Much is made in the rush to war with Iran of Ahmadinejad’s alleged saying that Israel should be “wiped off the map”. I am not an Iranian speaker and not qualified to enter the debate as to whether that is, or is not, an accurate statement. I view Ahmadinejad as a thug anyway, irrespective of any linguistic quibble.
But it is quite astonishing that Netanyahu’s decalred, published and open intention to wipe the Palestinians from the map gets nil publicity in the west. The source for this is impeccable: Likud’s party platform as presented on the website of the Knesset.
This is absolutely compulsory reading for anybody who was taken in by the opposition to Palestinain statehood “without negotiation” as explained by the Israeli stooges in western governments. This is the actual, official Israeli policy:
The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.
So Likud says all of the West Bank belongs to Israel
The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.
This clearly claims all of Gaza – and Judea and Samaria – as land to which Israeli people have an “inalienable right”. It is the apotheosis of religious fanatic claims to a “Greater Israel”, elevated into the policy of the ruling party.
Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz.
So all of Jerusalem is to be taken too.
Likud specifically lays claim to absolutely all of the lands under at least semi-autonomous Palestinian control, and they say these claims are inalienable. There is no hint of any room for negotiation in the language of these statements. The UK and US governments who pretend that it is the Palestinians who are blocking negotiations, do so knowing they are lying, and because the majority of our politicians are tied in to the Israeli lobby with golden cords.
Netanyahu’s platform, claiming every inch occupied by Palestinians, is a programme for genocide. It can be described as nothing else.
There is absolutely no room left to argue that Netanyahu does not intend to wipe the Palestinians off the map.
I take a very dim view of anybody whose territorial ambitions are based on being told centuries ago by an imaginary friend that the land belongs to them.
I am not an Iranian speaker
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Farsi, dear boy.
Craig, some years ago, being intrigued by the rumours about “what Ahmedinejad actually said”, I did a Google search and stumbled across an English translation of the speech in question *commissioned by Mossad*. Not only did Ahmedinejad not “threaten to wipe Israel off the map”, but (quoting Khomeini, IIRC) he was expressing a pious hope that, just as the once apparently everlasting regimes of the Shah and the Soviet Union were now no more than memories, so the day would come when “the [Zionist] regime in al-Quds would be washed from the pages of history”. In exactly the same way, someone who was trying to encourage those who hope against hope for the freedom of Burma might remind them that the apartheid regime in South Africa once looked unassailable but is now well on the way to being forgotten.
Attached to the translation of the speech was a note that Mossad had reported to the Israeli government that this was the correct interpretation of what Ahmedinejad said.
However, whenever I have searched the net for that webpage since, Google has come up with nothing: so it looks like it has been deleted. Still, whenever I hear Tony Blair and others repeating the lie that the Iranians have threatened to wipe Israel off the map – a phrase clearly meant to suggest a nuclear attack – I think: You *must* know that is a lie!
Lost in translation: Experts confirm that Iran’s president did not call for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.
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The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele says here “I took my translation – “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” – from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole’s website where it has been for several weeks.”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155
Jiusito is on the money. In the speech, Ahmadinejad compares the Zionist regime to the USSR, Saddam and the Shah. I’m in no way qualified to comment on the precise linguistic arguments, but the context alone makes it clear Ahmadinejad is talking about a radical change in government, not the nuclear obliteration of a people/country. Ahmadinejad also stated that this was his meaning on a subsequent French TV interview.
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Even in the MEMRI ‘translation’, it is clear what was meant.
memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1510.htm
Well, at least it’s explicit. Hope the people of good will who have been trying to broker a Palestinian settlement for twenty years and more will now realise they’ve been made complete monkeys of. (ok, grammar nazis, put that correctly if you can)
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The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.
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The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.
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Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz. The government firmly rejects attempts of various sources in the world, some anti-Semitic in origin, to question Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, and the 3,000-year-old special connection between the Jewish people and its capital. To ensure this, the government will continue the firm policies it has adopted until now:
No diplomatic activity will be permitted at Orient House. The government stopped the stream of visits by heads of state and ministers at Orient House, begun under the left-wing government.
The presence of the Israeli police in eastern Jerusalem will be increased. This in addition to the new police posts and reinforcements in the neighborhoods.
The Likud government will act with vigor to continue Jewish habitation and strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the eastern parts of the city, while emphasizing improvements in the welfare and security of the Arab residents. Despite protests from the left, the Likud government consistently approved the continuation of Jewish living within the Old City and in ‘City of David’.
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Based on the Likud-led government’s proposal, the 10th Knesset passed the law to extend Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration over the Golan Heights, thus establishing Israeli sovereignty over the area. The government will continue to strengthen Jewish settlement on the Golan.
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We’re doing business with these people? Fuck that.
Craig,
I read this slightly differntly from you, and don’t think it is anything new.
What they are saying is that any Palestinian bantustans they grudingly allow won’t go as far as the hights overlooking the Jordan, won’t include any of the settlements inside the land grab wall, and won’t include any of East Jerusalem. Nothing new there.
This has been official Israeli policy for a long time under syuccessive governments, they just haven’t advertised it. They have always planned to have a strip of Israel to the east of and surrounding any Palestinian state. They have never had any intention of allowing them a viable state, and want to control all the water of the River Jordan (hugely important for their economy) plus the border with the country of Jordan so Palestinians need their permission to leave.
It remains true, of course, that the Western media, including the BBC, have collaboarated or at least aquiesced in not telling us this.
Plus ca change…
I realise this is hugely offtopic, but this piece sums up the current eurozone imbroglio with jawdropping info.
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http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/11/16/goldman-sachs-role-in-killing-democracy-across-europe/
Craig
Your Matthew Gould article has been posted in full on Philip Weiss’s widely read and influential American blog “Mondoweiss.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/did-fox-and-werritty-meet-6-times-with-ambassador-to-israel-to-plan-secret-agenda-for-war-with-iran.html
Congratulations. Lots of comments to.
Neither the Likud policy, as explained by Craig, nor Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric (even on the most hostile interpretation) necessarily call for genocide: only the elimination of the relevant Statehood. It is perfectly possible to end the Sate of Israel and leave all its citizens living in their homes, secure, with political liberties and property secure, in a unified non-sectarian state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.Several of the ultra-religious Israeli parties in the Knesset advocate this, Ahmadinejad seems to propose that, and many others around the world would find that an attractive proposition. For Palestine, the indefinite continuation of a Bantustan system is what the largest Knesset party, Kadima, proposes, and in practice what the other main parties in Israel favour; Palestinians can keep their lives, just not have any full citizenship of a sovereign state. A sort of Helot population in fact.
If an Israeli ever tells the truth it’s only because occasionally they have to fluke it. What would you expect from a bunch of Ashkenazi Euro trash who are no more Semitic than I am?
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As for the ‘actual official Israeli policy’? More lies for public consumption. Pay no attention to what they say – just put ‘eretz israel’ into google images to see the future (and ‘shrinking palestine’ to see the past). With Israelis it always pays to view them as negotiating in bad faith, ‘cos that’s all they got.
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Honestly, it says in the Talmud: ‘never tell the truth’. It’s pretty unambiguous and for mine the only thing worth knowing about them.
Well, it’s out in the open now. There is no intention to have an independent Palestinian state. So NONE of the “negotiations” blocked, stalled or even participated in by Israel have been in good faith. There is no intention to hand back Golan, or even part of it, ditto. Jerusalem, in defiance of earlier agreements, is to be exclusively Jewish, without even acknowledging the other Book religions, which have precisely as much claim on it as Judaism, as all their early prophets are common to all.
There still are some weasel phrases here, of course. From past experience, we know that emphasizing improvements in the welfare and security of the Arab residents means only “removing the Arab residents”
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And in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs., means “good roads for settlers, and bad ones with frequent checkpoints and random arrests for Arabs; if we want to build a sludge works we reserve the right to knock down a Palestinian town to make way for it”
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Ok, it’s not genocide. It’s just a continuation of making Palestinians’ lives so intolerable they move somewhere else. The “acceptable face” of ethnic cleansing, I suppose.
If only the palestinians had not gassed 6mill jews to death in the Holocaust.
Does anyone know how many civilians died during the WW2 ?
Netanyahu’s poodle Obomber is not content with burning, shredding and maiming Muslims. He seems to see the Chinese as a threat. Perhaps that because they have pockets full of his dollars.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/asia/obama-and-gillard-expand-us-australia-military-ties.html
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The photo is of him and the Zionist supporting Gillard whose accent Cameron, dressed up in his Bullingdon Club rig, attempted to imitate without much success the other night with the new lord mayor.
Doesn’t it make you sick to see how these City types, Wootton is a corporate lawyer, embed themselves in the establishment club.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wootton
Sonia Karkar writes from Australia –
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Editor’s note: As US President Obama’s whirlwind visit to Australia ends and Australia looks set to become a US military base in the Asia Pacific region – albeit described as a US military presence – one has to ask just how much Australia’s foreign policy will be further influenced by US interests, in particular on matters concerning Israel/Palestine.
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At a time when the Australian public is increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinian statehood bid – the latest Morgan poll (released on 8 November) has 62% of those polled saying the UN should recognise Palestine as one of its member states – our government has sided with Israel and the US in opposing it.
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The poll also shows that 64% of Australians oppose Israel’s illegal settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land. Australians should be much more aware of the power plays going in Washington, not least the one-eyed, pro-Israel crusade by Dennis Ross who was supposed to be the US honest broker in the Israel/Palestine negotiations since the Reagan administration, but proved to be more “Israeli than the Israelis themselves”.
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His efforts contributed to the growth of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories and as Blumenthal says “Ross did more than any official to advance Israeli ambitions of expansion at the cost of Palestinian pursuit of statehood and freedom.” Ross may have gone, but the US Congress is in any case almost unanimously behind Israel which doesn’t augur well for Palestine here in Australia.
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Earlier this month, Australia was one of 14 countries to vote against Palestine membership of the UN cultural organization UNESCO and it is almost certain that Australia will vote against Palestine’s bid for statehood. This would make Australia’s insistence on a two-state solution a farce. The latest strengthening of ties with the US will only increase our government’s reliance on US foreign policy decisions on Israel/Palestine rather than developing our own independent policy. Thus, it is worth taking note of just how much influence Israel has on US decision-making in the following two articles.
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Sonja Karkar
Editor
http://australiansforpalestine.com
Old Lord Mayor of London:-
(not sure which thread to put this on)
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=227646
Gouldfoxwerritty fans please copy.
Political Assassinations Boost Tel Aviv Stock Exchange:
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http://www.bankisrael.gov.il/deptdata/mehkar/papers/dp0502e.pdf
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Abstract
targeted killing (henceforth assassination) of members of Palestinian terrorist
organizations was a major element in Israel’s counterterrorism effort during
the Palestinian uprising which started in 2000. We evaluate the effectiveness
of this policy indirectly by examining Israeli stock market reactions to
assassinations. Our approach relies on the assumption that the market should
react positively to news of effective counterterrorism measures but negatively
to news of counterproductive ones. The main result of the analysis is that the
market reacts strongly to assassinations of senior members in Palestinian
terrorist organizations: it declines following attempts to assassinate political
leaders but rises following attempts to assassinate military ones.
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We kid you not.
On the other hand, it is a party manifesto, and we all know how much credence to place on these documents.
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And to play devil’s advocate for a moment, what if a reason for setting things out in these terms was so as not to weaken the hand of a Likud leader in negotiations with the Palestinians?
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I would not dismiss such an argument out of hand, but with Bibi as leader, I wouldn’t believe it.
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And lastly, that several parts of the Likud manifesto is a mirror image of Hamas’s charter strikes me as neither coincidental nor irrelevant.
What Ahmadinejad really said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#Translation_controversy
This is from Internet Archives.
O/T NORTHERN ROCK
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Gideon ‘I think that it is the best deal for British taxpayers.’
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If I could do one of Komodo’s strike throughs, this should be:
‘I think that it is the best deal for Richard Branson’
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There is a substantial loss for the taxpayer according to ZBC in the order of £half a billion to £three quarters of a billion.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15769886
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Why sell now Gideon when everything is at an all time low? Old pals’ act again?
“….”Don’t know if this will work till I post it, Mary.
Nope, although it might be art.
This blog accepts some but not all HTML tags. These are enclosed in the forward and backward arrows, and I may be able to show you using spaces to make the page print the tags. Remove the spaces and inverted commas: “
” text ““Nope again. It’s really determined to stay secret. Google “HTML tags strikeout” then. It’s the best I can do.
Andy,
thanks so much for posting that Jonathan Steele link from the Guardian. I had it bookmarked for ages, but lost all my bookmarks in a switch-over.
(I don’t think there is more than a tiny handful of Americans who have read or heard of the correct translation.)
If….
Gordon hadn’t flogged our gold reserves at the bottom of the market, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. I still don’t know what got into Prudence.
I seem to remember we had quite a long discussion in the comments section of this blog last year about what Ahmadinejad actually said. The consensus was then, as now, that he had expressed the belief that one day the regime would disappear from the pages of history. But Angrysoba managed to come up with plenty of counter-sources that disputed that. Angry? You there?
Hi Craig,
Follow-up to contact with Al-Akhbar English. They are interested by the story but probably not told in the first person. Will contact you through Cook or another of their regular contributors.
Cheers
New discriminatory bill passed in Knesset
“The new bill seeks to prohibit the receipt of funds from governments and institutions abroad, which is an important source of income for Israeli peace and human rights organizations – but in no way does it touch the donations of foreign right-wing extremist millionaires”
Quote from Gush Shalom, see:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1321271743
Also please don’t forget other Jewish anti- zionist organisations
Jews for Justice for Palestinians
B’Tselem
They need our support even more now.
OT
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THU 14.10pm:
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The public have just succeeded in delaying opening bell of New York stock exchange; employees having ‘great difficulty’ accessing building. On-spot coverage LIVE:
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http://www.ustream.tv/TheOther99