Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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Quote:
Iran condemned over anti-Israel call
by
Thursday 27 October 2005 5:43 AM GMT
Shimon Peres: Iran poses a clear and present danger
A call by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map has sparked widespread condemnation, with Israel urging Iran's expulsion from the United Nations.
France, Spain, Britain, Canada and Australia condemned the Iranian leader's remarks and the European trio said their foreign ministries would summon Iranian envoys and demand an explanation.
On Wednesday at a conference in Tehran entitled: The World without Zionism, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel's establishment was "a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world".
"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," he added, referring to Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
Reacting to the comments in an open letter to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Iran posed a "clear and present danger".
"We must submit a clearcut request to the UN secretary general (Kofi Annan) and the Security Council to obtain Iran's expulsion from the United Nations," Peres said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he believed the Iranian leaders comments reflected an effort by Tehran to "buy time ... so it can develop a nuclear bomb."
European reaction
Responding to Ahmadinejad's comments, French Foreign Minister Phillippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement that "if these (reported) comments are true, they are unacceptable. I condemn them with the greatest firmness."
In Madrid the Spanish Foreign Ministry said " ... Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has expressed his rejection in the most emphatic terms and has decided to urgently call in the Iranian ambassador to ask him for an explanation".
In the UK, a British Foreign Office spokesman described the Iranian leader's comments as "deeply disturbing and sickening."
"We have seen in Israel today the horrible reality of the violence he is praising," he said, referring to a Palestinian bombing in the Israeli town of Hadera that killed five people and wounded 30.
"Saying Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map will only heighten concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions ... We will be protesting to the Iranian charge d'affaires," he said.
Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew told reporters "We cannot tolerate comments of such hatred, such anti-Semitism, such intolerance. And these comments are all the more troubling given that we know of Iran's nuclear ambitions."
Muslim states warned
"Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world"
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Ahmadinejad's comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at government rallies.
"Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world," Ahmadinejad said.
"Any leaders in the Islamic umma who recognise Israel face the wrath of their own people."
Ahmadinejad, a veteran of Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards, took office in August after scoring a landslide win in a June presidential election.
His tone represents a major change from that of former president Mohammad Khatami, whose favoured topic was "dialogue among civilisations" and who led an effort to improve Iran's relations with the West.
Aljazeera + Agencies
By
You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...F6310AAD9A.htm
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a new conservative president in iran does what it appears that conservatives do best: use nationalist rhetoric to generate a certain degree of hysteria, the lynchpin of solidarity in conservative mode. the united states, dominated by the mirror image of such discourse, reacts predictably--with nonsequitors and saber rattling--which in turn sets of an excited series of posts here from folk who seem to imagine that an american invasion of iran would play out the way it does in computer simulations.
all based on wishful thinking in the matter of american military capabilities at the moment, a wholesale underestimation of what would be required to invade iran, a total lack of understanding and interest in iran, iranian politics, the history of the relations between iran and the united states. and, typically, not even an attempt to wonder if there might be a trigger on the part of the israelis--like this pattern:
Quote:
Israel expands West Bank settlements
Aerial photos reveal extent of land grab, say peace groups
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Tuesday July 27, 2004
The Guardian
Months after Ariel Sharon announced his dramatic plan to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, portraying it as a sacrifice for peace, the government is grabbing more land for West Bank settlements.
Israeli peace groups and Palestinian officials say thousands of homes are under construction in the main settlements, in addition to an expansion of Jewish outposts that are illegal under Israeli law. Mr Sharon has promised the US he will dismantle the outposts, which are usually clusters of containers or trailer homes serviced by government-built roads, but has failed to do so.
One Israeli group, Settlement Watch, says in the three months to May, West Bank settlements expanded by 26 hectares (65 acres).The government has approved construction of thousands more homes in the three main settlement blocs on the West Bank, encouraged by an apparent endorsement by George Bush for their eventual annexation.
In a letter to Mr Sharon, Mr Bush praised the Gaza pullout and agreed that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centres", it was unrealistic to expect a full return to the 1967 borders.
Dror Etkes, head of Settlement Watch, said that the expansion of Jewish outposts and continuing house building since Mr Sharon announced his plan in December was evidence that the government was seeking more territory.
"The government is trying to push the boundaries of the settlements as much as possible before they are frozen," he said. "The new rule of the game we have seen in past weeks is the diameter of permitted construction area in the West Bank has grown. The purpose is to expand as fast as possible because of negotiations with the US to limit future construction to areas already under construction."
American officials have been appointed to agree limits to settlement expansion in order, Washington says, to preserve land for a future Palestinian state. Mr Sharon is pressing the US to allow building to continue in areas already under construction, to cater for the "natural growth" in families.
But Settlement Watch says aerial photographs reveal that in some settlements, construction has begun on the outer limits of the municipal boundaries, often some distance from the settlement. It believes the government will claim the right to build on the intervening territory or use the outposts to link settlements.
The pictures show new houses, roads and other infrastructure around about 12 of the 90 or more outposts, sometimes linking them to established colonies.
Last week Ephraim Sneh, an opposition Labour party MP, presented photographs of the outposts and infrastructure expansion to his party's caucus in parliament.
"In blunt violation of the promise to the US president, the government doesn't dismantle the illegal outposts. With government money they are expanded, asphalt roads are paved - all the necessary preparations to turn them into permanent settlements," he told the Guardian.
"It casts a shadow on the real intent of Sharon's disengagement plan. The disengagement may be just a cover for the real intention of the prime minister to deepen and solidify the Israeli hold in the West Bank." He added that the expansion was possible only with official cooperation. "It can't be done without government encouragement and financing," he said. In May, the state comptroller said Israel's housing ministry had illegally funnelled about £3.8m to fund unauthorised settlement expansion, half of it to the illegal outposts.
Incentives
Last month, the defence and finance ministries authorised a £37m budget to fortify settlements outside the steel and concrete barrier Israel is building through the West Bank. Last week, it was revealed that dozens of prefabricated homes which the government had authorised for established settlements were sent to the outposts.
"This is a well-placed deal cut between the settlers in the area and the ministry of defence," said Mr Etkes. "If they're dismantling at times there is the immediate intensification of construction of another outpost in the area."
The government is offering additional incentives to persuade Israelis to move to empty housing on the settlements and newly arrived Jews frequently find themselves placed there. But concrete and asphalt are more important than people in staking Israel's claim to the West Bank.
Last month, Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister, told the civil administration in the West Bank - which is under military control - to draw up plans for rapid expansion of the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem. In recent weeks, the government has approved expansion of Efrat, part of Etzion bloc, which is also expanding into what was the Palestinian village of Walaja.
"The land was taken by the Jewish National Fund," said Jeff Halper, a veteran Israeli campaigner against settlement expansion. "Almost every house has a demolition order."
Mr Mofaz also reassured settlers' leaders of continued expansion of the other two main blocs in the West Bank, Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim, which already eat into Palestinian territory.
Mr Halper said that the government planned to more than double the size of Ma'ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, to provide homes for about 70,000 people.
Ehud Olmert, Israel's deputy prime minister, who rarely makes policy statements without Mr Sharon's approval, recently said that Jewish West Jerusalem must grow to Ma'ale Adumim.
The Israelis are also looking further east to Mitzpe Jericho, which is home to about 1,500 people. Giant billboards picturing clusters of blocks of flats mark the limits of the municipality several miles from the existing housing.
"The government plans to link Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim and Ma'ale Adumim to Mitzpe Jericho. Eventually it will all fall under the Jerusalem municipality. Jerusalem is being transformed from a city into a region," said Mr Halper.
Mr Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, denied West Bank settlements were being expanded, saying that construction remains within the existing boundaries.
"Anything that is illegal will be removed as the prime minister has promised the Americans," he said of the outposts.
Critics say the argument about boundaries is part of the deception because the government has drawn them beyond the settlements in order to allow for considerable expansion. Settlement Watch says the government's lack of sincerity can be seen in its failure to provide a full list of illegal outposts to the US. The government admits to only 28 outposts. Settlement Watch says there are 91, of which 51 were established after Mr Sharon came to power and therefore should have been removed under an agreement with the US.
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from july, 2004
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Sto...269880,00.html
and this from 10/21/05:
Quote:
Israel 'still expanding West Bank settlements'
By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent
(Filed: 21/10/2005)
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, yesterday accused Israel of building Jewish settlements in the West Bank at a faster rate than ever before, breaching the "road map" peace plan.
His remarks were supported by a leading Israeli human rights group which found that the Israeli government last year oversaw a large influx of Jewish settlers into the West Bank, outweighing the 7,500 settlers withdrawn from Gaza this summer.
The barrier is nearing completion
"Israel has accelerated its settlement expansion in the Palestinian heartland," Mr Abbas wrote in The Wall Street Journal ahead of a meeting with President George W Bush in Washington. "The 26 months since Israel announced its plans to disengage from Gaza have witnessed the highest rate of West Bank settlement construction in all the occupation years."
The road map obliges Israel to freeze all settlement activity. Israel argues the plan is stalled until the Palestinian Authority stops the extremist groups that employ terror tactics against Israel.
Speaking after an hour-long meeting with Mr Abbas, Mr Bush called on Israel to stop building West Bank settlements. He said Israel would be "held to account" for any actions that hamper peacemaking or burden Palestinians, but offered no idea what sanctions could be imposed.
The report by Settlement Watch found that the loss of 7,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza will be outweighed by the arrival this year of 14,000 residents in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Mr Bush said Mr Abbas must begin by "confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine". For the Palestinians, the most pressing concern is that Israel is no longer pursuing a negotiated agreement but wants to impose a settlement, using the West Bank separation barrier, which is nearing completion, to define its borders.
The security fence, which Israel claims is intended solely to stop suicide bombers, has in effect annexed 10 per cent of the West Bank.
Advisers to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, argue that unilateralism is better for Israel as it would enable it to grab land and create an infrastructure of roads, perimeter fences and population centres as a de facto border.
Unilateralism was the thinking behind the withdrawal from Gaza. It was done on terms dictated by the Israelis, not negotiated with the Palestinians. The willingness to go it alone comes, in part, from signals sent by the Bush administration.
Last year, Mr Bush wrote to Mr Sharon indicating that America would not insist on Israel giving up all the land it occupied in 1967.
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source: http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/m...1/ixworld.html
a more detailed analysis from peace now (israeli left political organization)
http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/p...=62&docid=1502
so let's summarize: a new iranian president--a conservative--makes a public prnouncement that aligns (realigns) iranian political rhetoric with its post revolutionary conservative tradition by using the current situation vis-a-vis israel/palestine as a wedge. this move, roundly condemned, triggers a series of pseduo-machiavellian fantasy-posts here from the lumpenconservative set who use it as an occaison to speculate about an american invasion of iran. in the course of this, no-one even considers the context within which the speech was made, any relations it might have to politics either in iran or vis-a-vis the palestinians--who here, as always, are fucked.
of course, the site of the conference at which the speech was made is not mentioned--a conference entitled "the world without zionism" which would be the functional equivalent of a speaker series at aei or brookings, at which there is doubtless an endless series of lunatic propositions advanced by american conservatives equally or more inflammatory. but in these cases, context matters: in the case of a pseech by the president of iran that suits the instrumental purposes of the bush administration, context does not matter.
i dont know, folks: it seems that there is a segment of the american population that imagines all the administration's political problems could be resolved with a fresh war, it seems, and these same people imagine that iran would be a logical target. what is alarming is that these folk also imagine that this scenario makes sense.
and why not, really: it worked out so well in iraq.....
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
Last edited by roachboy; 10-27-2005 at 06:44 AM..
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