22.5.06

Iran vs. Israel

It is quite often pointed out that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad is viewed as the following, in washington:
"Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler"
They also make the erroneous claim that the IAEA has determined that Iran is actively seeking to build a Nuclear Bomb (that is COMPLETELY FALSE, man do I hate it when they lie to me).
Most troubling for me is the fact that people actually believe all of these claims. To those people I say this:



Wow, you certainly believe the propaganda that they feed you. I wonder if you see the lack of difference between your acceptance of official views as truth (without thinking critically or logically) and the way the German people accepted the Third Reich's official views as truth in the 1930s.


I find it amusing that, in 1991, there was a huge outcry against Saddam that he was Hitler (incited by Bush I). Now, in 2006, the current target is Iran, and as such it's Pres Mahmoud that is the new Hitler (incited by Bush II). I think if that evil name keeps getting trown around every time the government wants to go after someone, it will eventually lose its meaning and it's true significance. I think that would be a great disservice to all those who lost their lives under his leadership.


As far as Pres Mahmoud's anti-israeli views, you need to bear in mind that his rhetoric is always directed specifically at the Nation of Israel, and at radical Zionist elements (who advocate the removal of all Arabs from "the holy land" with force, if necessary; you may remember the removal of a specific race or nationality from your studies of WWII, with the well documented consequences), but not at all followers of Judaism.


Is his anger at Israel so difficult to understand for someone who knows anything about the current situation in the middle east? I think not. While the American media (indeed most western media and a large percentage of other world media) tends to focus more on Israeli victims of Palestinian violence than on Palestinian victims. Perhaps I should point out to you, as you don't seem to know this, that the Civilian Death Toll in the Palestine/Israel conflict is very much lopsided, specifically that for every 1 Israeli that has been lost, 4 Palestinians have been lost. I would recommend you look into the civilian death tolls of IDF raids before you get so defensive of Israel. The fact is that this 4-1 ratio is actually far more even than the ratio during the 1980s and 90s, when TWENTY palestinians died for every 1 israeli that was lost. Again I ask you, is a pervailing Arab anger with Israel really so hard to understand?


Just to give one example, just this weekend the IDF launched missles from an Apache helicopter at a suspected militant leader in Palestine, as he was driving down the street in the middle of a civilian area. It seems that this man was hit, and killed, but in the process so were 2 innocent women and a 4 year old boy. This kind of "collateral damage" is the norm as far as IDF raids in Palestinian territories are concerned. Again I ask you: is an anger towards Israel really so hard to understand?




I'm not even going to get into the Humanitarian Catastrophe that is Palestine, due to an IDF stranglehold on the region and a systematic destruction of all of their indegenous crops, because discussing it just makes me more upset.

It really, really surprises me that in this day and age of supposed enlightenment people are so gullible when it comes to official propaganda.
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On Iran, the full text of the recent letter sent from President Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran to President Bush is available here.

1 comment:

misneach said...

An Invaluable Resource:

If Americans Knew