2 May 2009

Ahmedinajad and Idiot 'Anti-Zionism'



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Arab Media Internet Network decides to post Holocaust Denial ‘Analysis’
Iran’s President Ahmadinejad is one in a long line of Middle Eastern rulers who have used the Palestinians for their own political purposes. So it wasn’t surprising that he used the UN Conference on Racism in Geneva this week in order to fight his own political battles on the back of the Palestinians, and thus bolster his own regime. What is more surprising that there are still people taken in by these tactics.

Iran is the main regional beneficiary of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The US puppet government of Iraq of Maliki is closely allied to the Iranian regime. It is this which lies behind the US/Israel rhetoric about its nuclear threat. But although we would naturally defend Iran against US or Israeli aggression that doesn’t mean that Ahmadinejad is some form of anti-imperialist or progressive.

Iran is also a vicious police state which hangs gays, flogs and stones women, jails and tortures trade unionists, oppresses its own Arab, Kurdish and religious minorities and has one of the highest rates of execution in the world. Its regime has consistently used the threats by Israel and the US in order to silence the opposition. And Ahmadinejad has no hesitation in using the plight of the Palestinians to bolster his regime internationally.

Much of his speech was unremarkable, such as the assertion that the Zionists had used the Nazi holocaust and anti-Semitism as part of the rationale for creating the Israeli state. His argument that the Iraq war was planned by the Zionists is simply wrong. The part of his speech concerning the holocaust, which he left out at the last minute, showed that his ‘anti-Zionism’ is not so much anti-Semitism, although it is also that, but a typical example of the bombast and crudity which Arab rulers display in abundance. His reference to “the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust” demonstrates that he has learnt nothing from his disastrous conference on the holocaust some years ago.

There is of course nothing ambiguous and dubious about the Nazi holocaust. The fact that Zionists have used the holocaust to justify Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinians and its continuing racist practices does not mean there was no holocaust. It just means that Zionism has no political principle and will use the very Jewish victims of murder that they abandoned in order to justify their own racism. It is testimony to the stupidity of Ahmadinejad and his fundamentalist supporters that they believe that if Israel derives its legitimacy from the holocaust then all they have to do is deny there was a holocaust and, hey presto, Israel has no legitimacy.

There is just one flaw in the above argument. If in fact, and it is a fact, that there was a millions of Jews and non-Jews died, then presumably Zionism is right and Israel does indeed possess the moral and political justification it claims?

But if stupidity is a congenital disease that afflicts most Middle Eastern dictators, then that is no justification for those whose trade is ideas to deal in facile and childish rhetoric that has little connection with reality. It is everyone's right to behave like a fool and an imbecile but it is not compulsory to do so. Yet that is exactly what the Arab Media Internet Network (AMIN) is guilty of. An article on the Geneva Conference entitled ‘Racist Israel vs Durban Conference Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, who is the Racist of them All’ by one 'Dr.' Elias Akleh, is a perfect example of someone who is no doubt outraged by all sorts of terrible things that the Israelis and the Zionist movement does, yet who is unable to make sense of them other than by resorting to conspiracy theories. What the Aklehs of this world lack is any form of class analysis, any means of understanding society that rises above trivia such as whether European Jews came from around the Caspian Sea or Outer Mongolia.

Instead Aklehs gathers together all sorts of inquities and even more absurdities. The Jews were responsible for the Atlantic slave trade,

'100 million Christian Russians [who] were exterminated by the Jewish Commissars under the orders of Leon Trotsky (a Jew) in 1917-1945. Russian Jews were also responsible for the killing of 65 million other Christians in the Bolshevik Revolution.'

The fact that Trotsky was exiled from Russia in 1929, had not been in command of anything since 1925 and was murdered in 1940 matters not a jot to Akleh who conjures figures out of the air - the bigger the better. It's a surprise that there was anyone left in Russia since 165 million is more than the population was at the time!

But to a fool with no lodestar then the 'fact' that the ‘the majority of Zionist Jewish Israeli citizens are originally Khazars, Russian, European and North and South Americans and not Semitic.’ is important rather than a complete irrelevance. Even were it true, what would it matter? As if the origins of the American settlers mattered a jot when they exterminated the Amerindians.

Aklehs describes himself as ‘an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.’ Judging by his article on AMIN, ‘Dr. Elias Akleh’ probably bought his degree at a southern Baptist ‘university’ or the Internet equivalent. Either way it's no surprise that no reputable journal will touch him.

Akleh goes through various genocides and holocausts. That the slave trade was a terrible example of western racism at its most lethal, the product of a vicious and barbaric political and economic system of primitive imperialism, in not doubted. No one will know how many died in over 3 centuries that the triangular slave lasted. Estimates vary enormously.

For example Robin Blackburn’s ‘The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery: 1776-1848’ estimates less than 10 million slaves in all were transported. (547). Likewise Philip Curtin’s 'THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE - A Census' revises downwards Deerr’s estimate in his History of Sugar from nearly 12 million to 9.5 millions. Oliver Ramsfur mentions 14m and K Davies 20m. Wikipedia’s states that ‘Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million.’ ‘Dr’ Akleh however is nothing if not original:

99 millions in a span of a hundred years, while being transported on slave ships belonging to Jewish slave traders.’

Of course estimates of the Atlantic slave trade vary widely, as do the numbers of those murdered by the Nazis. This is not surprising. It took the US 3 years to get an accurate figure of those who died in 9/11. How can it possibly be imagined that accuracy with respect to other acts of genocide will be accurate when records were destroyed if they ever existed?

If one didn’t know better, one would believe Aklers to be in the business of slave-trade denial since what better way is there to discredit something than to magnify its numbers? But of course the slave-trade too was a Jewish monopoly!

Someone like Akers gathers different 'facts' together, some true, some not, he adds a few quotations that he's come across, he can't make sense of any of it but he knows there's something wrong. So he marries every conspiracy theory that comes his way, mixes it into a pot-pourri of literary absurdity and hey presto, he believes he's struck gold. One sees this scrambling of the human brain in Aker's statement that

Ahmadinejad’s speech was anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, for these are totally two different things, although Zionists claim them to be the same.

It is true that anti-Zionism is a different creature from anti-Semitism, despite the efforts of fascists, neo-Nazis and Zionists to pretend otherwise. But Akleh is the last person to understand the difference. Likewise Idiot AMIN.

For what better conspiracy theory is there than to pretend there was no Nazi holocaust. Hitler didn't openly speak of 'annihilation' of Jewry. Akleh writes that:

‘All these holocausts, and many others, are well documented historical events, while the Jewish Holocaust is surrounded by many doubts and denials. It is a real perplexing issue that any scientific study of this holocaust is met by resistance and is severely punishable by laws.’

That the Nazis did indeed murder between 5 and 6 millions is now accepted by all reputable historians. Nor is it denied, even by someone like David Irving that the Nazis murdered millions through the use of poisonous gas. In his famous and failed libel trial against Penguin books, he conceded that millions died in the Action Reinhard extermination camps [Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Treblinka] whilst denying that Auschwitz was such a camp.

If 3 volumes of Hilberg's 'Destruction of European Jews' are a bit too much for 'Dr' Aklers then he could always read something simpler like Dawidowicz's Holocaust Reader and read the translation of Einsatzgruppen [Nazi killing squads in Poland and later Operation Barbarossa] Situation Reports on how many thousands of Jews and Russians they murdered.

The idea that holocaust deniers (‘revisionists’) do serious scientific analysis or research is not even funny. How can one compare the painstaking research with German documents of someone like the late Professor Raul Hilberg compared with the Electrical Engineering Professor from the American South, Arthur Butz?

Akleh demonstrates the ideological absurdity of the rhetoric derived from Arab regimes. What it lacks in analysis and fact it makes up for with exagerration and bombast. So Zionism is analysed in terms of the genocidal quality of the Jewish religion. And of course the Jewish religion, like most other religions can be used to justify all sorts of iniquities. The Book of Joshua is a Book of Genocide. But were the Prophets, Isaiah, Mikah, Jeremiah also mass murderers? The Koran too can be and is quoted for its more bloodthirsty aspects. And Christians too have their Book of Revelations and similar texts.

But Zionism was a political movement that cloaked itself in religious rhetoric. Fools like Aklehs and the AMIN editors are unable to discern the difference between cause and effect. Which is why their protestations that they are anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic are so laughable.

But the real question is why, when there are plenty of questions to ask over Ahmedinajad’s motives and his hijacking of the Palestinian cause, the relationship between Zionism and US foreign policy initiatives and exposing the hypocrisy of Western delegates who object to Zionism being described as a form of racism, did the Arab Media Internet Network decide to post this junk essay?

Tony Greenstein

14 comments:

  1. Good post.
    And 'Dr.' Elias Akleh is a living embarrassment, with about as much academic credibility as a third rate, two-bit blogger indulging in a little 'homemade Holocaust denial'...

    I agree also completely with what you say about Offhismedsinejad with the exception of one minor point:

    "His argument that the Iraq war was planned by the Zionists is simply wrong."Your rebuttal is too strong. It cannot be denied that most prominent US Jewish pro-Israel (Zionist) Neocons supported the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was after all a perennial foe of Israel (and to some extent a real threat). We can't thus ignore the cui bono argument. It's hard to evaluate the influence these Zionists had in swinging the decision but equally hard to point-blank deny they had at least some influence.

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  2. Tony Greenstein2 May 2009 at 19:10

    Although I can't lay my hands on it now, Sharon definitely was opposed to the Iraq war but went along with it at the Bush Administration's behest. Cheney wasn't particularly a Zionist neo-con but simply an avaricious war monger and of course an ex-executive of Halliburton.

    Iran was what Sharon wanted Bush to tackle but the Bush regime was intent on tackling Saddam Hussein as part of its project to remake the Middle East, which it did after a fashion!

    Never heard of this Akleh before but he is, as you say, a living embarrassment. His article is just so bad, no logical consistency, things just plucked out of the air and plonked in the middle as if you collect enough damaging material then someone else will make sense of it all.

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  3. Hmm, fair points.

    But see this from WaPo (hardly Zionist critics):

    For Israel Lobby Group, War Is Topic A, Quietly:

    This week's meeting in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has put a spotlight on the Bush administration's delicate dance with Israel and the Jewish state's friends over the attack on Iraq.
    Officially, Israel is not one of the 49 countries the administration has identified as members of the "Coalition of the Willing."

    Officially, AIPAC had no position on the merits of a war against Iraq before it started. Officially, Iraq is not the subject of the pro-Israel lobby's three-day meeting here.

    Now, for the unofficial part:

    As delegates to the AIPAC meeting were heading to town, the group put a headline on its Web site proclaiming: "Israeli Weapons Utilized By Coalition Forces Against Iraq." The item featured a photograph of a drone with the caption saying the "Israeli-made Hunter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" is being used "by U.S. soldiers in Iraq."

    At an AIPAC session on Sunday night, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom proclaimed in a speech praising Secretary of State Colin L. Powell: "We have followed with great admiration your efforts to mobilize the international community to disarm Iraq and bring democracy and peace to the region, to the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Just imagine, Mr. Secretary, how much easier it would have been if Israel had been a member of the Security Council."

    A parade of top Bush administration officials -- Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political director Kenneth Mehlman, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns -- appeared before the AIPAC audience. The officials won sustained cheers for their jabs at European opponents of war in Iraq, and their tough remarks aimed at two perennial foes of Israel, Syria and Iran.

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  4. I'm getting tired of the "he bolstered his regime" argument.

    This is predicated on the idea that Ahmadinejad is an evil villain who just loves backstabbing Palestinians for his own sake.

    My view is a little more natural: maybe he wants to help, and his views are false. Maybe he believes what he's saying. Maybe he thinks what he's doing is right, like most of us actually.

    But hey, I'm only some guy. Let's see if you can convince me of the soundness of painting the president of Iran as an evil dumbfuck who doesn't care about anything. In light of the many threats of military intervention by Israel, I'm sure this kind of racist talk is going to help put an end to the misery of millions of Iranians, freeing their souls for eternity, like your country just did to the Iraqis. And thank God for that, cause we know Saddam didn't care either.

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  5. Tony Greenstein3 May 2009 at 00:33

    I haven't said that Ahmedinajad is an 'evil villain' who enjoys backstabbing Palestinians. On the contrary he believes that he is helping them by supporting the replacement of Zionist oppression with Islamic fundamentalism.

    I'm saying that like all Arab rulers he uses the Palestine question to bolster his and his regime's position. It gains easy plaudits. And of course Iran gave support to Hizbollah in their defeat of Israel's invasion in 2006.

    But none of this can justify executing gays, using state forces against workers and students and the barbaric 'punishments' that his regime imposes upon dissidents. I attach a couple of articles below on the aftermath of the 2006 Tehran bus workers strike and the jailing and torture of workers' activists.

    Also a couple of references to Yossi Alpher's article on leading Zionists' attitude to the Iraq War, not least Ariel Sharon.

    http://www.jewishtoronto.net/page.aspx?id=138186
    http://www.peacewithrealism.org/headline/iraqwar.htm

    Iran: Up to 500 Tehran bus workers imprisoned for planning strike
    Posted: 03 February 2006

    Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release immediately hundreds of Tehran bus workers who were detained last week apparently to pre-empt threatened strike action. Although some of the workers have been released, hundreds are reported still to be detained without charge or trial at Tehran's Evin Prison. Some have been beaten and in some cases, their wives and children have reportedly been beaten during raids on their homes.

    The arrests began after the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, which represents workers employed by the United Bus Company of Tehran, called for a strike on 28 January in support of various union demands.

    These included the release of the union's leader, Mansour Ossanlu, who has been detained without charge or trial since 22 December 2005; the introduction of collective bargaining; and for the bus company, which is run by the Tehran local authority, to grant a pay increase.

    According to reports, leaflets announcing the strike were widely distributed in Tehran on 24 January 2006 and one member of the union's executive, Hosseini Tabar, was detained for about four hours while helping with this.

    Next day, six other members of the union's executive committee - Ebrahim Madadi, Mansour Hayat Ghaybi, Seyed Davoud Razavi, Sa'id Torabian, Ali Zad Hossein and Gholamreza Mirza'i - were summoned to appear at the Public Prosecutor's Office in Tehran.

    When they did so on 26 January, they were arrested when they refused to call off the strike and taken to Evin Prison. Interviewed by the official IRNA news agency, the Mayor of Tehran reportedly described the union as illegal and said that the authorities would not permit the strike to go ahead.

    The United Bus Company's management threatened workers who supported the strike call with the loss of their jobs.

    The authorities then carried out mass arrests of union members on 27 January, the eve of the threatened strike, detaining some workers as they completed their shifts and others at their homes.

    Those detained included the wives of Mansour Hayat Ghaybi and Seyed Davoud Razavi, and a third union leader, Yaghub Salimi.

    Security forces raided Yaghub Salimi's home after he was interviewed by a Berlin-based radio station but he was absent at the time. However, his wife and their children were beaten and detained.

    Mahdiye Salimi, aged 12, described her ordeal later in a radio interview. She said that three women and five children had been arrested, that they had been beaten and that her two-year-old sister had been injured when she was pushed roughly into a security forces vehicle, and that her mother had been kicked in the chest.

    Mahdiye Salimi was released, together with her mother and young sister, when Yaghub Salimi gave himself up to the security forces. The other children and women who were detained are also now reported to have been released.

    Hundreds more union members are reported to have been arrested on the day of the strike, 28 January, with most of these also being taken to Evin Prison.

    Workers were reportedly beaten with batons, punched, kicked and threatened to force them to work, including by members of the volunteer Basij force who had apparently been brought in to replace striking workers.

    Security forces reportedly used tear gas and fired shots into the air. Further arrests were reported on 29 and 30 January.

    Currently, only some 30 to 50 of those detained are reported to have been released, apparently after they agreed under duress to sign guarantees that they would not participate in strikes or other protest actions.

    As many as 500 others are believed still to be held at Evin Prison without access to lawyers or family. Some are reported to have started a hunger strike on 29 January to protest their detention. Another strike has been called for 2 February 2006.

    Amnesty International is concerned that those detained are being held solely on account of their peaceful activities as trade unionists and as such are prisoners of conscience who should be released immediately and unconditionally.

    The right to form and join trade unions is well-established in international law, notably under Article 22 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Iran is a state party to both of these treaties.

    Iran is also a member of the International Labour Organization and bound by its requirements, including the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association's ruling that it is not legitimate for states to restrict the right to strike during disputes concerning workers' occupational and economic interests.

    States can restrict the right to strike only in cases of acute national emergency (and then for a limited period only), which is clearly not the situation which prevails in Tehran.

    Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining are core principles of the ILO's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which requires all state parties "to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the Constitution, the principles [of the Declaration].�

    Background Information The union representing Tehran's bus workers was banned after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, then reactivated in 2004 although it is not legally-recognised.

    On 22 December 2005, police arrested 12 of the union's leaders at their homes but quickly released four of them.

    Further union members were arrested on 25 December while staging a bus strike in Tehran to call for the release of their colleagues but they and all those arrested earlier were released in the following days with the exception of Mansour Ossanlu.

    He continues to be detained and to be denied access to a lawyer, and is said possibly to be facing serious charges of having contact with exiled opposition groups and instigating armed revolt.

    Seven union members, including Mansour Hayat Ghaybi; Ebrahim Madadi; Reza Tarazi; Gholamreza Mirza'i; Abbas Najand Kouhi and Ali Zad Hossein, were reportedly summoned to appear before a Revolutionary Court in Tehran on 1 January 2006 to face public order charges but their trial was postponed when other union members protested outside the court. On 7 January, five drivers were reportedly detained when bus company workers staged another strike but later freed.

    Find out further information from Urgent Action AI Index MDE 13/002/2006
    http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=16789

    http://libcom.org/news/article.php/iran-bus-strike-update13-300106
    http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2006-03-01/islamic-repression-in-iran-tehran-bus-workers-gaoled

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  6. Good article on a depressing topic. I'd also emphasise that Ahmadinejed's holocaust denial is not shared by the rest of the Iranian regime. After his holocaust denial conference, (which Iranians were allowed to hold a protest about), a four or six-part mini-series on the Holocaust and Iranian involvement in saving Jews, was shown on Iranian TV.

    Not that I'd let the rest of the regime off the hook. The brutal repression of mayday protestors this weekend supports Tony's points about its nature.

    It seems that like the govt of Israel is using the threat of Iran to bolster itself up, so the Iranian govt is using the (admittedly more realistic) threat of Israel for its own ends. So they shout solidarity with Palestinians while continuing to trade with Israel and give business to companies like Veolia. I guess Palestinians are already more than aware of this, and try to use Iranian support atrategically. It is, when all is said and done, more support than they get from Western govts.

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  7. An excellent post. There seems, however, to be something missing in the sentence: 'If in fact, and it is a fact, that there was a millions of Jews and non-Jews died...'

    Should not the words 'Holocaust in which' be inserted after 'there was a'?

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  8. But none of this can justify executing gays, using state forces against workers and students and the barbaric 'punishments' that his regime imposes upon dissidents.I'm curious whether this happened solely under Ahmadinejad, or if this also happened under Khatami. In any case, I don't remember saying anything justified executing gays, or whatever the Islamic Republic does. Neither does it make sense in your comment to say that. [Unless you meant it was good that Iran supported Hezbollah in Israel's defeat.]

    I'm just finding it weird that we have such discussions when Israel tries to attack the same country so much. Do we really not know any better ? Focusing so much on another country's wrongs, can only call for military intervention.

    And what would you say, if someone were to ask you: what are we doing about those intolerable things ?

    I would respond that it's not up to us to do something about it.

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  9. Tony Greenstein3 May 2009 at 23:33

    David L is I'm sure right. The so-called holocaust denial is a flourish, a gesture, without any real meaning. The reality is that the only country (Denmark excepted) where there were no deportations because of local opposition was Nazi-occupied Morocco. The Zionists did their best to instil 'holocaust awareness' in the Misrahi/Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel in the 1950's, going back through history to find each and every incident of conflict between Jews and Arabs, but try as they could they failed. Not because there weren't riots, antagonism, massacres even at certain times, but because overall the record is clear. Muslims and Jews never had a problem co-existing until Zionism, with its theories of racial superiority and its colonial underpinnings came along.

    Dr Paul asks if I've missed out the term 'holocaust'. Well I don't think it adds anything to use the word when the meaning of what I wrote was clear. The term holocaust tends to separate out Jewish from non-Jewish victims. Now I know that Stalinism went to the opposite extreme, in virtually obliterating any mention of the specificity of Jews among those murdered, but the problem of terms like 'shoah' (a burnt sacrifice is my understanding of the term) or even holocaust, which I use, is that it tends to the uniqueness which Zionism posits in what happened. As if no lessons can be learnt from what happened other than it can 'never again' happen to Jews.

    Having said that I use the term 'Nazi holocaust' so the omission had no hidden meanings or intentions but the main point is that if the only conclusions to be drawn from the Nazi holocaust is that it mustn't happen to Jews but that racism perpetrated in the name of Jews is ok, then truly the Nazis have won, since the message of racism has triumped.

    But I see, despite fervent opposition by Zionism the growth once again of a large German Jewish community as something entirely positive and the nail in the coffin of Hitler's desires(despite the fierce lobbying of the German government to refuse admission to Jews from Eastern Europe - a despicable act of a racist movement). Likewise the creation of a 'Jewish' state as a triumph for Nazi racism and separatism.

    Other points - execution of gays did happen under Khatami. Khatami showed the limits of 'reformism' within the Mullah ruling caste. He paved the way for Ahmedinajad and effectively betrayed those who voted for him.

    Littlehorn says that 'Focusing so much on another country's wrongs, can only call for military intervention.' I don't agree. This is the way of Stalinism. If a country is under attack say nothing about its regime. I believe it is possible to defend Iran against Israeli or US attack, unconditionally, but criticise what is really a barbaric regime that attacks its own people. The two are not incompatible.

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  10. Indeed, they're not incompatible. But when joining the Zionist chorus of condemnations of Iran, it would be good to specify that you oppose a military intervention, and why.

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  11. Hi Tony, I think Dr Paul's suggested insertion was a proofreading comment!

    On the issue of Iranian gays, it is apalling how they are treated, perhaps no worse than in other countries, but still bad. I'd support HOPI's line of opposing an attack on Iran, and criticising the regime they have at the moment. At the same time, I can understand people's unwillingness to harp on the topic because of Israel's shameless use of Iranian repression of gays to justify an attack on Iran. Check out this article in Ha'aretz:
    'Israel recruits gay community in PR campaign against Iran'

    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1079589.html

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  12. Tony Greenstein4 May 2009 at 18:48

    I haven't joined any Zionist chorus of condemnation of Iran. I have always condemned the fundamentalist and reactionary regime of mullahs and who they represent.

    I take a socialist position of defending workers and the oppressed against the vicious attacks on them by this petit-bourgeois/bazari leadership.

    A basic position of any socialist should be to retain an independent class analysis and not to do like the Communist Party used to do which is uncritically support all bourgeois-nationalist formations up to the point where they get butchered themselves. That is what happened to the Tudeh (Communist) Party in Iran under Khomeini. They supported the regime uncritically as and until he turned on them and massacred them by the thousands.

    If you oppose oppression then you oppose it wherever it comes from. The Zionist criticism of Iran has nothing to do with their internal oppression of workers, gays etc. and everything to do with demonising any regime, however despotic, which is at all independent of imperialism. Hence one both defends Iran against external attack whilst fiercely criticising its medieval regime.

    Israel by way of contrast only criticises regimes which it opposes for its own reasons. In any case Israel does not specificaly criticise Iran for its anti-working class or anti-gay etc. policies but solely on account of its supposed nuclear weapons projectss.

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  13. With regards to Muslim-Jewish relations and the failure to export Nazi antisemitism to Vichy Morocco, I thought people might find the following historical snippet about French Algeria of interest -

    'The Dreyfus Affair also revealed a political anti-Semitism more active in France at that moment, led by Edouard Drumont, whose La France juive (Jewish France, 1886) sold a millions copies and, along with many other publications, made him the most popular anti-Semitic writer in Europe. His anti-Semitic League of France (1889-1902) gained ten thousand members and won local elections in Constantine and Algiers. The winners in Algiers organised a veritable pogrom in 1897 that killed several Jews and wounded a hundred, though the French government soon removed its leader from office. The League returned four deputies from Algeria in the national elections of 1898, and in the following year Deroulede tried to incite a coup d'etat, provoking his banishment from France. The victory of the Dreyfusards and the liberalisation of the republic decisively defeated these forces, sending them into irreverisible decline.' (page 45)
    History of Fascism 1914 - 1945by Stanley G. Payne (1996)

    all the best.

    ps
    Titter ye not....tee hee hee... -
    Now That's Real Blogging - Tim Ireland Screws The BNP!Craig Murray
    16 May 2009

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  14. Tony Greenstein17 May 2009 at 01:22

    And it should not be forgot that Herzl had the closest of relations with Drumont. When his pamphlet 'Der Judenstaat' was published in 1795 he was eager to have Drumont review it favourably. The endorsement of France's leading anti-semite was considered an extremely welcome development.

    As Herzl wrote, 'I owe to Drumont a great deal of the present freedom of my concepts, because he is an artist.' Diaries p.99

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