eh.....the Iranian president is a nerd (1 Viewer)

[billygannon]

Eh, no, because like it or not Jewish people do originally come from the land that is now Palestine/Israel.

And why the hell would they want to stay in Europe after the holocaust?

And America and Canada let loads of jewish immigrants in after WW2.

Ahmadinejab can fuck right off.

The Jewish people aren't the only "misplaced" peoples. How about Turkey giving Armenia back to the Armenians?
But if people start claiming that areas are their original homelands, then you get a situation like the Balkan wars.
The Palestinians have lived in that region for as long, if not longer, than the Jewish people and have as much claim to the area as anyone else.

 

[hugh]

This year Israel withdrew all the settlers from Gaza, which will benefit the Palestinians in Gaza somewhat. Gaza now control their border with Egypt for example. The situation can't be solved overnight but there are signs that it is very slowly getting better.

Small potatoes. Suppose you spend years hitting a man over the head with a hammer, kicking him in the balls, and poking him in the eye at the same time. Then suddenly you stop poking him in the eye and turn around and say "Look! I've made a major concession! I'm no longer poking him in the eye. His life is so much better now .....". Is the man supposed to be grateful?

How do you know for sure that this will be the outcome? A few years ago nobody would have believed that settlers would be withdrawn from Gaza, by Sharon of all people.

Ok fair enough I don't know this for sure. But I can try and predict someone's future behaviour from their past actions and I'm willing to lay down a money bet with anyone about most of this ...

Shit .. I have a lot more to say about this but have to go .. later maybe ...

 

[mazzyianne]

Did anyone read the full quote? Do you think he meant myth as lie? Cos further down he acknowledges that Europe commited this 'big crime'???



"They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets,"

"If someone were to deny the existence of God... or prophets and religion, they would not bother him.

"However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews' massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can,"

"If you [Europeans] committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?

"This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the US, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country,"

- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

I dont think he's acknowledging anything, he's saying IF you want to believe it happened, then you take them.
Jaysus, it's some statement really, I can't belive he can get away with saying stuff like that.

 

[aoboa]

I dont think he's acknowledging anything, he's saying IF you want to believe it happened, then you take them.
Jaysus, it's some statement really, I can't belive he can get away with saying stuff like that.

Sorry... what I was getting at was:
Dunno if he actually believes it though. It just sounds like a statement to appeal to the hardliners in Iran. I reckon he made it knowing full well that the western media would pick up on it and run amok and get him more support among the nutters in his own country.
Unbelievably stupid thing to say and all.

 

[spiritualtramp]

The Jewish people aren't the only "misplaced" peoples.

Of course not. But the evil mass gassing stuff made them pretty desperate to get their homeland back again. Hence the current situation.

The Palestinians have lived in that region for as long, if not longer, than the Jewish people and have as much claim to the area as anyone else.

I never argued that the Palestinians didn't live there for as long.

 

[classic seanc]

Just heard on the news his banned all Western music. The ban is aimed at eliminating violence. So now.........

 

[oh shit]

Of course not. But the evil mass gassing stuff made them pretty desperate to get their homeland back again. Hence the current situation.

that's a bit wrong.

zionism predates european fascism. zionists were building settlements in palestine before hitler ever came to power. during the nazi era prior to war (32-39) the nazis attempted to work with zionists to relocate german jews to british palestine - the british resisted this.

there's sixty years of history following that, starting with the british going back on a promise to not partition Palestine and create a jewish state, and including the Six Day War of 1967 in a catalogue of violence and atrocities that have led to the current situation.

the people have claimed ownership of the holocaust, and rightly so, it was their tragedy. but that should not extend to israel. israel should not be permitted to use the holocaust and anti-semitism as blanket excuses for its gross human rights violations. the arab world is not simply a rabble of rabid anti-semites.

nor should jewish ownership of the holocaust equate with unique jewish victimhood of the crime of genocide. the processes which allow genocide to occur are not simply down to pathologically evil perpetrators, or simple anti-semitism. there are social processes which produce genocide and they have been put to work long before 1939 and many times since. to allow the holocaust to justify anything to do with israel's violations of international law is a self-defeating argument. the same processes that occurred in the holocaust have been repeated many times since, in Vietnam, Iraq, Indonesia, the Balkans, Argentina, transnationally since 'the war on terror', and of course in israel itself. that goes some way to explaining the hatred people have towards israel in the arab world.

the true rationale for zionism was and continues to be base nationalism, as found all over the world since the start of the modern age - one people, one state, one nation: ein volk, ein fuehrer, ein israel.

 

[hugh]

the same processes that occurred in the holocaust have been repeated many times since, in Vietnam, Iraq, Indonesia, the Balkans, Argentina, transnationally since 'the war on terror', and of course in israel itself.

I'm not sure that these are really quite the same thing but here's an example of something that is. The genocide of the Armenians by Turkey in the early part of the 20th century is something generally accepted by historians but continually denied by, unsurprisingly, Turkey but also .... guess what? ... Israel. Reason being that they can maintain their monopoly on mass-victimhood.

 

[taubstumm]

I'm not sure that these are really quite the same thing but here's an example of something that is. The genocide of the Armenians by Turkey in the early part of the 20th century is something generally accepted by historians but continually denied by, unsurprisingly, Turkey but also .... guess what? ... Israel. Reason being that they can maintain their monopoly on mass-victimhood.

orhan pamuk is getting in a spot o' bother for saying the same... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4531782.stm

 

[oh shit]

I'm not sure that these are really quite the same thing

obviously the facts of the situation differ but the processes which allow the type of moral inversion required for a genocide to occur are repeated - basically authorization, routinization, and dehumanization. these processes are given to occur in closed authoritarian societies or organizations, eg the military.

the distancing of senior command from the end results of their orders, plus the requirement on low level soldiers to put obedience and group loyalty ahead of all other moral concerns, creates a perfect context for a 'free-floating responsibility' where everyone in the chain of command has total deniability for their actions.

when that organization is driven by an ideological impulse towards the a certain goal, which involves the defeat of some 'other' group in an ideological moral crusade, the outcome is always atrocity and abuse.

i suppose my point is that we can choose to define it on the facts of the case (ie, is this genocide, can it compare to the Holocaust?), which allows for a lot of interpretive denial; or we can say that certain processes are repeated regardless of the context, and that it is these processes which create the conditions for atrocity and which must be fought against.

which is now miles away from the point of the original thread. sorry!