[Big Mac]

Ahamdinejad stated to the U.N. that it's Zionists he hates, not Jews. He said that Zionists aren't Jews but rather a power group desiring complete power.

Now, does anyone here agree with Ahamdinejad that Zionist (Jews) aren't Jews? Anyone here think vmarks and I, for example, are not Jews? I'd love to converse with someone who is faithful to Ahamdinejad's view in this regard.

Edit: Additionally, who here thinks Zionists are out for total power?

[nonhuman]

Well, I think one could probably argue that it's not necessary to be Jewish to be a Zionist and therefore Zionists are a discreet group, separate from Jews. If that's the case then it would be possibly to hate Zionists, but not hate Jews (except for the subset of Jews that are Zionists). I think there's probably even some validity to this argument, because I'm sure there are non-Jews who would be considered Zionists and Jews who aren't Zionist. So it theoretically could be valid that Ahmadinejad doesn't hate Jews, just Zionists.

However, I suspect that he's full of ****.

[Dork.]

My understanding (and I'm deliberately trying to not take sides here, so please pardon my weasel words) is that some people make the distinction between Judaism as a religious movement and Zionism as a Jewish nationalist movement. Furthermore, he seems to be trying to equate this Jewish nationalist movement with the fundamentalist Muslim "nationalist movements" that the West has been branding terrorist movements.

We say that Al Qaeda is trying to distort the Muslim faith to their own ends, and call on moderate Muslims to say they are not "true Muslims". He seems to be trying to equate the Zionist movement to that.

[marden]

A movement formerly for re-establishing, since 1948 for supporting, the Jewish national state of Israel.
Connections: welcome: _: welcome

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Well, I think one could probably argue that it's not necessary to be Jewish to be a Zionist and therefore Zionists are a discreet group, separate from Jews. If that's the case then it would be possibly to hate Zionists, but not hate Jews (except for the subset of Jews that are Zionists). I think there's probably even some validity to this argument, because I'm sure there are non-Jews who would be considered Zionists and Jews who aren't Zionist. So it theoretically could be valid that Ahmadinejad doesn't hate Jews, just Zionists.

However, I suspect that he's full of ****.

Well, I'm not a Jew, but I am a Zionist.

But, he's just backtracking. He's a known anti-Semite working on damage control with the Int'l community. Pretty standard stuff.

[marden]

The Arabs Without the Jews: Roots of a Tragedy

By Magdi Allam

IHC Abstract
This extraordinary article is by Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-Muslim columnist and writer living in Italy. Allam was among 1,000 people who attended the Milan premiere of Pierre Rehov’s film about the flight of the Jews from Arab countries, “The Silent Exodus.” This is an unofficial translation of Allam’s article, first published in Italian by the Corriere della Sera on 19 November 2004. It is a review of Arab History and how intolerance towards Jews has actually done damage to the Arabs.


Israel is the keeper of a mutilated Arab identity, the repository for the guilty consciences of the Arab peoples, the living witness to a true history of the Arab countries, continuously denied, falsified and ignored.

Seeing Pierre Rehov’s documentary film “The Silent Exodus,” about the expulsion of a million Sephardi Jews, helped me gain a better understanding of the tragedy of a community that was integral and fundamental to Arab society. Above all it revealed to me the very essence of the catastrophe that befell it, a catastrophe which the mythical Arab nation has never once called into question. I could see the tragedy of the Jews and the catastrophe of the Arabs are two facets of the same coin. By expelling the Jews, who were settled on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean centuries before they were Arabised and Islamised, the Arabs have in fact begun the lethal process of mutilating their own identity and despoiling their own history.

As has often happened in history, Jews were the first victims of hatred and intolerance. Others - Christians and other religious minorities, and enlightened Muslims - soon followed. No Arab state has ever condemned this exodus. A contagious identity crisis has taken hold of the Arab and Muslim communities in the West, that neither Nasserist nor Ba’athist pan-Arabism, nor the Islamism of the Saudi Wahabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeini and bin Laden have been able to solve.

During the mid-1970s, Arab identity was identified in Egypt as “a nation united by race, blood, history, geography, religion and destiny.” This was a falsification of an historical truth based on ethno-religious pluralism. It was directly inspired by Nazi theories of racial purity and supremacy, which appealed to the leadership and ideologues of pan-Arabism and Islamism. Small wonder that in this context egalitarian Israel is perceived as a cancer produced by American imperialism to divide and subjugate the Arab world.

The historical truth is that the Middle Eastern peoples, in spite of their Arabisation/Islamisation from the 7th century onward, maintained a specific identity reflecting their indigenous ethnic roots - cultural, linguistic, religious and national. The Berbers, for example, who constitute half the population of Morocco and a third of that of Algeria, have very little in common with the Bedouin tribes of Saudi or Jordanian society. The Arab League in 1979 sidelined Egypt for signing a peace treaty with Israel, when President Anwar Sadat proudly contrasted Egypt’s Pharaonic identity with its Arabness. This was an isolated but significant attempt to recapture an indigenous identity, while saying 'enough is enough' to rampant lies and demagoguery.

“The Silent Exodus” testifies that antisemitism and pogroms against the Jews of the Middle East preceded the birth of the State of Israel and the advent of ideological pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism. It infers that hatred and violence against the Jews could originate in an ideological interpretation of the Koran and the life of the prophet Muhammad taken out of context. Muslims, Christians and Jews of the Middle East coexisted peacefully when in Europe the Catholic Inquisition was repressing the Jews and when [in the 20th century] the Nazis were trying to exterminate them. Likewise, one cannot ignore Israel’s responsibility together with Arab leaders in the emergence of Palestinian refugees and the unresolved question of a Palestinian state.

The fact remains that of the million Jews who at the end of 1945 were an integral part of the Arab population, only 5,000 remain. Those Arab Jews continue to represent a human injustice and an historical tragedy. Above all, they are indicative of an Arab civil and identity catastrophe. By rediscovering their tolerant and plural history, the Arabs could free themselves from the ideological obscurantism which has relegated them to the most basic level of human development and has changed the region into the most problematic and conflict-ridden on earth.


Source: Corriere Della Sera, 19 November 2004.

Corriere della Sera - Gli arabi senza gli ebrei

Abstract written by Giv Cornfield, Ph.D., an IHC volunteer for Israel Hasbara Committee.

Israel Hasbara Committee - Israel Hasbara Committee
You can find this article online at Israel Hasbara Committee

[badidea]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

So it theoretically could be valid that Ahmadinejad doesn't hate Jews, just Zionists.

However, I suspect that he's full of ****.

I really would like to see where he said that: "Zionists aren't Jews"
But maybe he just meant it in the way you just described!?

If it is not true what he said, then why are there Jews in the Iranian government??

[Big Mac]

I was watching the translated excerpt on CNN, and that's what he said.

Tell me more about Jews supposedly being in the Iranian government - never heard of such a thing.

[Nicko]

Ahamdinejad is a good politician and knows how to get the reaction he wants.

[marden]

Originally Posted by Nicko

Ahamdinejad is a good politician and knows how to get the reaction he wants.

I believe this is very true.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Nicko

Ahamdinejad is a good politician and knows how to get the reaction he wants.

Yeah, he's really a pretty fascinating figure. There's a biography of him coming out later this year, I can't wait to read it.

[red rocket]

Let's remember the following:

1. Not all Jews are Zionists.
2. Not all Zionists are Jews.
3. There is a Jewish community in Iran.
4. That community has a representative in the Iranian parliament.
5. Despite the claim that Ahmadinejad is some crazy, Jew-hating re-incarnation of Hitler who wants to "wipe Israel off the map", he never actually said that. His beef is with the Zionist regime, a perfectly legitimate political stance shared by many people across the world, including Jews.

[Millennium]

I will accept his "Zionists are not Jews" argument as soon as he is willing to accept my "Terrorists are not Muslims" argument.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Now, does anyone here agree with Ahamdinejad that Zionist (Jews) aren't Jews? Anyone here think vmarks and I, for example, are not Jews? I'd love to converse with someone who is faithful to Ahamdinejad's view in this regard.

I think you're confusing his comment. He's saying that all Zionists are Jews, but not all Jews are Zionists.

Either way, the comment wasn't nearly as bad as his "Death to America does not mean Death to Americans" comment.

[yakkiebah]

Originally Posted by red rocket

Let's remember the following:

5. Despite the claim that Ahmadinejad is some crazy, Jew-hating re-incarnation of Hitler who wants to "wipe Israel off the map", he never actually said that. His beef is with the Zionist regime, a perfectly legitimate political stance shared by many people across the world, including Jews.

Oh i see. He has been misquoted. So what about this then?

Combine this with his holocaust denial and you get a lot of people seriously worried.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I was watching the translated excerpt on CNN, and that's what he said.

Tell me more about Jews supposedly being in the Iranian government - never heard of such a thing.

Educate yourself with red rocket's post!


(and no, I do NOT like Ahmadinejad!)

[Orion27]

Zionism is variously defined as:
A national liberation movement[1]
A political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago[2] and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states existed up to the 2nd century CE
A diaspora nationalism[3] which promotes migration to the Jewish National Homeland.
While Zionism is based in part upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was mainly secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant antisemitism in Europe during the 19th century.[4] At first one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to the position of Jews in Europe, Zionism gradually gained more support. The destruction of the existing Jewish society in Europe during the Holocaust accelerated migration to Palestine, in turn accelerating the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Since 1948 Zionism is a national ideology within the State of Israel, [5] and outside it primarily a movement in support of that state.[citation needed]

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by goMac

I think you're confusing his comment. He's saying that all Zionists are Jews, but not all Jews are Zionists.

No, he said "These Zionists (referring to Israel) are not Jews."

Here's the full quotation:

“These Zionists are not Jews,” he said. “This is the biggest deception we have faced. They are a power group, a power party. We oppose any group that seeks raw power.”

In other words, Israeli Zionists specifically are not Jews according to him; more generally any Zionist Jew must also not be a Jew, by his definition.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by yakkiebah

Oh i see. He has been misquoted. So what about this then?

LOL, rocketboy got caught big time there. Pwned. I wonder if he's going to apologize. Most likely not.

As for the Jews of Iran, it's a very small population of elderly people. All the other Jews of Iran got the hell out. And having a powerless token Jew on a council of the Islamic dictatorship doesn't do much to impress me.

[voodoo]

Ahamdinejad is by far the best dressed leader in the world after the Pope. Very tasteful.

V

[itai195]

Originally Posted by red rocket

5. Despite the claim that Ahmadinejad is some crazy, Jew-hating re-incarnation of Hitler who wants to "wipe Israel off the map", he never actually said that. His beef is with the Zionist regime, a perfectly legitimate political stance shared by many people across the world, including Jews.

Yet the same translation is also on Al Jazeera's web page. I doubt they listen to suggestions from 'some wise neo-con' on how to spin Ahmadinejad's words.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by red rocket

Let's remember the following:

5. Despite the claim that Ahmadinejad is some crazy, Jew-hating re-incarnation of Hitler who wants to "wipe Israel off the map", he never actually said that. His beef is with the Zionist regime, a perfectly legitimate political stance shared by many people across the world, including Jews.

You need to be very careful when you quote Juan Cole claiming Ahmadinejad never said those words. Cole has been proven wrong on many other topics, both historical and mistranslation.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/200...fications.html is an Iraqi correcting Cole.

The fact of the matter is that Ahmadinehad DID say those words, and Cole is the only person claiming otherwise.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by vmarks

The fact of the matter is that Ahmadinehad DID say those words, and Cole is the only person claiming otherwise.

I'm afraid you're mistaken.

According to MEMRI, he said,

Originally Posted by MEMRI translating Ahmadinejad

"'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise."

Here is the original speech in Farsi.

I don't speak Farsi, but as Jonathan Steele points out in this comment piece in the Guardian, far from Cole being alone in his opinion, there is consensus about this between NYT experts Ethan Bronner and Nazila Fathi, the Middle East Media Research Institute, and the BBC monitoring service.