong, albeit opposed message to populations.

So, certain leaders like Mubarak, Hussein and Musharraf have determined that their positions are enhanced by cooperation with the US and Israel. Other leaders, like Ahmadinejad and Assad, have decided their positions are strengthened by pandering to their restive populations in defiance of the U.S. Each is an equally risky proposition. Musharraf could well meet an assassin's bullet in the next year. And an airstrike (or worse) against Syria or Iran is not by any stretch out of the question.

So, in the interest of keeping domestic constituencies quiet, we should support Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan and let things in Iran simmer.
posted by felix betachat at 2:06 PM on October 27, 2005

cleardawn, thanks for that hilarious post.

Israel has been routinely committing racist crimes against Palestinians for sixty years. Iran is accused of wanting to commit crimes against Israel.

An excerpt from Human Rights Watch's '99 report on Iran (99 was the first year that came up)

Executions after unfair trials proliferated, including cases of stoning to death in public. For the first time since 1992 a follower of the Baha’i faith was executed in prison. Other religious minorities, including Sunni Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and Jews were subjected to discrimination and persecution. Prominent dissidents, including writers and editors, were subjected to arbitrary detention and independent newspapers were closed down. New laws were passed discriminating against women and aimed at restricting debate about women’s rights. Torture was widespread during interrogation, and the government failed to take steps to halt violent attacks by vigilante groups which serve as enforcers for conservative clerics, known as the Partisans of the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollahi) . As tensions with the Taleban rulers of neighboring Afghanistan mounted, Afghan refugees, more than a million of whom have lived in Iran for many years seeking refuge from civil war, were attacked and beaten by crowds leading to several deaths.

Hundreds of people were executed after trials that failed to comply with minimum international standards. In June, the daily newspaper Hamshahri, reported the public hanging of four young men in the city of Ahvaz, in the south, for “insulting” Leader Khamene’i and “armed robbery.” Seven people were reported by opposition groups to have been convicted of adultery and stoned to death in October 1997 and six more were reported to have been sentenced to stoning in January. On July 21, Ruhollah Rowhani was executed in the city of Mashhad on charges of converting a Muslim to the Baha’i faith.

You can follow up on how well they've progressed (hint: they haven't) here.
posted by ori at 2:28 PM on October 27, 2005

I'm not for a moment trying to say that Islamic Iran is a nice place to live. Obviously, it's a fundamentalist religious dictatorship, masquerading as a democracy, like far too many other places. It seems to be improving, albeit slowly, and Ahmadinejad seems like a small step in the wrong direction.

Still, Iran's considerably better (from what I've read) than Saudi Arabia, or Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan, to name three regimes that are supported to the hilt by Bush and friends.

One day, Iran probably will not be impotent against Israel. The same goes for all the other enemies that Israel has made through its ongoing abuse of the Palestinians.

Palestine, don't forget, has already been wiped off the map.

The question is how long it is going to take Israel to offer a reasonable, negotiated, good-faith settlement to the Palestinians. When that happens, the root cause of Arab political anti-Semitism will be removed, and peace in the region becomes a possibility.

Even Sharon is beginning to show signs of acknowledging that, so for him, this kind of posturing about Ahmadinejad's empty rhetoric is a very timely distraction from the current pain of internal Israeli politics.

(On the other hand, the scriptural causes of anti-Semitism will remain a problem until such time as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have been outgrown and rejected by a substantial majority of citizens in every country - not least Israel. Let's hope it only takes one more generation).
posted by cleardawn at 2:40 PM on October 27, 2005

Wow. That iraq war idea sure has done a great job in stabilizing and de-WMDing the middle east.
posted by delmoi at 2:55 PM on October 27, 2005

I see this "batshit-insane" speech perhaps intended to capture international attention. Iran sees North Korea, all cushy and immunized against American imperialism, and wants to capture that special blend of nukes & nuts. What better way to secure future sovereignty?
posted by mek at 3:11 PM on October 27, 2005

"special blend of nukes & nuts"
(Oh man, this is so tempting for a "Metafilter: [...]" line)
posted by lenny70 at 3:23 PM on October 27, 2005

One day, Iran probably will not be impotent against Israel. The same goes for all the other enemies that Israel has made through its ongoing abuse of the Palestinians.

This is regretable bullshit, as solidarity with the Palestinians never informed the hatred of Israel in the Arab world.

You should start with the wikipedia article for the West Bank, which will remind you that "the territories now known as the West Bank were almost entirely reserved by the 1947 UN Partition Plan for an Arab state...While a Palestinian Arab state failed to materialize, the territory was captured by the neighboring kingdom of Jordan. It was annexed by Jordan in 1950 but this annexation was recognized only by the United Kingdom."

You can read about how "[a]bout 450,000 Palestinians lived in Kuwait before the Iraqi invasion. Most were expelled or pressured to leave after liberation, and the Palestinian community has dwindled to around 9,000.". Saudi Arabia did the same to Palestinians living within the kingdom.

The most poignant account of Arab "solidarity" with Palestinians that I've read can be viewedhere. Here are some select quotes:
---------------

Arab states, which have fought four wars against Israel in the name of Palestine, maintain that to grant them citizenship would be to give up on their dream of returning to the homes they lost when the Jewish state was created.

But to the Palestinians, the wars were fought as much out of self-interest as concern for the Palestinians, that the verbal championing of their cause is rhetoric to rally the Arab states' own masses, and that it isn't matched by decent treatment of the refugees.

"It is an evil hypocrisy," said prominent Palestinian writer Mureed al-Barghouti, who lives in Cairo. "The language of the (Arab) governments and media is in one direction and the real practices on the ground are totally the opposite."

Libya deported around 30,000 in 1995-96 because its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, opposed peace accords signed between Israel and Arafat. Kuwait expelled hundreds because Arafat sided with Saddam Hussein after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

"For 55 years now, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have been oppressed and robbed of their most basic civil rights," said Ibrahim al-Shayeb, who lives in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp -- Lebanon's largest -- and works for the PLO's media office.

Palestinians in Egypt suffer restrictions on employment, education and owning property. When Egypt announced in September it would grant nationality to children of Egyptian mothers married to foreigners, it did not include Palestinians.

-------------------------------------

I'll just conclude with your original statement, which reads like a suitable punchline for a joke:

enemies that Israel has made through its ongoing abuse of the Palestinians
posted by ori at 3:50 PM on October 27, 2005

Still, Iran's considerably better (from what I've read) than Saudi Arabia, or Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan ...

And how does Iran compare to Israel?

If Iran's violations of human rights are comparable to Israel's, or even worse, why do you spend disproportionate time on Israel's violations of human rights? (This isn't an attack on cleardawn; I just think it's an example of E. H. Carr's observation that injustices against the powerful--the Arab and Muslim world, in this case--get more attention than injustices against the weak. Compare the Palestinians to the Tibetans. If the Palestinians didn't have their fellow Arabs and Muslims backing them, how much attention would they get?)

The question is how long it is going to take Israel to offer a reasonable, negotiated, good-faith settlement to the Palestinians.

Here's a map showing Barak's offer at Taba: 95% of the West Bank (minus 5% containing 65% of West Bank settlers), plus a 3% land-swap.

You need both sides to make a deal, and for whatever reason, Arafat decided he could get a better deal by holding out.
posted by russilwvong at 4:04 PM on October 27, 2005

This is regretable bullshit, as solidarity with the Palestinians never informed the hatred of Israel in the Arab world.


Er, and what has that to do with definitely non-Arab Iran?

Sorry to be pedantic, but I get that reaction when presented with an obvious collection of talking points...
posted by Skeptic at 4:05 PM on October 27, 2005

Skeptic: You should probably ask cleardawn.
posted by loquax at 4:09 PM on October 27, 2005

Skeptic: Substitute "Arab and Muslim world" for "Arab world."

(A semi-amusing note: Malaysia's Mahatir has called Singapore "the Zionists of Asia." When Singapore was kicked out of the Malayan Federation in the early 1960s and had to set up its own military defenses, it brought in some Israeli advisors; to avoid trouble with Malaysia and Indonesia, the Israelis pretended they were Mexicans. This was long before the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.)
posted by russilwvong at 4:13 PM on October 27, 2005

One counterpoint to ori's comments on Arab mistreatment of Palestinians: Jordan has granted citizenship to Palestinian refugees (as noted in the article he linked). As far as I know, it's the only Arab country to do so.
posted by russilwvong at 4:15 PM on October 27, 2005

it should be condemned in the harshest possible language

oooooh. Harsh language! Not that! And then after the tongue lashing?

Harsh language. You gotta be fucking kidding me, right?
posted by tkchrist at 4:37 PM on October 27, 2005

Any Palestinian travelling in the Arab world is greeted with open arms by his Arab brothers, and the same is true generally in the larger Muslim world. Everyone feels badly for them given their situation, the loss of property and position the endured, their poor leadership, and brutal mistreatment at the hands of their occupiers. There is no single cause that has even 1/1000th the emotional resonance in the Arab world.

Israelis love to point to the bad treatment of Arabs by Arab governments, for obvious reasons.

But Arab governments are a different story all together from the views and beliefs of their citizens, because they are exactly as described by many above-- not in line with their citizens. Arab governments fear/distrust Palestinian Arabs because they tend to be well educated, pro free-market, anti-establishment, pro-Western, pro-Democracy, etc. Their presence can be destabalizing.

The Kuwait thing had to do with Arafat supporting Saddam Hussein in the gulf war.
posted by cell divide at 4:47 PM on October 27, 2005

Ori, you have a strange sense of humor.

Discussions about Israel's state policy of ethnic cleansing, and the mass murders committed by Ariel Sharon, are not hilarious. They are not punchlines for a joke. Your words say a lot about your state of mind. I wish you all the best with it.

Russil, you know perfectly well that Israel's systematic displacement and impoverishment of millions of Palestinians - based purely on ethnic grounds - is a massive abuse of human rights, and merits discussion, whatever the fundamentalist excesses of revolutionary Iran. As to which is worse, it's a strange and unnecessary calculation. Certainly Israel's abuse of Palestians is not in any way excused, or even mitigated, by the Iranians executing political opponents.

As for your claim that the Muslims are "strong" compared to the "weak" US and Israel, poor malnourished underdogs that they are ... well, it's not one of your more convincing lines of reasoning, I'm afraid.
posted by cleardawn at 5:37 PM on October 27, 2005

Tony Blair:

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday called comments by Iran's president "completely and totally unacceptable."

"I felt a real sense of revulsion at those remarks," said Blair, who spoke at a press briefing after a European Union summit near London.

"There has been a long time in which I've been answering questions on Iran with everyone saying to me 'tell us you're not going to do anything about Iran,'" he said.

"If they carry on like this, the question people are going to be asking us is, 'When are you going to do something about this,' because you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon."

More from Iran and Mr. Ahmainejad:

“The world will see the anger of the Islamic world against this regime,” state-run television quoted him as telling ambassadors from Islamic countries. He added that the “Zionist regime is illegitimate.”

On Wednesday, President Mahmoudd Ahmainejad told students that Israel should be destroyed. In a speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad also said a new wave of Palestinian attacks against Israel “will wipe this stigma from the face of the Islamic world.”

Looks like their friends in Islamic Jihad got things started. Strange that they're ignoring the pleas of the duly elected government of the state of Palestine, and instead listening to their paymasters in Tehran. Obviously Mr. Ahmainejad has the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart. I blame the coming deaths from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and the West Bank on him and Iran, fully and completely.
posted by loquax at 6:09 PM on October 27, 2005

Harsh language. You gotta be fucking kidding me, right?

Do you have any coherent response to my analysis, or are you just going to behave like a child?
posted by mr_roboto at 6:28 PM on October 27, 2005

Clearly from the debate here on MeFi, which is, in the grand scheme of things a place where reasonably well informed smart people try to debate things calmly, we can see that the rhetoric has enough fire behind it to really cause problems and that basically we can just wait until air raids are conducted by one of the beligerent parties.

I, for one, will then welcome $100+ Barrel Oil prices when the Iranians mine the Straits of Hormuz.

Start riding yer bikes folks. Things are going to get rocky.
posted by sien at 6:39 PM on October 27, 2005

Afghanistan > Iraq > Libya > Lebanon >Egypt (un peu) > Syria > IRAN.

The sanity wave will get to Iran sometime in the next two years. I'm hoping we invade Syria soon so as to isolate Iran as much as possible. And here's hoping for joint Israeli/American air strikes on Iran ASAP!
posted by ParisParamus at 7:51 PM on October 27, 2005

Air strikes will solve all the worlds problems!!!
posted by chunking express at 8:09 PM on October 27, 2005

Well, they did prevent Hussein from having nuclear weapons in 1981, so they probably solved Iran's problems at one point.
posted by loquax at 8:14 PM on October 27, 2005

So, just to check : leader of nation that is (allegedly) developing a nuke engages in massive hyperbole designed to play well to the religious types at home : outrage from world leaders, calls for expulsion, sanctions, etc.

other leader, of country that has thousands of nukes, engages in massive INVASION of country to satiate revenge-minded types at home and to distract them from fact that whole war on abstract concept isn't working out too well : chirping crickets

Tony Blair has no ethical problem with aligning with a country that invades upon the slightest pretext, subsequently found to be outright falsehoods, leading to the deaths of thousands ... but he's "revulsed" by the essentially impotent words of another leader. What a douche that man is. I guess George gave him some help with the speech.
posted by kaemaril at 8:17 PM on October 27, 2005

PP, I hope that sanity wave finds you soon.
posted by cleardawn at 8:23 PM on October 27, 2005

Chirping crickets? Seriously? Chirping crickets? Is this your first time on Metafilter?

Leaving aside your charges of hypocrisy for a second, what do the policies of George Bush and Tony Blair have to do with Ahmainejad's deep desire to destroy the state of Israel, and his ongoing funding of the slaughtering of civilians by design? It isn't hyperbole. Iranian agents have killed hundreds if not thousands of Israelis over the years. You may have heard of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, among others. To Ahmainejad, this is slacking, and it's time to show the Zionists he means business. If you hate Bush and Blair's "actions", shouldn't you deplore Ahmainejad's as well, without these qualifications?
posted by loquax at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2005

" Air strikes will solve all the worlds problems!!!"

No, but they can disable a few nuclear facilities, and kill or shut up a few insane leaders.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:28 PM on October 27, 2005

"Leaving aside your charges of hypocrisy"? OK, well, leaving aside your charges, what say we talk about the weather in Chicago? How is it? Do you happen to know, by any chance? I was just wondering.

Yes, chirping crickets. How many world leaders called for the US to be expelled from the UN? What serious attempts to censure George Bush and Blair were made? Whilst Bush was describing his crusade I didn't see huge numbers of UN types calling for the expulsion of a nation whose leader was talking about a holy war ... oh, or was he just engaging in hyperbole?

Out of interest, how deep do Ahmainejad's convictions go? You seem to think they run deep, but just because he says it doesn't make it so. He is, after all a politician. Maybe I'm just too cynical, or maybe he's more interested in staying in power than he is interested in religious crusades to eliminate the infidel. You know, playing to the religious types? Hmmm... I know another world leader who that has been said of...

Oh, and what makes you think I don't deplore this Ahmainejad 's actions/word as well? I'm sorry, did I fail to register enough disgust whilst expressing my own disgust at the hypocrisy of MY elected leader? Is there some manner of rule I'm missing about balancing the disgust scales? If I say I'm "very disgusted" at Blair what's the appropriate level of disgust I SHOULD be expressing at Ahmainejad's? "Extremely disgusted"? "Totally, overwhelmingly disgusted"? Or should I be expressing my desire for him to be whacked by the CIA to adequately convince you I'm not a rabid Bush-hater who'd kill a whole bunch of puppies if I thought it would convince just one more person Bush and Blair are naughty?
posted by kaemaril at 8:49 PM on October 27, 2005

42 °F / 6 °C, Mostly Cloudy
posted by ori at 9:05 PM on October 27, 2005

Sweet. Thanks, Ori.
posted by kaemaril at 9:09 PM on October 27, 2005

You seem to think they run deep, but just because he says it doesn't make it so.

Iran directly funds the terrorist groups attacking Israel now. There is no doubting this. These aren't just idle threats.

oh, or was he just engaging in hyperbole?

Bush never called for the destruction of a country, or the death of a religion, or the expulsion of an ethnic group. He speaks of ending tyranny, freeing people, and and killing terrorists. You may disagree with both his words and actions, but his brand of hyperbole is very different from that of the Iranian leadership. And he and Blair are far more accountable to their electorates than the leadership of Iran. And it prompts outrage from every corner of the media, of the Internet, of the UN and protests in major cities across the world. Big ones, with millions of people. I wonder where the protests against Iran will be held?

Oh, and what makes you think I don't deplore this Ahmainejad 's actions/word as well?

I apologize if I implied that I thought you supported him, but I do think it's strange that in a thread about Iran's expressed desire to wipe out the country of Israel and its people, many of the comments here have been condemnations of American or Israeli policies. There's a place and a time for that of course (say, for instance, the 5-10 posts on the main page at any given time), but personally, I think that these comments by Ahmainejad can stand on their own and serve notice of what the next few years might be like in Iran without qualifying responses to it by citing rather irrelevant (and dubious) equivalencies. Iran and others have wanted Israel destroyed since its creation, before Bush, before Blair, before anyone had heard of a Palestinian. The difference is that Iran is far more capable of doing something about it now.

OK, well, leaving aside your charges, what say we talk about the weather in Chicago? How is it? Do you happen to know, by any chance? I was just wondering.

Low 60's but sunny for the parade tomorrow!
posted by loquax at 9:09 PM on October 27, 2005

The Kuwait thing had to do with Arafat supporting Saddam Hussein in the gulf war.

Oh, so it's okay then. I mean, if some charlatan in another country claiming to represent a immigrant community does something questionable, they should be kicked out of the country. I guess you support the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
posted by ori at 9:09 PM on October 27, 2005

Oh, ori beat me to it. Nevermind.
posted by loquax at 9:09 PM on October 27, 2005

He speaks of ending tyranny, freeing people, and and killing terrorists.

Like all politicians, his words and his deeds do not necessarily have a direct correlation. I daresay many of the terrorists killing Israeli's would spin you a line about ending Israeli oppression, freeing Palestine from the yoke of occupation, etc. Any abomination dressed up with fine words is still an abomination.

You may disagree with both his words and actions, but his brand of hyperbole is very different from that of the Iranian leadership.
If by that you mean his speechwriters are smart enough to know that they can only imply death to the towelheads! and not come out and say it, absolutely. They just let their mouthpieces speak for them. How much of a ticking off do you suppose Ann Coulter was getting on a daily basis when she was talking about forcible conversions?

And he and Blair are far more accountable to their electorates than the leadership of Iran.

So what? Just lie to 'em. Psst! Hey! Big bad Iran with all the nukes Saddam gave them so we wouldn't find them* wants to kill poor defenceless Israel! You guys won't mind if we invade, right? Oh, hey, not just that ... that Ahmainiwozname guy? Eats babies. No, it's true, we've got satellite pictures. Colin Powell won't be available to show them to the UN, but Jack Straw's volunteered to take his place...

And it prompts outrage from every corner of the media, of the Internet, of the UN and protests in major cities across the world. Big ones, with millions of people.
Every corner? *cough*Fox News*cough*

As to protests ... Yes, big ones which get ignored. Big ones where people are arrested for not being in designated free-speech zones. Big ones which Republican (and labour) spin doctors spin merrily away against as the ravings of a few peaceniks. Hey, there was close to a million, you say? No, it was more like 20,000. And they were all hippies...

I wonder where the protests against Iran will be held?
Don't know. Depends which buildings the CIA can get booked at such short notice, I suppose. This is too good an opportunity to miss!

* Any bet some talking-head won't be using that idea at some point? No, I know it's nonsense. That's never been a showstopper before, why should it be now?
posted by kaemaril at 9:33 PM on October 27, 2005

cleardawn: As for your claim that the Muslims are "strong" compared to the "weak" US and Israel--

Sorry, I wasn't clear. That's not my claim. I'm saying that if you look at the Muslim world as a whole compared to groups such as the Tibetans (not compared to the US and Israel!), the Muslim world clearly has considerable power--by sheer numbers (one billion) as well as the oil weapon demonstrated in 1973 and 1979. The Tibetans have similar grievances (brutal occupation by a foreign power), but little or no power, so their grievances receive comparatively little attention. A similar example would be the East Timorese under Indonesian occupation.

As E. H. Carr writes in The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1939-1939 (2nd ed.), p. 236:
The fatal dualism of politics will always keep considerations of morality entangled with considerations of power. We shall never arrive at a political order in which the grievances of the weak and the few receive the same prompt attention as the grievances of the strong and the many.

Again, I'm not attacking you or criticizing you for not paying attention to oppression in Iran. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is vitally important to international politics, precisely because it affects relations between the Arab and Muslim countries and the rest of the world, in a way that oppression within Iran is not. But it does mean that oppression in Iran may well be much worse than that in the Occupied Territories--from a purely human rights perspective--without getting much attention from the outside world.

If you want to learn more, here's a letter published in the New York Review of Books recently: Letter from Evin Prison, by Akbar Ganji (he's a journalist who's been in prison since 2000). Shaul Bakhash provides some context.

loquax: Iran and others have wanted Israel destroyed since its creation, before Bush, before Blair, before anyone had heard of a Palestinian.

Minor correction: Iran under the Shah had pretty good relations with Israel. The history of the Middle East is exceedingly complicated.
posted by russilwvong at 10:40 PM on October 27, 2005

A lot of my fellow Iranian expats (who are obviously opposed to the Islamic regime in Iran) are actually happy about Ahmadinejad becoming president. This guy has been in power a short while, and he's already stirred up so much shit that many think he's inadvertently putting nails in the Islamic Republic's coffin. As others have noted, he's giving Israel or the US carte blanche to carry out air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and he's alienated European countries that have tried mending fences with Iran. Khatami was an ineffectual moderate who ultimately didn't accomplish anything, yet his sensibility prolonged the mullahs' stranglehold on Iran.

Oh, and Israel has never said they want Iran wiped off the map, but they've been pushing for war (actually they'd rather the US did their dirty work for them) with Iran which would obviously kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranians. And we all know about their treatment of Palestinians and how so many of their leaders have been war criminals themselves. So I understand that they'd be very upset about Ahmadinejad's comments, but they shouldn't act like their shit doesn't stink.

Btw, I don't think this is the first time in the modern era the leader of a nation has made such incendiary remarks. Khruschchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN and saying "we shall bury you" was just as bad if not worse, because the USSR actually had the capability to carry out its threat.
posted by Devils Slide at 11:14 PM on October 27, 2005

h, so it's okay then. I mean, if some charlatan in another country claiming to represent a immigrant community does something questionable, they should be kicked out of the country. I guess you support the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

Let me be clear: I loathe the governments of every middle eastern country, and I loathe the government of Israel least because it is a democracy and at the very least reflective of the country's moods and positions.

I was only making the point that the Arab/Muslim people need to be separated fron the Arab/Muslim governments to a great extent. To only do so when it is convenient or to support an invasion is just as criminal as not standing up to bad and/or evil governance.

Too often I see commentators conflating the people, whose complaints about Israel and its policies are often legitimate, and the governments, who use such complaints to mask their own repression and failings. To accuse me of thus supporting internment of Japanese Americans is obscene-- my point is to be against all agents of tyranny, not to excuse it. If you are hyper-sensitive to any position not your own, I could see how you might get confused.
posted by cell divide at 12:20 AM on October 28, 2005

First of all, that Israel should be asking anything of the UN is a bit rich, given the number or resolutions they have ignored from said body.

Secondly, Iran sounds like it is looking to get into a fight, so if they get one then it's their own fault.

Thirdly, I've yet to see a good argument as to why a joint US/Israeli airstrike on Iran is a good thing for the region or in the US national interest.¹ If Israel wants to take care of it that's there prerogative, but the US should stay out of it.

Fourthly, any trouble that we have in Iraq already will only be compounded by aggressive actions against Iran. A wise general doesn't fight more wars than necessary, or make his enemies any stronger than required through his actions. If there is a good time and a place for military action against Iran, it certainly isn't during an occupation of it's neighbor that is already testing our force strength.

Fifthly, our military focus should be on those global insurgencies that seek to harm US interests (i.e., Al Qaeda and it's associated networks), and not on experiments in democracy-building in the Middle East -- which given the demographics and sentiments of the region will lead only to Islamic-based nations hostile to US interests anyway. As a related point, creating unstable regions where would-be members of such networks get training for future operations against our forces is also not good idea.

¹ Of course, since the same folks who make such suggestions also seem to think that it was in our national interest to invade Iraq because they had so 80s-era chemical artillery shells, the quality of their advice is already questionable.
posted by moonbiter at 2:37 AM on October 28, 2005

Finally, it's as a pronoun shouldn't have an apostrophe in it.
posted by moonbiter at 2:39 AM on October 28, 2005

Oh, and Israel has never said they want Iran wiped off the map, but they've been pushing for war (actually they'd rather the US did their dirty work for them) with Iran which would obviously kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranians.

Is this a vibe you pick up from the ether, or some frequency too high for the average human ear? Please back this up with some statements from the Israeli leadership.
posted by ori at 2:45 AM on October 28, 2005

Is this a vibe you pick up from the ether, or some frequency too high for the average human ear? Please back this up with some statements from the Israeli leadership.

You know, you can ask that question without being a sarcastic dick. Here are just a few examples from the first couple pages of a google search:

'Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. "These are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve," Sharon said to a visiting delegation of American congressmen.

Sharon told the congressmen that Israel was not involved in the war with Iraq "but the American action is of vital importance."

In a meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton yesterday, Sharon said that Israel was concerned about the security threat posed by Iran, and stressed that it was important to deal with Iran even while American attention was focused on Iraq.

Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials that he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea.'

-- Aluf Benn, Haaretz 02/18/2003

"Last week, for example, Israel charged that Iran was merely "buying time" and will never abandon plans to develop nuclear weapons. It called for the U.N. Security Council "to put an end to this nightmare."

Addressing reporters at the U.N., Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom kept all options on the table by avoiding answering whether Israel would take military action against Iran if it continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

Also last week, the administration informed Congress that it was selling Israel 5,000 precision-guided "smart bombs," including 500 satellite-guided, one-ton JDAM "bunker busters" of Baghdad fame. (JDAMs are capable of penetrating six feet of concrete.)"

-- Peter Brookes, September 29th, 2004

'The Israeli government is, not surprisingly, skeptical of the European approach. Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister, said in an interview last week in Jerusalem,with another New Yorker journalist, “I don’t like what’s happening. We were encouraged at first when the Europeans got involved. For a long time, they thought it was just Israel’s problem. But then they saw that the [Iranian] missiles themselves were longer range and could reach all of Europe, and they became very concerned. Their attitude has been to use the carrot and the stick—but all we see so far is the carrot.” He added, “If they can’t comply, Israel cannot live with Iran having a nuclear bomb.”'

-- THE COMING WARS What the Pentagon can now do in secret. by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31


I can dig up many more pages of Israeli saber rattling, threats, and instances of them trying to convince the US to move against Iran throughout the years.

Maybe you should read a newspaper once in a while.
posted by Devils Slide at 7:06 AM on October 28, 2005

Calling for an action, military or otherwise, against a government almost universally described as corrupt, inhumane, irrational and dangerous is a far cry from calling for the nation's utter destruction. Given that Israel's destruction has been the standard refrain in the region for 50-odd years, I don't blame Israel for doing whatever it can to defend itself. As opposed to the government of Iran, which will do everything it can to "wipe Israel off the map".
posted by loquax at 7:18 AM on October 28, 2005

I'm hoping we invade Syria soon so as to isolate Iran as much as possible.

We?

I look forward to your posts from the battlefront. Chicken hawk.
posted by nofundy at 7:23 AM on October 28, 2005

Calling for an action, military or otherwise, against a government almost universally described as corrupt, inhumane, irrational and dangerous is a far cry from calling for the nation's utter destruction. Given that Israel's destruction has been the standard refrain in the region for 50-odd years, I don't blame Israel for doing whatever it can to defend itself. As opposed to the government of Iran, which will do everything it can to "wipe Israel off the map".

I'm not defending that wingnut Ahmadinejad or the horrible regime he represents, I'm merely stating that Israel has also had a hard on for Iran since the revolution. We don't know how the current crisis regarding the Iranian nuclear program will ultimately end. There may be airstrikes, there may be a full scale military invasion of Iran, who knows, maybe it'll end with the worst case scenario of a nuclear attack on Iran, or perhaps (hopefully) the crisis will be averted through diplomatic means without any bloodshed.

Wishing Israel to be wiped off the map is just that, a wish, a twisted fantasy. Even if Iran developed enough nuclear warheads to carry out such a horrific task, it would mean their own complete destruction, and believe me, the mullahs' number one priority is their own preservation.

But regarding Israel, I don't buy this right wing depiction of Israel as this brave little innocent democracy surrounded by "evil doers" that's doing what it can to survive. They have a lot of blood on their hands.
posted by Devils Slide at 7:51 AM on October 28, 2005

Wishing Israel to be wiped off the map is just that, a wish, a twisted fantasy.

It is not. I wish it were. How does the funding of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad (among others) fit into the fantasy? Iran has been and is taking concrete steps to kill innocent Israelis for the purpose of destroying Israel. Again, look at the recent market bombing.

Here's a scenario - Iran develops (or has already developed) nuclear weapons. A very real, non-fantasic possibility. What is to stop them from leveling Tel Aviv with a warhead smuggled into the country by way of Hezbollah? Hezbollah is blamed, the attack is perceived in terms of the I/P conflict, and Iran is free to proclaim innocence, as they did after the attacks in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

Whatever blood Israel has on her hands is no more than the blood on the hands of her enemies. The difference, again, being that her enemies want her to no longer exist. You may reject the notion of Israel as a brave innocent democracy, but you cannot argue that their primary goal since inception has been survival, and almost any military action Israel has taken should be seen in that context.
posted by loquax at 8:36 AM on October 28, 2005

Here's a scenario - Iran develops (or has already developed) nuclear weapons. A very real, non-fantasic possibility. What is to stop them from leveling Tel Aviv with a warhead smuggled into the country by way of Hezbollah? Hezbollah is blamed--

Israel isn't stupid. They've been thinking about this kind of threat for years. They've got superb intelligence, and they know that Hezbollah is backed by Iran. And they've got a submarine-based nuclear deterrent (tested 2000, deployed 2002). In your scenario, the next thing that happens is that an Israeli sub nukes Tehran, maybe a few other major cities. It's called the Samson Option for a reason.

How does the funding of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad (among others) fit into the fantasy? Iran has been and is taking concrete steps to kill innocent Israelis for the purpose of destroying Israel.

Come on. Terrorism is what you do when you're not willing or able to go to war. Bombing markets isn't going to destroy Israel; Israelis have lived with ongoing terrorism for decades. The only way Iran can destroy Israel is by going to war. If they do that, they risk their own destruction.

That's not to say that there's no danger to Israel from Iran. There is. But absolute insecurity is unattainable: you can only achieve absolute security at the price of absolute insecurity for all your neighbors. So you have to be able to live with risks.

Devils Slide: But regarding Israel, I don't buy this right wing depiction of Israel as this brave little innocent democracy surrounded by "evil doers" that's doing what it can to survive. They have a lot of blood on their hands.

Sure, there's no power without guilt. Every state has blood on its hands. But no matter what crimes a state has committed, it has a legitimate interest in protecting its national security; that goes for Iran and Syria as well as for Israel.

In an ideal world, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be resolved, with Israel returning the West Bank as well as Gaza to the Palestinians; the Arab League would recognize Israel (the Saudis proposed this earlier); Iran would come on board; and the Middle East could be made a nuclear-free zone. And there'd be ponies for everyone.

In the world as it actually exists, I'm guessing that Israel is going to keep its nuclear weapons, and Iran is going to acquire them, at the price of isolation from the international community. (I'm guessing that Iran has already anticipated airstrikes, having seen what happened to Osirak.) The best we can hope for is a standoff, i.e. that neither side actually uses them.
posted by russilwvong at 10:54 AM on October 28, 2005

By the way, here's some comments from an AP story, as printed in a UAE newspaper. They suggest that there's no master plan; Ahmadinejad's threats were a mistake.

Arab governments maintained silence yesterday over the call by Iran’s new president for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” but analysts said Teheran’s Arab rivals may quietly be pleased to see the radical regime further isolated by its extremism. ...

Mustafa Hamarneh, head of the Strategic Studies Centre at the University of Jordan, agreed that Amadinejad was out of step, especially with the Palestinians. “He’s an ideologue who shot from the cuff; it was not a studied statement,” Hamarneh said.

Iran’s threatening stance also was counterproductive to its own interests, said Wahby, reinforcing the notion that its nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons despite claims that it is meant exclusively for peaceful power generation. “Such statement by Teheran will encourage Israel to cling to its nuclear arsenal,” Wahby said.
posted by russilwvong at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2005

Mustafa Hamarneh, head of the Strategic Studies Centre at the University of Jordan, agreed that Amadinejad was out of step, especially with the Palestinians. “He’s an ideologue who shot from the cuff; it was not a studied statement,” Hamarneh said.

"Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were "just" - and the criticism did not "have any validity". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4384264.stm)

russilwvong: Israel isn't stupid. They've been thinking about this kind of threat for years. They've got superb intelligence, and they know that Hezbollah is backed by Iran. And they've got a submarine-based nuclear deterrent (tested 2000, deployed 2002). In your scenario, the next thing that happens is that an Israeli sub nukes Tehran, maybe a few other major cities. It's called the Samson Option for a reason.

russilwvong: That's not to say that there's no danger to Israel from Iran. There is. But absolute insecurity is unattainable: you can only achieve absolute security at the price of absolute insecurity for all your neighbors. So you have to be able to live with risks.

I don't think you guys are getting this. Threats of isolation and military reprisal have done nothing to halt nuclear development in Iran. If the current regime faces a domestic revolution from the growing numbers of discontented liberals within the country; if they are backed against the wall, they won't hesitate pinning the blame on Zionist meddling, and throw a nuke in the direction of Tel Aviv even if it means sacrificing themselves and/or hundreds of thousands in Tehran. This may be a threat you can live with, but it's not a permissible state of affairs for residents of Tel Aviv.

Devils Slide: Sorry for the sarcastic tone. At the same time, none of the quotes you have provided indicate that Israel is pushing for a "with...Iran which would obviously kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranians." Israel has been dangling the possibility of a targetted attack on Iran's nuclear facility, not a full-scale invasion. Neither Israel, nor the US (in its present shape) are capable of a land invasion nor even a wide-scale assault on Iranian military targets.
posted by ori at 11:21 AM on October 28, 2005

Here's an account of Ahmadinejad's defense of his statements:

Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday stood firm on his call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as thousands of Iranians backed his statement in mass protests.

"They are free to talk but their words do not have any validity. It is natural that if a word is right and just it will provoke a reaction," Ahmadinejad said, referring to Western countries.

He asserted that his comments "are the exact words of the Iranian people" and criticized "the expansionist policies of the world arrogance", the official news agency IRNA said.

Referring to the United States and Israel, he said: "They are cheeky humans, and they think that the entire world should obey them.”

Russilwvong: Israel isn't stupid.

No, but the question is how the rest of the world will view any escalation between Iran and its allies and Israel. Much of the world by way of the UN has already come down firmly against Israel in its actions against Palestinian terrorist organizations that have killed Israelis. Also, there was hardly unilateral global support for Israel in its defensive wars against its neighbours over the years, not to mention the global condemnation they faced after destroying Osirak. Even today, everybody knows that Iran funds terrorists directly, yet nobody discusses it in terms of the repercussions that Iran should face, which in my opinion is unconscionable. If Iranian terrorists were to denote a brand new dirty bomb in Tel Aviv, how many around the world would be saying things along the lines of :"you reap what you sow"? Every action that Israel takes has to be viewed in that paradigm, as opposed to the actions of its enemies which essentially are free to act as they wish as our expectations of their behaviour are far lower than our expectation of Israel's behaviour. Israel bombing an Iranian nuclear site would be far less an international transgression than Iran sending suicide bombers into Israel proper to massacre civilians in their quest to wipe Israel off the map, but somehow I doubt that the world would see it that way.

The best we can hope for is a standoff, i.e. that neither side actually uses them.

I think your right, and I hope that any rational person would agree with you. Let's hope that Iran's leadership is in fact rational.
posted by loquax at 11:22 AM on October 28, 2005

Whoops, some overlap there with ori.
posted by loquax at 11:23 AM on October 28, 2005

This may be a threat you can live with, but it's not a permissible state of affairs for residents of Tel Aviv.

Fair comment.

What I found interesting about the nuclear sub stories I linked to was that they indicated the Israeli government was assuming Iran would have nuclear missiles capable of reaching Israel no later than 2000 or 2002; hence the need for an unkillable nuclear deterrent. In that sense, it seems to me that the Israeli government is already prepared to live with a nuclear Iran.

What's the alternative? An Osirak-style airstrike? As I said earlier, my guess is that Iran's already prepared for that contingency, so airstrikes aren't going to work. And as you said, nobody's going to launch a full-scale war with Iran. Israel can't do it, and the limitations of the US military are painfully evident in Iraq.

"Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were 'just' - and the criticism did not 'have any validity'."

I didn't mean that Ahmadinejad made those threats inadvertently. Obviously he made them deliberately. I'm just saying that it was foolish for him to do so. (In response to loquax's speculation about what Ahmadinejad's motives might have been.) Making threats which you can't carry out just makes you look stupid.
posted by russilwvong at 12:02 PM on October 28, 2005

No, but the question is how the rest of the world will view any escalation between Iran and its allies and Israel.

Not sure why you think that's the question. The question is whether Iran would be willing to risk its own destruction in order to destroy Israel. The opinion of the rest of the world isn't really an issue, since the rest of the world wouldn't be able to veto an Israeli nuclear counterattack. It's not like the guy in the submarine is going to wait for a Security Council resolution.
posted by russilwvong at 12:10 PM on October 28, 2005

The opinion of the rest of the world isn't really an issue, since the rest of the world wouldn't be able to veto an Israeli nuclear counterattack.

Well, this is perhaps true given the total destruction of the country in an attack that's verifiable as being initiated by Iran, however for a devastating yet not totally destructive attack, the opinion of the world will matter greatly. Look at the way the US restrained Israel from retaliating against Hussein in 1991, or the resolutions condemning Israel for their strikes against terrorist leaders and the offensive capabilities of their enemies, even during defensive wars. It appears as though Israel does not have the benefit of the doubt of the majority of the world, and will be judged harshly no matter the provocation from its enemies, as has been the case in the past. In that context, should Iran attack through a third party, no matter how obvious, the countermeasures that Israel can realistically employ will be tempered by the constraints placed upon it by the rest of the world. Don't forget that the world certainly can veto an Israeli nuclear or military strike - Pakistan, China, Russia and France can all do so with a few button pushes, depending on the geopolitical situation at the time. Not only that but Israel depends on both military and economic aid in order to survive surrounded by hostile neighbours. Israel cannot act with impunity, and must rely on having at least the covert if not overt support of various international governments in order to survive. I find it impossible to believe that Ahmadinejad does not figure this into his own diplomatic calculus, and interpret it to mean that while Israel is on a short leash, Iran is free to massacre Israelis, fund third party aggression and in general do what it likes, stopping just short of openly attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. Not at all a good situation for Israel to be in. All those nukes are useless if there's no scenario they can reasonably use them in, especially now that their neighbours have stopped attacking them every few years (thanks to those same nukes). The problem, as the US has discovered, is that terrorists funded by Iran, Iraq and Syria can do just as much damage as their armies, and don't have to worry about deterrents, nuclear or otherwise.
posted by loquax at 12:41 PM on October 28, 2005

Some interesting analysis here (after 7:30 EST) re: internal political strife in Iran:

All Things Considered, October 28, 2005 · Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defends his remarks that Israel should be "wiped off the map." The defiant leader reiterated his comments Friday at an anti-Israel rally in Tehran. His statements have generated condemnation from world leaders. Trita Parsi, a Middle East specialist at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, discusses the fallout.
posted by halcyon_daze at 3:39 PM on October 28, 2005

... Iran is free to massacre Israelis, fund third party aggression and in general do what it likes, stopping just short of openly attacking Israel with nuclear weapons.

That's exactly the point of a nuclear deterrent: to prevent your opponent from launching an all-out attack (nuclear or conventional) against you. Iran could try to go through a third party, but it'd still be running a huge risk--in the event of a nuclear attack on Israel, Iran will be the number one suspect.

By the way, I'm assuming that if there's a single nuclear detonation in Israel, Israel cannot survive as a country. It's a tiny country (roughly the size of New Jersey). It doesn't have enough territory to resettle the population who would be in the range of the radioactive fallout. If Israel gets nuked, it's suicide time. I wouldn't want to be anywhere within missile range of Israel at that point.

Don't forget that the world certainly can veto an Israeli nuclear or military strike - Pakistan, China, Russia and France can all do so with a few button pushes, depending on the geopolitical situation at the time.

Actually, they can't. Russia and France could retaliate--risking another counterattack from Israel--but that's a different story. (Pakistan and China don't have missiles that can reach Israel.)

Setting aside the nuclear-attack scenario, which is the biggest danger:

... Iran is free to massacre Israelis, fund third party aggression and in general do what it likes--

Israel has a range of retaliatory options as well, including covert operations. (By the way, according to Richard Clarke, this is how the US retaliated against the Khobar Towers bombing--he doesn't give any details--and there haven't been any Iranian-backed terrorist attacks against the US since then.) And although it's true that Israel doesn't have much outside support, there's a lot of regional players who fear and mistrust Iran (which is why Saudi Arabia and Kuwait backed Saddam Hussein against Iran), and who wouldn't be that unhappy if Israel took a few swipes at Iraq.
posted by russilwvong at 3:48 PM on October 28, 2005

Clearly, Israel and the US can bomb Iran back to the stone age very easily, without using either nukes or ground forces, and there's little doubt that they are planning to do exactly that. The "precision air strikes" on water plants, sewage works, electricity stations, and similar soft targets - as well as Iran's civilian nuclear facilities - will no doubt be timed neatly for just before the next US election.

Which puts Ahmadinejad's empty threats in their proper perspective.
posted by cleardawn at 5:13 PM on October 28, 2005

Israel can't. Nobody's going to grant Israel access to their airspace so they can bomb Iran!

And the US can't attack Iran--that would enrage the Shiites in Iraq.
posted by russilwvong at 5:40 PM on October 28, 2005

The "precision air strikes" on water plants, sewage works, electricity stations, and similar soft targets - as well as Iran's civilian nuclear facilities - will no doubt be timed neatly for just before the next US election.

You are totally hallucinating, and if you keep your email address updated in your profile I'll gladly send you an I-told-you-so in 2008.
posted by ori at 7:10 PM on October 28, 2005

I'm sure Israel will get or take whatever air clearance it needs to bomb Iran if it wants to. It will retrofit aircraft, if need be. Or just do it by sea.
posted by ParisParamus at 7:42 PM on October 28, 2005

You know, at some point, it's going to become obvious to most people that the lunatic fringe on Islam isn't the fringe at all, but most of it...
posted by ParisParamus at 7:59 PM on October 28, 2005

I will not take that thing from your hand.
posted by russilwvong at 7:26 AM on October 29, 2005

Ori, thanks for the slightly creepy suggestion, but I really don't want your I-told-you-so. I hope you're right, and that the US and Israel do not attack Iran.

However, all the evidence - particularly both Bush's and Sharon's recent rhetoric - indicates clearly that their intention is to attack.

Russil, you're claiming that Israel will wait until neighboring countries offer permission for their jet bombers to overfly? Just to make sure that is what you're saying...
posted by cleardawn at 6:46 AM on November 5, 2005