Mr Ahmadinejad told some 3,000 students in Tehran that Israel’s establishment had been a move by the West against the Islamic world.
True enough. (Update: This is true in the sense that Western powers want dominance over the Middle East and have never been friendly to Muslim/Arab countries in the first place.)
He was addressing a conference entitled The World without Zionism and his comments were reported by the Iranian state news agency Irna.
"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," he said, referring to Iran’s late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
No. Never. Saying Jews should be killed because one opposes the Zionist policies of Israel is like saying Christians should be killed because one opposes the policies of George Bush. It’s insane, bigoted, vicious, and beyond counter-productive. One can oppose Zionism and not be anti-Semitic, and proof of that is the thriving peace movement in Israel headed by Jews. Anti-Semitism is grotesque and must be opposed, as should any form of racism.
In a seriously Orwellian moment, as Israel continues to decimate the Palestinian population, Ariel Sharon responded,
"A country calling for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN," Mr Sharon said.
Does that mean Israel will withdraw from the UN? What a monumental hypocrite.
Israel’s establishment was a move by the West against the Islamic world?
Are you actually agreeing with this absurd statement?
Honestly, I’m amazed. What did Islam even have to do with this? It was about establishing a safe haven for Jews following the holocaust, so that there would be one tiny strip of land somewhere in the world where Jews could feel safe, and free from persecution.
But you’re probably right. That whole, “systematic attempt to exterminate every Jew off the face of this Earth” thing probably had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Israel would not exist without the support of the US. The Israeli dog does not wag the US tail. Israel would not exist without the continued military and financial support of the US and it was founded because imperialist powers wanted a pliant foothold in the Islamic/Arab world for reasons of geopolitical dominance and, of course, oil.
The founding of Israel resulted in the forced expulsion of the people who were living there, the Palestinians. Their land was taken by force. They never received compensation. Many still live in refugee camps all these decades later. There have been many UN resolutions comdemning Israel for this and the US, standing alone, always vetos them.
The idea of Zionism predated WWII by several decades too.
PS The president of Iran sees the founding of Israel as a conspiracy against Muslims, whereas it was really a deliberate move by the US and Britain to establish a base of power in the Mideast.
Churchill was a virulent racist, and that included Jews, FDR, given his upper class NYC upbringing during the early 1900’s, well, it would be remarkable if he wasn’t anti-Semitic. However, without their support, Israel would not have been founded.
They didn’t preside over the creation of Israel because of any love of Jews, they did it for reasons of geopolitical dominance.
I didn’t study his remarks carefully, but “Israel must be wiped off the map,” taken literally, means that the state of Israel as a Jewish state needs to come to an end; it has nothing necessarily to do with wiping all Israelis or all Jews “off the map” figuratively, i.e., killing them. Many people believe the only solution is a single, non-sectarian country of Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, in the land of “historic Palestine”, i.e., Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.
Well, I’m not sure how you wipe Israel off the map leaving a mountain of corpses.
True, he could have meant it figuratively, but even so such a comment coming now seems lunatic, especially considering how it would inevitably be misconstrued.
A non-sectarian state encompassing all is indeed the only answer.
Consider the difference between saying “country X must be wiped off the map” and “the people of country X must be wiped off the face of the earth.” If the first phrase is taken figuratively, it could well mean the same as the second phrase. But if it is meant literally, it simply means the borders and government of that country should be reconfigured and a new political entity should appear in its place on the map.
Let’s not split hairs. Mr Ahmadinejad’s statements concerning Israel are simply
a brazen official statement of what thousands of Muslim preachers are saying
every Friday in mosques all across the Middle East and the world – kill Jews.
He’s not talking about borders or political entities, but something far more
visceral. His audience knows what he was talking about.
When a man like Mr Ahmadinejad says something, the best thing that the rest of
us can do is believe that he means it.
The world must remember that the God of the Bible (Holy Scriptures) is a Zionist and the founder of the movement. It all has to do with His established covenant concerning the Land of Israel and His chosen people. Anyone opposed to Zionism will ultimately find himself at odds with Yahweh. Since The Holy One of Israel is the Creator Himself, don’t you think He has the right to give the land to whomever He wants. I think the world, in general, should have another look at the Holy Scriptures and find out that it says; in the last days, He would bring them back from the North, the South, the East and the West and establish them once again in “their” land. The Holy One, Himself, has declared Jerusalem as His Throne on the Earth. I’m not making any of this stuff up…it is in the Book!