Iran and Israel are both guilty of repeated abuse of human rights. In Iran, the jailing of Roxana Saberi for spying is an injustice, and a deliberate slap in the face to genuine overtures from Obama to cool the diplomatic temperature. But it is a comparatively small transgression in Iran, a country which executes gays and radically curtails freedom of speech, the rights of women and numerous other freedoms that should be universal.
Now let us look at Israel. Israel is indeed a country founded on a racist premise and based on massive ethnic cleansing, and where racial discrimination is built in to the legal fabric of the country. That situation is getting worse, not better.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/institutional_r.html
The BBC reports President Ahmadinejad today at the UN anti-racism conference thus:
Mr Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II “in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine”.
He continued, through an interpreter: “And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8008572.stm
I have not seen a full text and do not know what else he said. But insofar as the above s accurate, I in fact broadly agree with it. The only real point of dispute would be the extent to which people were sent as opposed to just went. But the general argument seems to me factually indisputable. Whether he is the best person to say it, given Iran’s own human rights record, is another question.
So there is hypocrisy from Israel, from Iran, and fom the Western countries including the UK who theatrically walked out of the speech.
There is a fascinating quote from Peter Gooderham, UK Ambassador and our representative at the conference:
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, he said of the Iranian leader’s accusation of Israeli racism: “That is a charge we unreservedly condemn and so we had no hesitation at that point in leaving the conference hall.”
Which is interesting as the FCO used to acknowledge institutionalised racism, enshrined in legislation, as a major problem in Israel. One more New Labour step appears to have been taken down the Zionist road.
Paul,
If the CIA were looking to recruit an agent in Iran, female journalist with dual citizenship and nil classified access is not the sort of person they would hire. It makes no sense at all. What exactly do you thin she was spying on?
Liz
“The “Iran executes gays” story is a myth:”
I’d like to see you argue that against Peter Tatchell. He is a far more credible source than your dodgy website.
This is Tatchell on Iran, and I suggest that you read this extract carefully. My enemy’s enemy is not necessarily my friend.
“Principled, consistent left-wingers do not base their politics on the unprincipled, inconsistent geo-political manoeuvres of western powers. We stand with the oppressed against their oppressors, regardless of what the west (or anyone else) demands or threatens.
US sabre-rattling against Iran is worrying. A military attack must be resisted. However, opposition to Washington’s war-mongering and neo-imperial designs is no reason for socialists, greens and other progressives to go soft on Tehran’s despotism.
Iran is an Islamo-fascist state ?” a clerical form of fascism based on a confluence of Islamic fundamentalism and police state methods. ”
http://www.petertatchell.net/
Roxana Saberi spent eight years in Iran filming things. Apparently she was under surveillance for quite a while according to Wikepedia. Her Father, Reza Saberi was apparently a Iranian Jew that fled the country in 1989. Saberi is a Jewish name and is common among Arabic Jews who live along the border of Iran.
This woman was stupid going to Iran. With a name like that the second she entered Iran the police would have known. Another Jew from Npr, surprise, surprise. Npr is MOSSAD headquarters, zionist propaganda.
But then you know this stuff don’t you Craig so why do write this propoganda and who do you write it for?
I dont know or care what she allegedly spied on and that is my point. Why does everyone assume she is innocent when they know nothing of the details?
Why are all spies presumed innocent when caught? (especially “our” spies)
Innocent until proven guilty. Surely that is a principle that even the fundamentalists on this site can sign up to? By all accounts the trial was a sham. It reminds me of Farzad Bazoft, an Observer journalist hanged by Saddam, for those with short memories.
Oh, look, guilty as charged after all
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6274496.ece