Under the headline "600 Iranian missiles said to be pointed at targets in Israel", the Jerusalem Post today quotes an Iranian news website, Assar Iran, that says six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel. The plan is to launch some or all of them if either Iran or Syria are attacked, according to the website which is affiliated with the Iranian regime."Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the site is said to have reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."
The illustration accompanying the report shows a poster of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reading: "Missile maneuver of the Great Prophet". In the foreground, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards test the long-range Shihab-3 missile in a central desert area of Iran.
Astounding and appalling as the claim is, it's worth noting that not a single news source other than the Jerusalem Post is currently reporting it.
The French foreign minister evidently thinks it might be credible. He's reported to have made some fairly forthright statements this past weekend, warning of the possibility of a world war with Iran:
The world should “prepare for war” with Iran, the French foreign minister has said, significantly escalating tensions over the country’s nuclear programme. Bernard Kouchner said that while “we must negotiate right to the end” with Iran, if Teheran possessed an atomic weapon it would represent “a real danger for the whole world”. The world should “prepare for the worst… which is war”, he said.More to come.
His comments came after Washington reminded Teheran that “all options were on the table” in confronting its nuclear policy, which many officials in the West believe has the ultimate aim of arming a nuclear warhead, despite Iran’s claim that it is for civilian purposes.
12 comments:
Hey, what's the panic?! The UN's all-action nuclear "watchdog" Neville Chamberla - er, sorry, I mean Mohamed El Baradei - says that threatening Iran is not helpful.
Surely by now the Jews have learned that when a national leader on a divine mission starts making public pronouncements about wiping the Jewish entity off the face of the earth, and begins equipping himself to do so, it's best to wait until he's finished the job before rushing to judgement over whether or not he means it.
And when the dust and the blood have settled, as a European gentile of good faith, I promise once again to build memorials to you all, to stand by them once a year and emotionally vow 'never again'.
So what on earth are you so worried about?
Remember the soothing words Chamberlain uttered on his deathbed in 1940: 'approaching dissolution brings relief'.
Gharqad,
If you were not such a fanatic you would know that Iran's leader said no such things. However, that whacko Zionist organization MEMRI says he did; they have about as much credibility as you (ie. ZERO).
How many times has Iran attacked its neighbours since its creation as a modern state? ZERO (just like your credibility!). And Israel ...
Nice try bigot.
It's good to hear from you again, though I'm naturally terribly upset that I have no credibility in your eyes.
So, Iran does not attack its neighbours...
Have you ever heard of proxies?
Iran is attacking its neighbours in Iraq and Israel as we write.
And while we're playing the comparisons game, how many homosexuals, unfaithful wives, and rape victims has the state of Israel publicly and slowly hanged since its creation? (Or are the generally anti-Israel western NGOs who report these events in Iran all whacko Zionists too?)
Another own goal from Anon.
(Incidentally, congratulations on the continued use of name-calling and insult; it adds an amusingly juvenile gloss to your style, creating a perfect synthesis of form and content).
Gharqad,
What does Iran's internal policy have to do with its foreign policy? ZERO. Once more you expose your bigotry and bias; your sophistry may work on tiny Zionist minds but not on educated ones.
I see you refused to address the issue of MEMRI and translation. Could it be you are aware of what tripe comes out of that hotbed of racism? Could it be you approve? I think so.
I have no qualms insulting you. You are worthy of derision. I will continue to treat you as the scumbag you are. I will continue to call you a bigot so long as you act as one. You have behaved poorly towards me, why should I behave with any civility towards you?
What is truly juvenile is your line of logic and thinking.
Keep 'em coming, sleazebag.
Always accusing others of failing to address issues, never addressing them yourself. For example:
a) You ask me how many times Iran has attacked its neighbours, asserting that the answer is "zero". I reply that actually they do so constantly, through the use of proxy groups which they sponsor materially and financially. You have failed to respond to this point in any way.
b) You say that Iran's internal policies have nothing to do with its foreign policy, which is another way of avoiding the issue. History shows that governments that act oppressively towards their own people are also the most likely to destabilise their own regions and neighbouring states. You may, if you wish, convince yourself that Iran's theocratic legal code and practices are its own business, and that a theocratic state armed with nuclear weapons is no big deal; let's just say we disagree on that.
c) You claim that I "refused to address the issue of MEMRI" and its translations. To be fair, you gave me nothing to respond to, nothing to address. You simply asserted they were Zionist whackos with no credibility. You failed to provide any evidence at all that Ahmadinejad had said anything other than what most of the world seems to think he said; you failed to provide any evidence of MEMRI mistranslating anything, and you failed to provide any evidence at all that the many western leaders who have objected to Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel being wiped off the map were all relying on translations provided by the MEMRI website. So you see, it's not that I "failed to address the issue" - but rather that your evidence-free rant wasn't worth rationally responding to. What do you expect? - that I will respond to your unsupported assertions as though they deserve a reasoned reply?
Demonstrate the innacuracy of MEMRI translations, then demonstrate that all the western sources who denounced his comments did so on the basis of a MEMRI translation, then tell me what he *actually* said, and we'll have something to discuss.
Alternatively, continue to make yourself look semi-rational and weak by resorting to unsubstantiated accusations, rhetoric, and ineffectual name-calling.
"Anonymous" and the other nameless heroes we attract are not welcome to keep posting here.
You can either identify yourself by email to us personally - in which case we undertake not to publish your details on the blog site if we decide to publish what you submit - or you can take your vulgar language and offensive attitudes elsewhere.
There's no shortage of websites where you are bound to feel a lot more comfortable than here.
Anonymous asked 'How many times has Iran attacked its neighbours since its creation as a modern state? ZERO'.
I wonder if s/he is deliberately ignoring the entire existence of the Iran/Iraq war (September 1980 - August 1988)?
Rachel, it's a good point you make. Hostilities were initiated by Iraq, but only after repeated border clashes and provocations from Iran.
And yes, Anonymous failed to address the fact that Iran sponsors and equips shia militias who do attack other states. For example, the nirui-e-quds, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, are militarily active and/or training other militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. They have also carried Iranian interference into Jordan, Bosnia, Sudan, and Turkey. The fact that Anon asked the question in the first place - while claiming that Iran has never attacked other states - might suggest that Anon must be unaware of these facts, or at least is prepared to nuance or twist the facts any which way s/he can to single out Israel for condemnation.
I can understand why the moderators would want to exclude Anon's ranting insults from the site, but it would be almost a shame, as (a)they provide a welcome source of comedy, and (b)they do more to discredit the Palestinian Arab cause than any pro-Israel commentator ever could.
Rachel, please say hi to my former hometown (and still my favourite place), the beautiful town of Oxford.
Gharqad, many thanks! Oxford is beautiful, although currently full of tourists...
To the hosts, I read this blog as often as it is updated, and just want to say, my thoughts are with you, and were especially on 3 August.
“Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ because no such idiom exists in Persian,” notes academic blogger Juan Cole, who provided the correct translation: “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”
Thanks to our anonymous Persian-mistranslation-correction expert. Since you're taking Mission Impossible upon yourself, defending the most reactionary and openly-jihadist regime on the planet, we'll offer you a more current challenge.
Agence France Press, certainly no friend of Israel, reports from Teheran tonight on a military parade - the kind of recreational event so beloved of military rulers and radical jihadist regimes.
Please review what AFP says and let us have the more correct, less-offensive way of understanding their quite plain, consistent hate language in its context. Here it is:
"The parade was marked by a litany of slogans calling for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Western military attaches, apparently warned of this in advance, boycotted the rally for the second year running... "Israel should be eliminated" and "No Iranian Muslim, no Muslim recognizes Israel," were among the slogans borne on the back of military vehicles, quoting the words of Iran's revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. "Israel has to be wiped off the map," read another Khomeini quote which aroused worldwide controversy when it was repeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005."
Over to you. And please understand that anonymous contributions to this blog that include language or sentiments we find offensive will not be published.
"Academic" is only one of the terms we might use for Juan Cole.
Juan Cole stated that American Jews have dual loyalties, and that Jewish-American officials have embroiled America in wars that suit Israel's purposes. Though fashionable, this viewpoint has recently been demolished by evidence that Israeli officials were vociferous in telling the Bush administration that it had chosen the wrong target in attacking Iraq. Even Chomsky thought this theory of Jewish power over American foreign policy was absurd, noting that the tail does not wag the dog. Too far-fetched for Chomsky, but not, apparently, for Juan Cole.
Juan Cole is not merely an academic. Juan Cole is an activist, who actively campaigns against the Bush administration and is openly campaigning against war with Iran; and whatever academic skills he has are (by definition) compromised by his activism.
And as Anon probably knows, his 'version' of what Ahmadinejad said has been contested. He said that the 'occupation regime' must 'vanish', quoting from Khomeini. He did NOT say that the occupation of Jerusalem must end, or that Israel must return to its pre-1967 armistice lines; he said that "the occupation regime" - a phrase commonly used to denote Israel by those too pure to speak its name - must vanish. He said this at a conference entitled A World Without Zionism - ie, without Israel.
While others in the Middle East may use even blunter language (such as 'Death to Israel' according to the AFP report cited above) it nevertheless takes a logical gymnast to fail to see what is meant when a Holocaust denier speaking at a conference called A World Without Zionism quotes a speech which states that the 'regime' must 'vanish'.
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