Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Idol of the Ayatollah

Hashemi Rafsanjani, on October 5, 2007, said:

Europe resolved a great problem – the problem of the Zionist danger. The Zionists, who constituted a strong political party in Europe, caused much disorder there. Since they had a lot of property and controlled an empire of propaganda, they made the European governments helpless. What Hitler and the German Nazis did to the Jews of Europe at that time was partly due to these circumstances with the Jews. They wanted to expel the Zionists from Europe because they always were a pain in the neck for the governments there. This is how this calamity fell upon the Muslims, especially the Palestinians, and you all know this history, more or less.

[...]


The first goal was to save Europe from the evil of Zionism, and in this, they have been relatively successful. (Watch it here)

What is he in fact saying? Hitler saved the Europeans from the Zionist danger. How? By getting rid of the Jews:

"What Hitler and the German Nazis did to the Jews of Europe at that time was partly due to these circumstances with the Jews. They wanted to expel the Zionists from Europe because they always were a pain in the neck for the governments there."

He is drawing upon historical experience (as he narrates it) to tell people Iran is planning to do the same for the Muslims. Get rid of the Zionist danger by getting rid of the Jews in the Middle East. One can't help but notice that Rafsanjani is completely unfazed by the idea of a genocide, it serves a noble purpose, it is justified.

In Ahmadinejad's letter to the German Chancellor Merkel, he keeps asserting the similarities between Germans and Iranians, against a common enemy: Zionists.

There is some major fantasy at work with this fanatic regime.

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Reading the above, I had a Déjà vu experience (the time sequence is a bit screwed for a real deja vu, or maybe not):

What sets the Israel Lobby apart is its extraordinary effectiveness." According to Mearsheimer and Walt, the "loose coalition" that makes up the Lobby has "significant leverage over the Executive branch," as well as the ability to make sure that the "Lobby's perspective on Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media." They claim that AIPAC in particular has a "stranglehold on the U.S. Congress," due to its "ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it."

Mearsheimer and Walt decry what they call misuse of "the charge of anti-Semitism," and argue that pro-Israel groups place great importance on "controlling debate" in American academia; they maintain, however, that the Lobby has yet to succeed in its "campaign to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses" (see Campus Watch and U.S. Congress Bill H.R. 509). The authors conclude by arguing that when the Lobby succeeds in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East, then "Israel's enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying."[1]

If the duo Mearsheimer and Walt are serious in their denial that harming Israel is their suit, they should perhaps take another look at the antisemitic tropes they have used in their medieval tractate Of Jews and Their evil Power, and compare them with the the ideas, arguments and facts that sacred antisemites use to propagate their noxious ideologies. There is a reason why this book is popular among the neo-Nazis, such as David Duke, and the neo-Hitlerites, such as Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad.

After dwelling for even a short while in this dreary landscape, amid cold blasts of hostility and ill-will, I needed to warm myself, so I took a walk in the sun:

Cool Facts about Israel I

Cool Facts about Israel II

3 Comments:

At 7:48 PM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice comparison. may i suggest putting the 2 sequences of comments in a table side by side - could be much stronger.
michael

 
At 8:03 PM EDT, Blogger The Contentious Centrist said...

I suggest you tend to your anti-alcoholic machines and leave the writing arrangements to me. With all due respect.

 
At 8:18 PM EDT, Blogger The Contentious Centrist said...

Sorry. I meant to say: May I suggest you tend to your anti-alcoholic machines and leave the writing arrangements to me. With all due respect.

 

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