@ParkourP

I take it you are a member of CIF watch

: Uncle Sam, on planet earth you dumb fuk :) as I said Israel is always singled out, read my post, watch those clips. Other country's kill and do with they want with impunity as the Islamic despotic nations say nothing about themselves, Hypocriticy and Obsession with Israel as the only nation who can do anything wrong at the UN...

I hope (perhaps forlornly?) that this article will go towards finally clearing up this perennial mistranslation; the way it is gleefully seized upon as some kind of proof of Iran's nefarious intent, or even as justifying a pre-emptive attack, is rather frustrating for those of us who do understand Persian.

Mariella: Ahmadinejad said: "The Imam said the regime occupying Israel must vanish/be wiped from the page of time", which was itself a misquotation of Ayatollah Khomeini's "vanish/be wiped from the stage of time" - in any case, both expressions are purely figurative. While some of the regime's rhetoric is distasteful, as Agoodword rightly pointed out this should not be confused with state policy.

acommentator: do you think the IAEA conveniently shares Mehdi's regard for Khamenei as a trusted religious authority? For the fact remains that, funnily enough, it has yet to find any evidence of the development of nuclear weapons, a decision to do so, or the diversion of nuclear material.

Bolshevik - "Do you condemn the Islamist practise in apartheid Pakistan, Jordan and saudi Arabia of prosecuting the victims of rape and imprisoning them for 'adultery'?

Do you condemn the use of rape as a weapon used by Arab Moslem regimes such as Syria and Libya against their own civilian populations?"

False dichotomy. Wanting Israel to toe the line and follow international law, as well as not wanting to bomb Iran back into the stone age, does not make one a supporter of theocratic regimes in different parts of the world.

You're being at best dishonest and at worst a bigot.

Here is the story in Maan:

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=453204

Really, there are Shiites in Gaza. It was only really Iranian funding which kept them from beating them up in the past.

If Hamas wants to kill Jews, just imagine what they want to do to "apostate" Shias. Perhaps, one day, you'll be organising some sort of aid convoy to help them out.

^

by all means clear up the confusion, calling your bluff;

a) was God guilty of statutory rape?
b) was Mohammed guilty of statutory rape?

i say yes to both. if of course the stories are true. what do you say In-pooh Resplendent?

"Watch out for men in white coats."

why, am i on Top Gear..?

@Mariella "Surely you should be asking yourself what is in in the nature of Israeli society that could cause a President to think he was above the law"

Unbelievable! So now Israel is the only country where members of government think they're "above the law"

Where do you live Mariella? What utopian paradise do you inhabit? I live in the UK and it's not uncommon for MPs to break the law or even go to prison.

Olijaan:

"For the fact remains that, funnily enough, it has yet to find any evidence of the development of nuclear weapons, a decision to do so, or the diversion of nuclear material."

I hope this Reuters report helps:

"An IAEA report last year revealed a trove of intelligence pointing to research activities in Iran of use in developing the means and technologies needed to assemble nuclear weapons, should it decide to do so.

One salient finding was information that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin in which to conduct high-explosives tests that the IAEA said are "strong indicators of possible weapon development"."

You'll note also that Iran will not "let international inspectors visit a military site where the U.N. nuclear watchdog says development work relevant to nuclear weapons may have taken place."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/08/us-nuclear-iran-powers-idUSBRE...

However, as I'm sure Mehdi will explain, Khamenei can't possibly be lying because he's a very religious man.

....and Mehdi what about the islamofascist Iranian regime holding a Holocaust denial conference in December 2006 where every European fascist from David Irving to Robert faurrisson to the leader of the Ku KLux Klan were invited and addressed by a host of Islamist politicians including its foreign minister.
How do you Mehdi justify this fascist Iranian regime consorting with news to disseminate anti-semitism and Holocaust denial.

acommentator, doesn't it strike you as odd that Iran is at the one hand a theocracy, whose head, Al khamani, has explicitly denounced nuclear weapons saying its prohibited in Islam, a view that is shared by the vast majority of clerics in Sunni and Shi islam.

And on the other hand you refuse accept his view and pay greater attention to the non religious and secular aspects of the Iranian regime, whose view you take as the regimes official policy.

Either its a theocracy or its not.

The grand leaders view, if anything, should be taken as a clear intention of the countries position and if there is a lurch from the non clerics towards developing nuclear weapons, its the clerics position that should be given more emphasis, as after all the regime presents itself as an Islamic country and not just a muslim country.

"I thought Islamist scum hated just Jews."

oh dear. you forgot so soon? poor love, here it is again from 10 March 2012 at 17:58 ;

"hold on right there for just a moment Tosser. i am not a Muslim. i am a Dutch national living in the UK, i have no religion. i don't favour any religion either, as far as i see things they are all a load of old toot, on a par with astrology and reiki. now read all that again, and do try to remember it Tosser."

but at least we now agree that, as per the Bible, God raped Mary. that'll do.

i ask again Julia; do you literally think that "Israel" and "Zionist regime" are the exact same thing? it's a yes or a no pls Julia.

@gerry

"I admit I was naive in thinking that the hard-won modern human rights gained after the second world war and the 60s - freedom of speech and expression, womens equality, gay equality, civil rights of all kinds -would spread all across the world.."

i am on the same page as you there. i am also astonished at the fact the journey forwards has halted and we are now grinding ourselves down on the spot. we are all digging in so deep that it is suddenly quite worrying how much momentum has been wasted. both 'sides' keep making basic errors, but i remain optimistic.

glad you enjoyed the links, maybe you'll share with others when you feel it's appropriate.

The problem with the BBC and UK mainstream media is that it is too one dimensional and presents a largely pro Western naraartive which is largely in line with what our political masters want.

Whenever we have a discussion on Iran, we never get the full picture. We never get alternative viewpoints. We get the same old tired experts, most of whom have never even lived in the Middle East. They conform to a type such as John Simpson, Jim Muir et al whose high minded patronsing tones are clear for all to see. We also get a similar kind of tone from SKy News. Their reporting on major foregin stories such as Libya, Syria, Russia and Iran is so one sided that I am surprised that matter has not been taken up with Ofcom. Lisa Holland who is fronted as a Middle East expert is compltely amateurish in her approach. As for John Rentoul what could you expect from someone who has no real understanding or depth of knowledge about the Middle East' and yet has the audacity to pedel ill researched diatribes as representing factual knwoledge.

Indeed it is a great pity that we no longer have many great principled conviction politicians. Look no further than what happened to Jenny Tonge.

It is clear that when the BBC has to discuss the question of Israel, it bends over backwards in order not to offend or challenge Israel in any way. The interview with the Israeli ambassador on Newsnight provides proof of this.

All I can say is thank god for the internet because we now have access to a plethora of independent news coverage. We no longer have to rely on BBC, SKY, ITV to find out what is happening in the world.

There is no MP in the current intake who will speak up clearly and unequivocally for the Palestinians. I was shocked to learn that for example in the COnservative party there is a COnservative Friends of the Middle East and a COnservative Friends of Israel. However, surprise, surprise there is no COnservative Friends of Palestine. You will not find one Conservative Member of Parliament who supports Palestinians. That is truly shocking. I raaied the matter with William Hague and he wrote me a two page letter declaring how committed he was to SUpporting the peace process but was not peturbed that there is no Conservative Friends of Palestine group within the Tory party.

Just as holocuast denial is wrong, so too is Palestinian denial. Palestinians inhabited the land well before biblical times and Israelis need to acknowledge this

Talking about rape- the last Libyan dictator ordered his troops who obliged to use rape against his own people. The savage Baathist regime in Syria deploys rape against it's own citizenry.
In apartheid Pakistan, the victim of rape is the one who gets convicted of 'adultery' and is the executed.
In Iran the islamofascist regime used rape as a weapon against the green protesters.
In Islamist Sudan, the Arab Moslem janwajee are encouraged to rape and then kill black women.
I was just wondering if their is something in Islam that encourages so many of its believers to behave like animals. Then silly me I remembered - the 'prophet' Mohammed was a rapist and pedophile. That's where islamists get this from.
Just wonder

As someone with a partially Jewish background, I don't desire to see Israel destroyed or vanish, and I certainly don't want Israel wiped off the map by anyone, that would be tragic and terribly wasteful. All that misery and destruction, and for what?

However, Israel cannot ignore geographic and cultural realities, it's position in the Middle East, and demographics. If, today, all the Palestinians were allowed to vote in Israel's, or Israel/Palestine elections, that is all the Palestinians inside Israel, the occupied territories, and the displaced refugees, then, already, there would be a substantial Palestinian majority inside Israel/Palestine.

So, "democracy" for all the people of Israel/Palestine, is a direct threat to Israel as a state for Jews, as Netanyahu describes it.

But already around 20% of Israel's population is Palestinian, and in less than twenty years they'll compose at least 35% or more of the population. What will Israel as a state for Jews be worth then? Can one remain a democracy and simply ignore almost a third of the population?

These are facts on the ground Israel cannot ignore.

Yet, Israel keeps expanding and rules over more and more Palestinians the more pieces of land it absorbes. Israel is inexorably destroying any chance of a two-state solution succeeding, and pardoxically creating, in reality, de facto, the one-state "solution" that it fears the most. One state that without a doubt will have a large Palesinian majority. Does Israel's policy make any sense at all?

I'd argue that Israel is in the process of "voluntarily, wiping itself off the map" as an exclusively Jewish state, which is a tragic paradox.

But Israel's ultra-nationalist leaders live in a fantasy world where they choose to ignore the reality of their position in the region, pretending that they can change the entire region to suit their myths and on their terms. This is a recipe for disaster, for everyone.

SO there you have it. The BBC commissioned their own investigation on the quote by Ahmadinajad. Interestingly they asked Al Jazeera for an opinion on the translation' even though the station is an Arabic channel and has long used the TV medium to dmeonise Iran.

I suspect that Mehdi Hasan and Mariella are one and the same Islamist fanatic.

Writion,perceptive analysis, pity Israel and its zealous supporters cant see the same.

Maxmillian, confused soul, how do you wipe islam off the map without killing 1.6 billion Muslims.

Its hardly a cult like the Zionists.

According to Uri Avenery the war with Iran will not happen. This is what he says@:March 12, 2012

March 12, 2012

Why It Won't Happen

Attacking Iran

by URI AVNERY

Israel will not attack Iran. Period.

The United States will not attack Iran. Period.

The United States will not attack. Not this year, nor in years to come. For a reason far more important than electoral considerations or military limitations. The United States will not attack, because an attack would spell a national disaster for itself and a sweeping disaster for the whole world.

“If you want to understand the policy of a country, take a look at the map,” said Napoleon. Minutes after an attack is launched, Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes almost all the oil exported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and Iran – 40% of the world’s sea-borne oil passes through the strait. A few minutes after that, oil prices will rise, will double, triple or quadruple – and the U.S. and global economy will collapse.

Such small issues do not cross the minds of generals, military commentators and other wise guys who look at the world between narrow “security” blinkers.

Closing the Strait would be the most easy of military operations. A few missiles, launched from either the sea or the land, would do it. To reopen it, it would not be enough to send the US Navy’s mighty aircraft carriers on show cruises. The United States would have to conquer large parts of Iran, so as to put the Strait out of range of the Iranian missiles. Iran is larger than Germany, France, Spain and Italy combined. It would be a long war, something on the scale of the Vietnam War.

For Iran, there is no difference between an Israeli attack and an American attack. They would be treated as one and the same. In both cases, the consequence will be the blocking of the Strait and a large scale war.

All of which is more than enough for the United States not to attack, and to forbid Israel from attacking.

It’s 56 years since Israel went to war without giving notice to the Americans and getting their consent. When Israel did this in 1956, President Eisenhower took away all the achievements of victory, to the last millimeter. Before the Six Day War and on the eve of the First Lebanon War, the government of Israel sent special envoys to Washington to ensure unequivocal consent. If this time it did attack against the Americans’ will, who would restock the IDF armories? Who would protect the cities of Israel, which would be exposed to many tens of thousands of missiles from Iran and its proxies? Not to mention the wave of anti-Semitism which can be expected to burst out once the American public finds out that it was Israel, and Israel alone, which brought upon them a national disaster.

American diplomatic and economic pressure might be sufficient to stop the ayatollahs’ gallop towards the Bomb. It worked in Gaddafi’s Libya and is now happening in the North Korea of ​​Kim. The Persians are a nation of merchants, and it might be possible to formulate a deal which would be worth their while.

This is questionable, because a few years ago the Neo-Conservatives in Washington engaged in glib talk about how easy it would be to occupy Iran – which surely convinced the Iranians that they must acquire the ultimate weapon of deterrence. What would we have done in their place? Or rather, what did we actually do (according to foreign reports, etc.) when we were in their position?

So what is going to happen? If no deal is reached, Iran will develop nuclear weapons. That’s not the end of the world. As has been pointed out by some of our more courageous security chiefs, this is not an existential threat. We’ll live in a situation of a balance of terror. Like America and Russia during the Cold War. Like India and Pakistan now. Not pleasant, but not too terrible, either.

Iran has not attacked any other country in a thousand years. Ahmadinejad talks like a wild demagogue, but the Iranian leadership actually treads very carefully. Israel does not threaten any Iranian interest. Joint national suicide is not an option.

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar boasted, and rightly, that Netanyahu had managed to distract the whole world’s attention, away from the Palestinians and to the Iranian problem. A fantastic success, indeed. Obama in effect tells him: OK, go and play with settlements as much as you want, but please leave Iran for the adults

Why It Won't Happen

Attacking Iran

by URI AVNERY

Israel will not attack Iran. Period.

The United States will not attack Iran. Period.

The United States will not attack. Not this year, nor in years to come. For a reason far more important than electoral considerations or military limitations. The United States will not attack, because an attack would spell a national disaster for itself and a sweeping disaster for the whole world.

“If you want to understand the policy of a country, take a look at the map,” said Napoleon. Minutes after an attack is launched, Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes almost all the oil exported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and Iran – 40% of the world’s sea-borne oil passes through the strait. A few minutes after that, oil prices will rise, will double, triple or quadruple – and the U.S. and global economy will collapse.

Such small issues do not cross the minds of generals, military commentators and other wise guys who look at the world between narrow “security” blinkers.

Closing the Strait would be the most easy of military operations. A few missiles, launched from either the sea or the land, would do it. To reopen it, it would not be enough to send the US Navy’s mighty aircraft carriers on show cruises. The United States would have to conquer large parts of Iran, so as to put the Strait out of range of the Iranian missiles. Iran is larger than Germany, France, Spain and Italy combined. It would be a long war, something on the scale of the Vietnam War.

For Iran, there is no difference between an Israeli attack and an American attack. They would be treated as one and the same. In both cases, the consequence will be the blocking of the Strait and a large scale war.

All of which is more than enough for the United States not to attack, and to forbid Israel from attacking.

It’s 56 years since Israel went to war without giving notice to the Americans and getting their consent. When Israel did this in 1956, President Eisenhower took away all the achievements of victory, to the last millimeter. Before the Six Day War and on the eve of the First Lebanon War, the government of Israel sent special envoys to Washington to ensure unequivocal consent. If this time it did attack against the Americans’ will, who would restock the IDF armories? Who would protect the cities of Israel, which would be exposed to many tens of thousands of missiles from Iran and its proxies? Not to mention the wave of anti-Semitism which can be expected to burst out once the American public finds out that it was Israel, and Israel alone, which brought upon them a national disaster.

American diplomatic and economic pressure might be sufficient to stop the ayatollahs’ gallop towards the Bomb. It worked in Gaddafi’s Libya and is now happening in the North Korea of ​​Kim. The Persians are a nation of merchants, and it might be possible to formulate a deal which would be worth their while.

This is questionable, because a few years ago the Neo-Conservatives in Washington engaged in glib talk about how easy it would be to occupy Iran – which surely convinced the Iranians that they must acquire the ultimate weapon of deterrence. What would we have done in their place? Or rather, what did we actually do (according to foreign reports, etc.) when we were in their position?

So what is going to happen? If no deal is reached, Iran will develop nuclear weapons. That’s not the end of the world. As has been pointed out by some of our more courageous security chiefs, this is not an existential threat. We’ll live in a situation of a balance of terror. Like America and Russia during the Cold War. Like India and Pakistan now. Not pleasant, but not too terrible, either.

Iran has not attacked any other country in a thousand years. Ahmadinejad talks like a wild demagogue, but the Iranian leadership actually treads very carefully. Israel does not threaten any Iranian interest. Joint national suicide is not an option.

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar boasted, and rightly, that Netanyahu had managed to distract the whole world’s attention, away from the Palestinians and to the Iranian problem. A fantastic success, indeed. Obama in effect tells him: OK, go and play with settlements as much as you want, but please leave Iran for the adults

@jackass

So according to you, God raped Mary due to age limits under UK statute? Have you ever considered seeing a psychiatrist?

@jackass
'the Christian God raped Mary'
@ Mariella
'Jews voted for ahmadenejad'

I think it's quite plain that the islamist loonies have now totally embraced insanity. Gideon Polya's mental disease is plainly infecting the anti-Israel lobby to such an extent that this discourse is now one where the sane are confronting psychopaths.

Maxmillian, confused soul, how do you wipe islam off the map without killing 1.6 billion Muslims.

Its hardly a cult like the Zionists.

Islam is not a state or a beuracratic entity that you point to on a map. It exists in the heart of every Muslim

The ayatollah Khomeini was the greatest being ever to set foot on the planet. President Ahmadenejad was the greatest humanitarian since Florence Nightingale.adolf hitler wasn't such a bad geezer either. All this talk about him disliking Jews is just Zionist imperialist propaganda. Women deserve to be stoned to death. It is not affront to human dignity to hang Gays from cranes in public squares. They do actually enjoy the experience!!