Why Ahmedinejad exploits the Holocaust
September 28th, 2007Why does he do it? Here’s the answer. I couldn’t have said it better.
As long as our governments keep feeding us with anti-Semitic garbage and we keep believing it, we’ll continue digging the stinking hole we’re stuck in deeper and we shall remain “intoxicated”.
This is a primary reason for why I think we Arab Muslims should use blogs as alternative sources of information about the real Jews, not the dehumanized ones we’re taught about in school and shown 24/7 in our government sponsored media. Best of all, blogs don’t just spread raw information from the bloggers behind them, but they also allow interaction with them. (Imagine how Web 3.0 technologies will be like in a few years from now).
Thank God for the blogosphere. It has opened my eyes to so much. As you may be able to tell, I have become deeply passionate about this new medium of communication. Too bad there are way too many of us who still remain blind and/or don’t want to leverage its power.
Anyways, Ahmadinejad is a freaking lunatic and the way he exploits the Holocaust is wickedly smart but nonetheless sickening.
Oh and don’t forget, Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy. Only 9,000 people died so far.
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You know what’s funny, is that all the while we yap about Jews being the source for all-things-evil, we don’t realize that we are living amongst some of them. There are many Arab Jews in our backyards, and that’s why I hate the phrase “Jews vs. Arabs” because many people fall under both categories. I interviewed one of them here.
Great interview! His answers are just like I predicted.
I’d love meeting some Arab Jews. But hey you know what? My friend told me about a Jewish friend she has. Yeah, a CHINESE Jew!! She’ll arrange a day when we can all meet up to chill over hummus and shisha. It should be interesting.
I have a Korean Baha’i friend going to school with me. Yet she knows more about Islam than most Muslims I know. Crazy!
And Drima, I know you’ve always wanted a date with an Iranian Jew.. well guess what? Your dream is clicks away from coming true:
Persian Jewish date
Enjoy! Tell me all about her after your first e-date!
I think to say that Ahmedinejad is using ‘holocaust talk’ and anti-Israeli talk to get the support of sunni muslims is a little naive. Yes ofcourse he wants to get more support, especially from countries surrounding him.
But I do not necessarily believe he is being exploitative. He does not deny the Holocaust, rather he asks, If the Holocaust was a European problem, why is the solution in the Middle East? He has also highlighted the way in which Israel hides behind the holocaust, making themselves immune from any criticism.
This is one of the major issues resulting in the lack of progress with peace, and one of the main sources of anger and frustration amongst fighters of the Palestinian cause.
Yes many innocent Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis have suffered since the start of this conflict. And trying to make peace with the ‘other’ is great, but will prove pointless unless we are allowed to openly discuss the Holocaust and Israel’s exploitation of it, without being labelled anti-semitic.
Something I think may be enlightening and very disturbing to some, make of it what you will.
It’s an illegitimate and unethical question. First of all, neither Ahmadinejad nor anybody else has the right to order Jews around, decide where we belong, or determine for us where our rightful homeland should be. Secondly, Israel is the ancient ancestral homeland of the Jewish nation. The very notion that the Jewish homeland belongs in Europe, amongst people who insisted we didn’t belong there because we are too Semitic, is both unfair and preposterous. Jews have ancient patrimony, ethnic identity, history, culture, philology, liturgy, folklore, customs, legal codes, and independent institutions that stem directly from Israel and the West Bank. Jews use precolonial names for ancient cities. We’re not merely a religious group. We’re an independent nation that originates from there with our own tribal rights.
Just because two groups have competing claims for a piece of land, doesn’t mean one is a foreigner. Kurds and Assyrians have such conflict over parts of Northern Iraq. But does one really belong more than the other even though most Assyrians now live abroad? No. Both groups are aboriginal. What needs to be worked out is how to safeguard the rights of minorities so all feel comfortable together as equals.
I’m puzzled how anyone can make such a claim with a straight face. How is Israel immune to criticism? The UN has condemned Israel more than all OIC nations combined (as if Israel is a worse abuser than all of them added up). Israel is the only nation that has been singled out for criticism by the UN’s Human Rights Commission, whereas the world’s worst human rights abusers get a generally free pass. In addition, when was the last time an Arab League nation was singled out and condemned for its socially dysfuctional behavior?
Plenty of nations are immune from criticism. Clearly Israel is not one of them.
Yes, there are legitimate abuses and oppression in Israel and the Palestinian territories that are unacceptable, wrong, and absolutely must be corrected. The problem is that the bulk of criticism against Israel is agenda-driven, too often nihilistic, and fueled by irrational hatred, often by nations that have no reason to be in conflict with Israel except that they have chosen to. Those who claim Israel is immune from criticism, really are complaining that Israel has not completely succumbed to it, buckled under, and collapsed. But, any honest analysis will reveal that the antagonistic relations between Israel and Iran, as only one example, are singularly by the Iranian government’s choice, not Israel’s, and it certainly isn’t because they’re concerned with human rights in Palestine.
I am not here to dispute the legitimacy of the Jewish Nation. Israel exists, and it will continue to exist, but hopefully not beyond its current borders. The Jews have historical links to the land, that is not disputed. And I agree with you PeacefulVanguard
But we can not hide from the fact that the final push in the creation of the Jewish state was the Holocaust. And therefore we should have the right to discuss it openly. The real role of the Zionists, the use of it now by Israel and for that matter the branding of the label anti-semitic on anyone who attempts to critically examine the Jews or the Holocaust.
With regard to Israel’s apparent abundance of criticism, I just simply can not disagree with you more. Regardless of how many times the UN or anyone else has ‘condemned’ or criticed Israel, it has come to nothing. Talk and no action. It’s complete double standards. Where are the sanctions put against Israel for their vast amount of violations?
We need to take a step back and see the situation as it is. We need to be honest with ourselves, specifically about the governments that are running our countries. We need to stop fighting each other… and instead fight the real enemy.
So true, Tamara, and thank you. I couldn’t agree with you more. I think we also always have to remember that certain people make a lot of money off rivalry and conflict. It’s a big business.
A few modest insights:
First, the article you link to Drima, is highly problematic. No doubt, it doesn’t take much to believe that Ahmadinejad is exploiting the Holocaust precisely because his words resonate with latent anti-Semitism in Iran and in the Arab world. But the way the author of that article explains that anti-Semitism is kind of ridiculous:
“However, Arab peoples are not inherently anti-Jewish. They are simply responding to what their leadership gives them.”
Of course, “Arab peoples” are not inherently anything. No “people” is. But neither are they simply “responding” to what the leadership gives them, as if they all take orders from above and have no freedom to disagree, or no ability to understand things themselves. How does the author explain himself if that is the case? For that matter, how do you explain yourself, Drima? It’s not because “the government feeds them this stuff” that there is anti-Semitism. It certainly doesn’t help that popular media tends to perpetuate those attitudes, but hey, popular media tends to do that everywhere in the world. It seems that by blaming the leaderships, you vindicate the people, but you also deprecate them and make them look like idiots who can’t think for themselves. Well, they can: look at the activists in prison.
PeacefulVanguard, look, nobody is suggesting that Jewish people should be told what they can and can’t do and where they can and can’t live. But nations are fake, anyway, and we live in a world where we should be able to move beyond this 19th and 20th century idea, which has shed much blood. Yes, it is true that ancient names are used for towns throughout the area, but not necessarily for the same places (read Nadia Abou el-Haj’s book about this), or all places, and neither does it imply a “right” to the land. If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, and if you accept it as historical document, which you must if you believe that the Jewish ‘nation’ has a right to the land, then you know that there were numerous other ethnic groups living in the same area as well, not exclusively Jewish ones. Nobody has to be a foreigner, that’s the point. But nobody has to be superior, either, and this is what both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism (and two-state’ism) imply.
Yhis is bogus, sincw there is plenty of other historical documentation besides the OT which points to the ancient Jewish Nation. It is also a rediculous pipedream to assert that suddenly we should all give up “nationality”. Somehow, this wasn’t really ever an issue before Jews reconstituted their nation.
And Tamara, since when is the amount of criticism a country recieves in an international forum, dependant upon it’s subsequent actions? Or are you saying that Israel continues to recieve the majority of UN condemnations because it refuses to succumb? In which case that would also prove Israel is not immune from criticism.
The only people I ever notice “hiding behind the Holocaust” are the enemies of both Israel and Jews in the wider context.
Tamara,
I think it is historically inaccurate to say that the Palestinians, and Arabs in general, had nothing to do with the Holocaust. Palestinian leader Haj Amin al Husseini visited Germany in 1941-42 discussing setting up concentration camps in Palestine (though this never materialized). Under Arab pressure, the British occupiers denied Jews fleeing the Holocaust refuge in Israel, like in the case of the boat Exodus. New evidence has emerged that some Jews killed in Auschwitz were Lybian, captured during the North African campain. And of course there was the massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1943 in which 3000 Jews were killed, which Iraqis carried out in solidarity with the invading Nazis who fought the occupying British. My grandmother still talks about that massacre and how some in her family had to flee Baghdad at the time.
With that said, does Israel hide behind the Holocaust? Yes sometimes, but not all the time. But to say that the Holocaust was entirely an European phenomenon is false. Ahmadinejad does not deny the Holocaust, he simply minimizes it using arguments that Arab nationalists used 30-40 years ago. It is unfortunate that such ideas have not left the public discourse in the Middle East and Europe.
However, I would like to point something out that is often ignored by the mainstream media. The Israeli peace camp is made almost entirely by Ashkenazi (East European) Jews whose families fled to Israel during the Holocaust or shortly thereafter. Many of them were/are left wing socialists who live in Tel Aviv or in kibbutzim and vote for Labor or Meretz. The Israeli right, as well as many settlers, include the more religious and conservative Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Arab lands. The “new” immigrants (Russians arriving in 90-91 and French Jews arriving during the 2nd Intifada) are mostly right-wingers. So ironically, the Jews who fled to Israel because of the Holocaust are the ones trying to make peace, while Jews who came to Israel because of other reasons are the ones helping prolong the occupation in the West Bank.
It is, not fully but still, it is one of the factors (another being the conflict itself of course).
You are right Yaman, no doubt there. However there is a big problem in the Arab world (which is actually lessening now). The problem is access to alternative sources of information. TV, books, radio etc. are all essentially anti-Semitic because that suits the politics of ruling regimes, so when you combine that constant stream of biased info with scenes of Israel bombing Palestine or Lebanon, it becomes very believable.
Now obviously in other places with free media people have less excuses and reasons to believe what they see on TV. In the West the press is generally not controlled by governments. It’s mostly free and independent. So for example, I would actually blame someone watching Fox news 24/7 and thinking that Muslims are evil for his/her views more than I would blame an Arab for being anti-Semitic.
But then this isn’t just about anti-Semitism. Moreover this post isn’t about other places in the world. It’s about the Arab world. And it’s about how blaming problems on Jews unfortunately tends to work too well.
Three major points that are underestimated by author and commentators:
Firstly, Ahamadinejad is a petty stooge; the absolute despot is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is the one who decides about both domestic and foreign affaires.
Secondly, the majority of Iranians, from any social class, ethnic groups, and political calibre and tendency, do not recognise this regime and its clown president or its absolute leader as Iranian representatives. Most Iranians are disappointed by the number of Muslim supporters that endorse or recognise this criminal regime simply because of its Islamic identity.
Thirdly, the conflict between Arabs and Israel might be interesting for some Iranian analysts, but is not interesting for Iranians as a major problem.
Drima, you wrote, “This is a primary reason for why I think we Arab Muslims should use blogs as alternative sources of information about the real Jews, not the dehumanized ones we’re taught about in school and shown 24/7 in our government sponsored media.”
Maybe what appears in the Arab media and schools is in response to how Muslims are portrayed in Western and Israeli media and schools.
Drima, you wrote, “Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy”
This sarcastic description of the situation in Darfur is not any different from how the mainstream media portrays it: Light skinned Arabs on a jihad against black Africans. The situation is much more complicated than this as I have explained here http://www.mideastyouth.com/2007/08/19/darfur-is-not-a-zionist-plot/#comment-63590
Dear levylevthuglife,
Firstly I did not say that the Palestinians and/or Arabs had no involvement with the Nazi Government. But I think it is also important to note that there is extensive evidence that the Zionists were in ‘collaboration’ with the Nazi government. The Revisionist Zionists, who played a key role, later became the Likud Party.
I do not doubt for a second that there are many Jews and Israelis that are fighting for peace, as there are many people from all over the world fighting against the attrocities of this conflict.
My point is that we need to understand our history, from all sides, to be able to identify what is happening right now, so we can change it. No one is happy that this conflict continues, except for the few that profit so greatly off of it.
randalljones- u are absolutely so wrong in saying that arab media is a response to the poor representation arabs receive in american and israeli press and schools. I see the gamut of papers in the nyc metropolitan areas, and although some are more or less prowar, or more or less antagonistic toward Iran , they are overall tolerant, and objective toward arabs, as a group. I work in the schools and see many, many arab children amongst other groups of kids- who experience multicultural lessons,murals etc.with no negative stuff in the current events or the history, tho of course history is taught differently in diff places.
I wish I could find more (translated) media from the ME. How much Western media is available in the ME nations? I’ve heard that “Oprah” is very popular in some countries.
limpia,
I live in New York City and I am fully aware of how the media represents Arabs and Muslims. So please spare me the lies.
Just because schools have students of different ethnicities it does not mean that they teach tolerance or educate students about what goes on in other countries.
The form of hate that is taught in schools and media is subtle, but dangerous. When they only bring up the violent actions of Muslim but don’t bring up the violent actions that have been committed agianst Muslims, it givess the impresion that Muslims are irrational natural born killers.
When only negative aspects of Muslims societies are discussed or only the extremist point of view is presented in media and schools this gives the impression that all Muslims are this way.
i said u were wrong, i didnt use the word ‘lies’. who do u think u are u? btw- i will never respond to a post from u again.
Tamara wrote:
There is, in fact, not extensive evidence at all that Zionists were in league with the Nazis. In fact, for people who study the history of world war 2 carefully, the very opposite is true despite what one book might say. The Nazis wanted to rid the world of Jews, not relocate them. Many Zionists felt that there could be no home for Jews in Europe… there is a big difference between the two ideas.
It is like equating the acts of Malcolm X, who wanted a separate nation for African Americans, with the acts of the Ku Klux Klan, which sought to eradicate Blacks (and Jews and Catholics, for that matter).
tori,
Lenni Brenner wrote another book, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators where he writes how Kurt Tuchler, a member of the German Zionist Federation Executive
If you want to see a picture of the coin go to http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/1455
The Star of David side reads:
EIN NAZI FÄHRT NACH PALÄSTINA — A Nazi Travels to Palestine.
The Swastika side reads
UND ERZÄHLT DAVON IM Angriff — And tells about it in Angriff.
Janjan, I know, but the point is that Jews were not the exclusive cultivators or inhabitant of the land. Even the Old Testament, if taken as historical fact, relates this.
Randy,
I checked out the Nazi/Zionist site and the oh so real ‘coin’ that couldn’t possibly be fake because it came from a reliable ‘dealer’.
Funny, all of the thousands of Nazi documents recovered never mention this very special event.
So, the plan was to murder 6 million Jews and then relocate the rest?
Randy, are you NOI? You gotta be.
Have you bothered to read this book, or are you just gleaning things from the internet, and then quoting them as source material in order to suit your agenda? Gee, one guess.
And it’s really typical that you would look for source material from a website that links to a bunch of viciously Jew-hating websites. Here’s a quote on the homepage of one of the “great sites” your source links to:
Nice company you keep, Randall. I’m not surprised though.
For whatever it’s worth, the above quote was from 1934, before the Nuremburg Laws were enacted (e.g. “The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor”), before Kristallnacht, and years before anyone realized the Nazis would perpetuate the Holocaust. Thanks.
Dear Tori,
I did not say that the Zionists wanted to rid the world of the Jews. They were presented with opportunities to save ’some’ Jews from the Holocaust, but they rejected all on the basis that they would accept only a Jewish state in Palestine.
I agree with Tamara and yaman that many of the statements the article makes are a little naive. The last three paragraphs especially seem to me to be a compendium of simplistic opinions presented as fact.
Taking the assertions and the exaggerations in the article at face value, the uninformed reader would get the impression that Iran “thumbs it’s nose at Israel” because Arabs like “anti-Semitic discourse” because this is “what their leadership gives them.”
Simultaneously however, the writer argues that the intensity and virulence of the anti-Semitic streak in the Arab street “is the product of decades of political oppression.” This implies a Friedman-like transposition which dismisses as an Arab conceit the sense of empathy and unity with Palestinians, seeing Arab anger at Israel as nothing more ominous than displaced resentment at their own rotten rulers.
The contradiction suggested by this double argument can only be resolved through understanding that Arabs hate Jews because they privately blindly accept, while publicly wanting to criticise, everything an oppressive leadership gives them.
You all make some good points. Now I have a question: why are historically European anti-Semitic myths receiving a platform in so much of the Arab world? Why can’t the focus only be on the reality of the situation between Israel and Palestinians instead of tainted by anti-Semitism?
I rarely encountered unofficial, street-level anti-Semitism while I was in Iran, but professors, intellectuals, the regime, and other official voice boxes are so busy pushing historical anti-Semistism that I became afraid that it would eventually sink in. Is my fear unfounded? You tell me.
PeacefulVanguard,
“The Baron agreed on the condition that he visited Palestine first, and two months after Hitler came to power the two men and their wives went to Palestine;”
Hitler published Mein Kampf in the 1920s; that didn’t give Jews a hint?
I suspect there is a lot more about Europe during WWI and WWII that may come out decades from now.
Like for example do you know there were Jews who got revenge on the Germans? There is a book called An Eye for an Eye The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945 WHich tells about how Jews “… set up 1,255 concentration camps for German civilians—German men, women, children and babies. There they beat, whipped, tortured and murdered the Germans.” The author is John Sack. He appeared in 60 Minutes and The New York Times and they verified what he wrote. Sack is dead but his website is still up. See http://www.johnsack.com/an_eye_for_an_eye_2.htm
tori,
What about American professors, intellectuals, the regime, and other official voice boxes?
Do you think they demonize the Muslim and Arab world and misinform American citizens about US actions and policies in the Middle East?
How come Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, doesn’t get the same attention as Ahmedinejad for being a “Holocaust denier”? See http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=ia&ID=IA9502
Israel has no problem supporting Abbas against Hamas. Just like Israel had no problem supporting and allowing to flourish Hamas against the secular Yasser Arafat.
Actually “support” is the wrong word to use. Israel pits one group against the other, in order to fuel and perpetuate the violence.Then Israel uses this as an excuse to bomb and occupy Palestine.
Drima, “Oh and don’t forget, Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy. Only 9,000 people died so far.”
How come we can’t get an exact number of people killed in Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc but we have an exact number of people killed during the Holocaust?
What is the exact number of people killed during the Holocaust?
RandallJones, I was asking Tasnim a question. I think that Tasnim, Tamara, and Yaman have provided compelling arguments and am hoping that they will continue to help me get a better understanding of the issues that we are discussing. My question was not rhetorical, as yours is. It was actually meant to continue the conversation.
If you looked at my other comments, as I have yours, you would know that.
Dear Tori,
I think your question is extremely valid and extremely important, but it is not just limited to the Arab world’s dealing of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is an over emphasis on the historical aspects and origins of this conflict, by all parties. And it is with this that makes it almost impossible to focus on the present reality of the situation and thus a solution.
This historical anti-Semitism that you refer to, is not as simple as a hatred of Jews per se, but rather a rememberance of the ‘Catastrophe’ of 1947-48, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were either killed or displaced.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=814874317042180338&hl=en-GB
In fact, in my experience, having grown up in the Middle East, it was much more common not to mention Israel or Jews at all, than to bad mouth them. For example, in school we usually had American or British text books, so any story that was about or mentioned Israel was removed. There was no discussion at all.
As for the professors and intellectuals spurting out anti-semitic ideas, yes ofcourse they exist, as they do across the world. But there are also many Arab professors and intellectuals that are not, that are fighting for productive analysis and discussion.
There is an absurd number of American and Israeli professors and intellectuals that are clearly promoting anti-Arab ideologies. However, when British Academia attempted to bring light to this situation by boycotting Israeli Academia, they were instantly labelled anti-Semitic, crippling the debate from going any further. I feel I should point out that I did not agree with the boycott, as they were targetting all Israeli academics.
At the end of the day, we are not in control of our governments, democratic or not, and we are not in control of the media’s coverage, therefore it is up to us to decide what we believe in. And if it is not what we are being ‘fed’ then it is also up to us to search for an alternative, to create an alternative.
Tamara, I’m afraid that you misunderstood my reference to “historical anti-Semitism”. It has to do with the use of well-documented rumor, innuendo, forgeries, and counterfeits to justify hatred of Jews as a group. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an example of this. (An Egyptian mini series was made based on this book.) I am not referring to real historical events when I speak of “historical anti-Semitism.”
There seems to be a fundamental issue here that I find intriguing, and that everyone seems to be skirting around: the idea that a religion is entitled to a geographic location. These arguments seem to take the tone of; if enough believers are in one spot, and their dogma dictates that spot to be of holy significance, then their wishes as a population majority hold sway. There also seems to be this disturbing “history as told by the victor” attitude that basically holds up the principle that military victory translates into moral and ethical rightness. In response to PeacefulVanguards post, Jews or any other religious body should have the right to live where they please, but certainly do not have the right to do so with the intention of forming a government that elevates the rights of their adherents over those of other citizens. This is exactly the kind of nightmare that many anti-Muslim pundits in the West are always ranting about! Now, I recognize that, as a Canadian of European descent, that this was exactly what my fellow Europeans did to the aborigines of North America, not only on a religious level but on a political and cultural one. I think that it is this history of colonization and imperialism, as much as guilt over either participating in or being complacent on the Holocaust that keeps most of the secular West from criticizing Israel.
At the same time, the Muslim hatred of Israel stems from exactly the same issue: the taking away of “Muslim land”. Once again, the issue of religious entitlement to a geographic location comes up. That Jews, Christians and Muslims have been inhabitants of this land since the creation of their respective religions is unquestioned. The issue of which one should rule said land is the problem. The Jewish character of Israel, and it being the root of it’s ongoing human rights problem (in that those who suffer from it’s policies are not Jewish) will unfortunately never be addressed by the wider world as long as their victims/opponents seek only to replace that fundamentally faithist system with another one equally prejudiced.
To the main question at hand: “Ringo” beats this particular drum because it’s an easy cheer from the masses. Arab and Muslim societies pound out this anti-semitism because all questionable rulers and authority systems need a bugbear to point at. Isn’t that right GWB?
Oh, and one last thing? Take it from the grandson of a Nazi SS officer: The Holocaust happened. The Germans did it. Whether or not anyone else joined in was completely incidental to them.
Excellent post!
“Ahmadinejad is a freaking lunatic”
But Ahmadinejad isn’t a freaking lunatic. He is very deliberate and sane.
Very good article by an Iranian “Amil Imani” about Ahmadinejad’s beliefs.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/who_is_mahmoud_ahmadinejad.html
Al
tori,
My questions are not rhetorical. I will repeat what I asked here
My questions are just as important to discuss because it is the United States that has the greater military strength and so far has caused the most death and destruction.
What you do is not that much different than what the American mainstream media does when it discusses foreign policy. It is always asking why, why , why about the negative aspects of the Muslim world, but they never recognize or ask why about the negative aspects of American society in relation to its foreign policy.
levylevthuglife, you wrote, “And of course there was the massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1943 in which 3000 Jews were killed, which Iraqis carried out in solidarity with the invading Nazis who fought the occupying British. My grandmother still talks about that massacre and how some in her family had to flee Baghdad at the time.”
Naeim Giladi, author of Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, has a different story to tell about Iraq. Here is an article about it. http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html
I’ll just quote parts of it here
More smarmy tactics from Randall Jones. Naeim Giladi’s obscure story has been debunked by historians and many eyewitnesses. But yet again, we’re subjected to unproved theories by RJ with the specific intention of demonizing his rivals. As we can see, this guy just loves to cast aspersions. But clearly he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know history or context, he only gleans materials from the internet that suit his agenda to spread hatred; everything else he discards. But as we’ve already seen above, and now here, Randall Jones has no credibility.
I really object to this guy’s raison d’etre. He instigates people to want to counter his claims with their own evidence … but what will be the result? Back and forth finger pointing, which is exactly what we don’t want here. To counter people like Randall, should we begin to post things about the Farhud, which includes a lot of eyewitness testimony — the part of the Holocaust that took place in Iraq? No because this blog is about fostering coexistence and working toward reconciliation, not about picking on each other for wrongs already committed. We’re trying to move forward all together, but Randall Jones is desperate not to let that happen.
RandallJones’ comments are becoming tiresome.
I write a post about Darfur and the evil Janjaweed, he writes a long comment on it being a Zionist conspiracy and turns the discussion into one about the evils of America and Israel.
Once. Fine.
Twice. Fine.
But EVERY time with EVERY topic??
NOT fine.
NOT everything revolves around Zionists or America’s foreign policy.
Please, this is becoming a headache.
Randall comes off as a traumatized war vet to me. Sometimes he makes very good points, but most of the time it’s irrelevant and distracting from the topics at hand.
PeacefulVanguard,
Naeim Giladi has not been been debunked and he bends over backwards to document what he is saying.
SudaneseDrima,
You say that as if though you have interesting things to say. ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Murad
Let me guess, you live in the United States. SO you don’t want to hear about the negative aspects of the United States and Israel. You want to talk all day and night about what’s wrong with people in the Middle East. The mainstream media already does that; I am providing a different and necessary perspective that needs to be discussed if we want to develop effective solutions to the conflicts between different nations.
Actually Randall, Murad is Kuwaiti living and working in Kuwait. If you read much of his comments here, he, like many of us, is also critical of Israeli and American foreign policy. But unlike you he does not obsess over it.
And it’s pretty ridiculous that you attacked him like that when he was actually giving you a compliment. Seriously Randall, if you do not keep your comments relevant we would have no choice but to remove them.
Esra’a,
Like I said most of the stuff written on this website is discussed extensively in the mainstream media. I am breaking the monotony of people rehashing the same old stuff found in the mainstream media, as well as providing a different and necessary perspective to the table.
Hmm, no, it’s not. And we don’t need people breaking the so-called monotony by being completely irrelevant and making EVERY SINGLE THREAD ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING. After a few weeks, it gets incredibly tedious.
Esra’s,
Let’s look at how Drima (Sudan) presented his topic. He starts out by discussing how Ahmedinejad is exploiting the Holocaust.
Then he decides to bring in the “Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy.” He is the one who starts going off topic.
My comments relate to what he is written. Any other comments I have written refer to previous comments, so if I have gone off topic than others have gone off topic, but you have not said anything to them.
Murad is wrong when he says my comments are irrelevant.
Okay, point taken.
And he also said: “Sometimes he makes very good points.”
Then you just personally attack him out of nowhere, claiming that he is pro-USA, pro-Israel. It’s not fair when you make such assumptions about us. It’s also not fair when others want to talk about a certain topic and you make it all about Israel and the USA when it doesn’t have to be.
Maybe she hasn’t gone after them because they don’t continually post the same crap about 9/11 conspiracy theories, cambodia, vietnam and the congo for just about every single freaking topic. I think if someone wrote a post entitled “How To Have Good Sex” you’d probably post something about how Israel has had a negative impact on people’s ability to have good sex in Cambodia and then link to a bunch of “reliable sources” to back up your claim
About the actual post I definitely agree with Drima about the alternative sources on the internet. It gives a much different and generally unheard perspective to people you don’t ordinarily come in contact with and hear only negative things about. Its kind of a shame more people don’t take advantage of it and are still stuck in the FOX era of “news” and propoganda
How very kind!
How very noble!
How very arrogant, patronizing and offensive!
Randall Jones thank you for correcting my grandmother’s account of what happened to her family 60 years ago. Next time I have a question for my grandparents about our family history I’ll be sure to ask you instead.
levylevthuglife,
No thank you, for not reading the link I put about Naeim Giladi http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html
No where does he say that Jews were not killed. He discusses the role of Jewish Zionist and Britain in fueling the violence between Jews and non-Jews. This is something you left out and tried to portray it as Brits and Jews against Arabs and Nazis. I know you like to see things in black and white. The Jews never doing anything wrong and it is always the other that is evil. But it really isn’t that way.
I wonder if anyone will listen to the Iraqis tell their story of having their families killed by U.S.puppet Saddam Hussein or by U.S. bombs and chemical weapons?
MyTwoCents Wrote,
“How very kind!
How very noble!
How very arrogant, patronizing and offensive!”
Not as offensive as when the United States goes around preaching human rights and democracy, but engages in regime change and supports brutal dictators and kings that do its bidding.
nefer,
You were in such a rush to join the group of people criticizing me, you did realize you are in more agreement with me than with Drima. He wasn’t talking about the negativity of FOX or any other Western media; he was talking about the negativity of the Arab media and schools. He wrote
“I think we Arab Muslims should use blogs as alternative sources of information about the real Jews, not the dehumanized ones we’re taught about in school and shown 24/7 in our government sponsored media.”
What you said is something similar to what I would have said, except that I wouldn’t have just mentioned FOX news channel, I would have mentioned The New York Times and how Judith Miller helped to make invading Iraq acceptable to the American public by lying about WMDs.
I also would have pointed out that there is misinformation in the media of both the West and the Muslim world, the West has less of an excuse of being this way since we have a higher literacy right, greater access to libraries and computers, and more free time to do the research and educate ourselves.
I think it is unfortunate how more often than not, these discussions turn in to personal attacks, he said, you said, she said, I said. We have too little time as it is. I think RandallJones’ mention of Israel and US in most posts is because they are relevant in most cases. They have played a role, and they continue to play, they insist upon it. This does not mean it is a personal attack on Jews, or Americans but the Governments.
We do need to talk about the role of these two powers much more deeply. It is here that most of the problems lie, and if we do not tackle it, all the other things, human rights etc. will never change, no matter how hard we try.
Randall Jones,
You claim that I tried to portray Brit and Jew vs. Arab and Nazi, but that’s not the case. I don’t like Britain’s Middle East Policy of the early 20th century, and have NEVER said or wrote anything supporting that policy. You see when the Brits invaded and created Iraq after WWI, they started killing everyone who worked with the Turkish regime. That group included my great-grandfather who was a foreign-currency exchanger. He and his family fled to Iran to escape their wrath, where they raised my grandfather and his siblings. All because of the British.
As for your article, the author claims that staying in Iraq was the right thing to do. My grandfather’s sister and her husband stayed in Iraq – they were not allowed to enter Israel because they secretly collaborated with the Iraqi govenrment against Israel in the war of Independence. Do you know what happened to them? They were expelled by Saddam sometime around 1980. And while there certainly may have been some underground Israeli activity before the expulsion of 1951, some statements in the article are clearly reminiscent of traditional Jewish/Zionist conspiracy theories, for example:
“Soon after, Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. In March, the bombings began.”
Is this guy really saying that Zionists control the Iraqi govenrment? How? Jews in Iraq, like Jews in many Arab countries, were 2nd class citizens; they were never emancipated as in Europe and never exterminated like in Europe. And although some Arab Jews had money, they never really had “power”.
Or consider the statement about how the “Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value [of Iraqi Jews' assets]“. Last time my grandparents checked all their land/assets were confiscated by the Iraqi goverment. But I’m sure you blame – surprize surprize – the Zionists who secretly conspire to control the world.
From your previous posts it seems you have a sick obsession with Jewish/Zionist conspiracy theories. Do yourself a favor: get a life.
You haven’t read the book, how would you know? You just post screed you find from the internet that suits your agenda. For example, Giladi mentions Mordechai Ben-Porat as being one of the men behind the bombings, but ben-Porat sued over these allegations by another author who was forced to settle the suit out of court, and apologize for making false claims. Arthur Nelsen’s book, “Occupied Minds,” also debunks Giladi.
In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever that Zionists planted bombs, but of course, you don’t need evidence, you just need nebulous and unsupported claims by someone to begin spreading rumors and propaganda.
I gotta say it. This is just stupid and really sad. You spread rumors, innuendo, falsities, and propaganda as a method to develop effective solutions to conflict? Frequenting bigoted websites to get information about your rivals is your preferred method. What you do is instigate backlash, you don’t sooth tensions. You don’t think we can literally feel your hostile energy? Come on dude, wake up. You don’t put a human face on people you feel are being demonized. You dehumanize your rivals out of desperation try and make the entire conversation about them instead. You refuse ever to give Jews or Americans the benefit of the doubt. To you, a rounded-off 6M figure of people murdered in the Holocaust; desire to stop conflict in Darfur, which has been labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by Kofi Annan; and anything that involves Israel, the USA, or Jews in general must have nefarious motives.
You bear false witness.
You are paranoid and clueless, RJ. Nobody here is talking smack about the people of the Middle East. The discussion is about its systems and institutions, which is what Drima is talking about, and which you prefer to uphold by neglecting the issue, rather than change them through honest dialogue.
Drima is talking about using government-owned institutions that actively paint an entire people in a singularly negative light without any opportunity for competition, and without allowing any other ideas to be made available to the public. That is not what happens with the media in the west.
The two topics between AJ’s Holocaust denial and Darfur being a Jewish conspiracy are related. Of course, you just don’t get it.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you. But, if you are saying what I think you are saying, then you’re part of the problem of institutionalize thinking if you think that most of the troubles in the Middle East can be traced back to the USA and Israel. The problem is a culture of rivalry that has plagued the entire region, and which plays itself out in a variety of ways depending on who the actors are, Tamara, not any individual player.
Then perhaps you should write an article on the topic and submit it to the editors for consideration? That way the subject can be discussed without interrupting from every other topic people are trying to talk about.
I do not think talking about Israel and America in reference to an article about Ahmadinijad and the Holocaust is off topic, or interruptive. (May I ask what exactly I was interrupting?)
But I will post an article, thanks.
I do believe that there are flaws and weaknesses that exist in the Arab mentality, that have to be dealt with, but dealt with by the people themselves, not forced change imposed by external sources. These changes are vital for improvement in the Arab nations themselves as well as their relationships with other nations. But it is not just a case of some ‘crazy Arabs’ unable and unwilling to keep up with the times.
We must unremittingly examine the context in which these Arab nations were created, including each of the parties involved. That also extends in fact, to the creation of the Jewish state, and all involved in that too. We can not separate what is happening now to what happened previously. Many of the same parties are still involved and still exhume disproportionate and unwarranted power. There is motive in all the madness, and it is this motive that allows this situation to carry on. Nations are set up and pushed together all in an effort to promote the reality of the powerful, making the achievement of their objectives ever more likely.
I will elaborate in a new post..
An example of this can be seen with the recent events involving Israel’s airstrike on Syria. This is a great article relating to this.
PeacefulVanguard you wrote:
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by ‘Culture of Rivalry’? Im not quite sure I follow…
Also I’m uncertain what you mean by ‘Institutionalized Thought’.
When I say, “culture of rivalry,” I mean that competition between groups is an unfortunately common occurence throughout the Middle East; and that this plays itself out across the region regardless of the identity of the players. You can change around the various actors and the amount of power they hold, and you’ll get various twists on the same general theme — dominance and control over minorities and resources, and self-preservation. Add into the mixture how trendy it has become to be perceived as a victim, and well, there you go … recipe for a Culture of Rivalry.
In terms of institutionalized thinking, what I mean is that if you think that Israel is some puppet master ultimately running the lives of Arabs, then you are reflective of what government institutions have spoon fed their populations for decades because it’s convenient and distracting, rather than someone who is liberated enough to know through the power of critical thinking that it cannot be possible.
It’s illogical to think that certain people who run various world governments, who hold religious principles that say they have replaced Jews as harbingers of G’ds message, and who harbor an elitist and exclusive “country club” mindset would ever let Jews dictate policy or terms to anyone, even behind the scenes. Jews can’t even decide their own borders or capital without everyone else’s approval. Think about it. Somehow, the supposedly all-powerful Israeli lobby in the USA is able to control US foreign policy and Middle East nations, but they can’t get one man, Jonathan Pollard, out of prison no matter how hard they try. The power you ascribe is smoke and mirrors. Do you see, or don’t you?
I do see exactly what you are saying, and I think you are completely wrong. I believe it is you who lives in the reality of smoke and mirrors. To say that the power of critical thinking proves that it is not possible that Israel and America are acting simply in their own interests, regardless of the consequences is extrodinarily naive and proves you do not know the first thing about the underlying structures of the governments you speak of.
Firstly, your talk of ‘competition between groups’ is not just present in the Middle East, its present everywhere. Have you ever been to the Middle East? You sound like you are examining and analysing ‘tribesmen’.
And with regard to ‘playing victim’, there is no other race that is perceived in that light more than the Jew, not just in light of the Holocaust but throughout history.
Of course they are acting in their best interest, but you ascribe these wild powers to them beyond what they truly wield.
I do not ascribe ‘wild’ powers to them, I simply state that the power they possess is continually proving to be dangerous and destructive and they need to be stopped.
I know that rivalry is present everywhere. But, here at MEY, we are talking about the Middle East and how to move beyond its current problems, so I bring it up — not to make it seem exclusive to the region, or single out Middle Easterners, but because it’s germane to the dialogue we’re having.
I mention the culture of rivalry to show that, because it exists on a regional scale, it makes little sense to shine a unique spotlight on any one particular group over its dysfunctional behavior toward others. If we’re going to work to promote coexistence and solve problems, then we need to approach our problems from a more macro sense rather than try and foist some blame on the most convenient and obvious “other.” Once we begin to understand that mistrust and suspicion have become integral to Mideast community relations in general, whether between Israel and Palestine; or within Gaza; or inside Kirkuk, Abkhazia or el-Khosheh; whether it’s demand for autonomy found in Kablyie, Western Sahara, Kurdistan, or the Nineveh region; it will become more clear that we need a comprehensive and integral approach to develop the region. Once we realize this, then we can forge a whole new method to how we interact with each other, in which we begin to stop feeling individually slighted, and work toward systemic cooperation.
That was rude and uncalled for.
That may be your narrative, but minorities in the area who have been oppressed for a long time say the same thing about majority ethnic groups having too much power and control over their own lives. That’s why we need a comprehensive approach to start healing the problems we’ve got.
I think to think that we may only speak of the Middle East simply because this is MEY is ridiculous. There is an interaction in this world, we can not exclusively talk about any one thing, without other interrelated things also being brought up. This seemed to upset you earlier when you accused me of so rudely interrupting and going off topic.
You talk with such ambiguity, I am consistantly unsure of what you are talking about…
I feel you consistantly miss my point. I do not deny that there are problems in the Arab world that they need to change immediately if they intend to survive, in peace. I am not interested in simply finding an ‘other’ to blame, if you read one of my articles you will see I am able to critically examine the Middle East. I am also a realist, I have no desire for Israel to cease to exist, its just got to get better than this. But with the current US and Israeli governments in power this is very unlikely. I too admit that many of the current Arab governments also need to be changed.
And if I have understood you correctly in your mention of ‘Culture of Rivalry’, I think we need to look at who ‘created’ these divisions in ‘culture’, the divisions in these nations. After all, who created these different ‘nations’ in the form they are in today? It goes back to the great old British way of ‘divide and conquer’. A proven effective tactic.
I dont think we should worry too much about coexistance, with the way things are going a full blown war will have errupted before Bush’s end of term.
I did not intend to be rude, I meant to say:
And with regard to being ‘perceived as a victim’ (refering to your statement), there is no other race that is perceived in that light more that the Jew, not just in light of the Holocaust but throughout history.
I dont see why you continue to assume that I dont think we need to change things internally. I want to start the healing, but firstly how can we when we are under a constant threat of war and secondly, what will be the point if we get caught up in a potential WWIII?? Oh yes, that alright, we’ll just end up exactly as planned… the ‘New Middle East’.
Tamara, to be honest, I think we actually agree on many things and that we’re just having a communication problem for some reason.
More smarmy tactics from Randall Jones. Naeim Giladi’s obscure story has been debunked by historians and many eyewitnesses.
Actually no, it hasn’t. It’s been supported by Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, there was also an unspecified incident in Baghdad akin to the Lavon Affair mentioned by Moshe Sharett. This book also goes into it in depth.
Also, for the record, I don’t agree with a word of anything else RandallJones is saying.
If that is the case, I hope in time our thoughts and ideas will become clearer to one another, and we can work together to fight against the injustices and double standards.
Also of course, regardless of whether it’s true, it doesn’t excuse anyone else’s actions.
It’s hard to talk with someone who keeps changing their position.
That is not a change in position at all. I think it is easy to take two paragraphs out of context and compare them. Also, I don’t recall talking with you recently.
No we can not seperate what is happening now, from the history of this conflict. Therefore we must understand it, and know all the parties invovled in the creation of the Arab states and the Jewish state (here I was specifically referring to foreign powers such as Britain), and their motives for this. As this is still a reflection of current motives. That is why I said we must unremittingly examine the context in which these……
As for my earlier comment, that was with regard to certain people’s obssession with talking about the Jewish right to the land, and the Arab disagreement with this, and other such things. It is the continual discussion of this, that is damaging and preventative of finding a solution for the present.
I hope it is now clear to you.
What is clear to me is that we are not talking about Ahmadinejad’s use of the Holocaust as a tool to manipulate the public, which was the point of the article. This thread was dragged off-topic long ago.
What is clear to me is that if you and RandalJones insist on “unremittingly” examining the historical context there will never actually be any discussion of current events.
For example, is exploring the extent of Zionist/Nazi collaboration in the 40’s really crucial to a discussion of the IRI President’s present day use of anti-Semiticism to manipulate public opinion?
I am more than capable of examining and discussing the historical aspects as I am with the current events. And once again, you attempt to simplyfy and take things out of context. Yes ofcourse in an intellegent debate it is very likely that Zionist/Nazi collaboration in the 40’s will be brought up in a discussion about anti-semitism in this situation, or any other situation.
I’m willing to be convinced: what is the connection between Zionist/Nazi collaboration in the 40’s and present day government sponsored anti-semiticism in Iran?
MyTwoCents and everyone else who says i am off topic,
how come no one said anything when levylevthuglife wrote
Where does he get this 3000 number from? Where is his source that Iraqis were collaborating with Nazis? WHat is the nationality of the Nazis that were invading?
PeacefulVanguard, you wrote,
“The two topics between AJ’s Holocaust denial and Darfur being a Jewish conspiracy are related. Of course, you just don’t get it.”
How about when on 9/11 Israel released a video of Palestinians supposedly cheering about 9/11? It was shown around the world. In the meanwhile there were Israelis caught in New Jersey, cheering while filming themselves with the WTC in the background. This barely got any mainstream media attention. I posted some links to video about this here http://www.mideastyouth.com/2007/10/03/dont-have-to-wear-a-silk-veil-over-your-head-to-have-a-closed-mind/#comment-73868
PeacefulVanguard, wrote, “For example, Giladi mentions Mordechai Ben-Porat as being one of the men behind the bombings, but ben-Porat sued over these allegations by another author who was forced to settle the suit out of court, and apologize for making false claims. Arthur Nelsen’s book, “Occupied Minds,” also debunks Giladi.”
Who was the author that was sued? It is ironic you should mention this because on page 277 – 278 of the book Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, Naeim Giladi it says
On page 314, he interviewed Wilbur Crane Eveland, former advisor to the CIA, who wrote the book Ropes of Sand, where he discusses Zionist Jews planting bombs in Baghdad.
From Tom Segev’s “1949, the First Israelis,”
The passage later goes on to say
Anyway, Randall Jones, I am through with this. It is unproductive and doesn’t interest me.
PeacefulVanguard,
It may not interest you, but it interests me. There was also the Lavon Affair ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair ) in Egypt where Israel tried to blame bombings done by Jews on Muslims.
Regarding Tom Segev’s quote “Obviously the idea was not unthinkable. In 1981, Ben-Porat sued a reporter, Barah Nadel, who referred to the rumor, and after prolongued negotiations, they settled the dispute out of court. Nadel stated that he had been influenced by the malicious reports of the Iraqi government, and apologized for what he had written.”
Naeim Giladi’s book discusses this lawsuit against Baaruch Nadel (who he says once belonged to the Stern Gang) and he sees the case differently. He writes on page 279,