[WCUSP] Putting words in Ahmadinejad's mouth

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

August 28, 2006

Is Iran's President  Really a Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying Islamo-fascist 
who has threatened to  "wipe Israel off the map"?
Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth

By  VIRGINIA TILLEY

Johannesburg, South Africa

In this frightening  mess in the Middle East, let's get one thing straight. 
Iran is not threatening  Israel with destruction. Iran's president has not 
threatened any action against  Israel. Over and over, we hear that Iran is clearly 
"committed to annihilating  Israel" because the "mad" or "reckless" or 
"hard-line" President Ahmadinejad has  repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel. But 
every supposed quote, every  supposed instance of his doing so, is wrong.

The most infamous quote,  "Israel must be wiped off the map", is the most 
glaringly wrong. In his October  2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word 
"map" or the term "wiped off".  According to Farsi-language experts like Juan 
Cole and even right-wing services  like MEMRI, what he actually said was 
"this regime that is occupying Jerusalem  must vanish from the page of time."

What did he mean? In this speech to  an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. 
Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not  threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, 
who said this line in the 1980s (a  period when Israel was actually selling 
arms to Iran, so apparently it was not  viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. 
Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that  the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, 
and Saddam Hussein had all seemed  enormously powerful and immovable, yet the 
first two had vanished almost beyond  recall and the third now languished in 
prison. So, too, the "occupying regime"  in Jerusalem would someday be gone. 
His message was, in essence, "This too shall  pass."

But what about his other "threats" against Israel? The  blathersphere made 
great hay from his supposed comment later in the same speech,  "There is no 
doubt: the new wave of assaults in Palestine will erase the stigma  in [the] 
countenance of the Islamic world." "Stigma" was interpreted as "Israel"  and "wave 
of assaults" was ominous. But what he actually said was, "I have no  doubt 
that the new movement taking place in our dear Palestine is a wave of  morality 
which is spanning the entire Islamic world and which will soon remove  this 
stain of disgrace from the Islamic world." "Wave of morality" is not "wave  of 
assaults." The preceding sentence had made clear that the "stain of disgrace"  
was the Muslim world's failure to eliminate the "occupying regime".

For  months, scholars like Cole and journalists like the London Guardian's 
Jonathan  Steele have been pointing out these mistranslations while more and 
more appear:  for example, Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments at the Organization of 
Islamic Countries  meeting on August 3, 2006. Radio Free Europe reported that he 
said "that the  'main cure' for crisis in the Middle East is the elimination of 
Israel."  "Elimination of Israel" implies physical destruction: bombs, 
strafing, terror,  throwing Jews into the sea. Tony Blair denounced the translated 
statement as  "quite shocking". But Mr. Ahmadinejad never said this. According 
to al-Jazeera,  what he actually said was "The real cure for the conflict is 
the elimination of  the Zionist regime, but there should be an immediate 
ceasefire  first."

Nefarious agendas are evident in consistently translating  "eliminating the 
occupation regime" as "destruction of Israel". "Regime" refers  to governance, 
not populations or cities. "Zionist regime" is the government of  Israel and 
its system of laws, which have annexed Palestinian land and hold  millions of 
Palestinians under military occupation. Many mainstream human rights  activists 
believe that Israel's "regime" must indeed be transformed, although  they 
disagree how. Some hope that Israel can be redeemed by a change of  philosophy 
and government (regime) that would allow a two-state solution. Others  believe 
that Jewish statehood itself is inherently unjust, as it embeds racist  
principles into state governance, and call for its transformation into a secular  
democracy (change of regime). None of these ideas about regime change signifies  
the expulsion of Jews into the sea or the ravaging of their towns and cities.  
All signify profound political change, necessary to creating a just  peace.

Mr. Ahmadinejad made other statements at the Organization of  Islamic 
Countries that clearly indicated his understanding that Israel must be  treated 
within the framework of international law. For instance, he recognized  the reality 
of present borders when he said that "any aggressor should go back  to the 
Lebanese international border". He recognized the authority of Israel and  the 
role of diplomacy in observing, "The circumstances should be prepared for  the 
return of the refugees and displaced people, and prisoners should be  
exchanged." He also called for a boycott: "We also propose that the Islamic  nations 
immediately cut all their overt and covert political and economic  relations 
with the Zionist regime." A double bushel of major Jewish peace  groups, US 
church groups, and hordes of human rights organizations have said the  same things.

A final word is due about Mr. Ahmadinejad's "Holocaust  denial". Holocaust 
denial is a very sensitive issue in the West, where it  notoriously serves 
anti-Semitism. Elsewhere in the world, however, fogginess  about the Holocaust 
traces more to a sheer lack of information. 

One  might think there is plenty of information about the Holocaust 
worldwide, but  this is a mistake. (Lest we be snooty, Americans show the same 
startling  insularity from general knowledge when, for example, they live to late 
adulthood  still not grasping that US forces killed at least two million 
Vietnamese and  believing that anyone who says so is anti-American. Most French people 
have not  yet accepted that their army slaughtered a million Arabs in  
Algeria.)

Skepticism about the Holocaust narrative has started to take  hold in the 
Middle East not because people hate Jews but because that narrative  is deployed 
to argue that Israel has a right to "defend itself" by attacking  every 
country in its vicinity. Middle East publics are so used to western  canards 
legitimizing colonial or imperial takeovers that some wonder if the  six-million-dead 
argument is just another myth or exaggerated tale. It is dismal  that Mr. 
Ahmadinejad seems to belong to this ill-educated sector, but he has  never been 
known for his higher education.

Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad did not  say what the US Subcommittee on Intelligence 
Policy reported that he said: "They  have invented a myth that Jews were 
massacred and place this above God,  religions and the prophets." He actually said, 
"In the name of the Holocaust  they have created a myth and regard it to be 
worthier than God, religion and the  prophets." This language targets the myth 
of the Holocaust, not the Holocaust  itself - i.e., "myth" as "mystique", or 
what has been done with the Holocaust.  Other writers, including important 
Jewish theologians, have criticized the  "cult" or "ghost" of the Holocaust 
without denying that it happened. In any  case, Mr. Ahmadinejad's main message has 
been that, if the Holocaust happened as  Europe says it did, then Europe, and 
not the Muslim world, is responsible for  it.

Why is Mr. Ahmadinejad being so systematically misquoted and  demonized? Need 
we ask? 

If the world believes that Iran is preparing to  attack Israel, then the US 
or Israel can claim justification in attacking Iran  first. On that agenda, the 
disinformation campaign about Mr. Ahmadinejad's  statements has been bonded 
at the hip to a second set of lies: promoting Iran's  (nonexistent) nuclear 
weapon programme.

The current fuss about Iran's  nuclear enrichment program is playing out so 
identically to US canards about  Iraq's WMD that we must wonder why it is not 
meeting only roaring international  derision. With multiple agendas regarding 
Iran -- oil, US hegemony, Israel,  neocon fantasies of a "new Middle East" -- 
the Bush administration has raised a  great international scare about Iran's 
nuclear enrichment program. (See Ray  Close, Why Bush Will Choose War Against 
Iran.) But, plowing through Iran's  facilities and records, International Atomic 
Energy Agency inspectors have found  no evidence of a weapons program. The US 
intelligence community hasn't found  anything, either.

All experts concur that, even if Iran has such a  program, it is five to ten 
years away from having the enriched uranium necessary  for an actual weapon, 
so pre-emptive military action now is hardly necessary.  Even the recent report 
by the Republican-dominated Subcommittee on Intelligence  Policy, which 
pointed out that the US government lacks the intelligence on  Iran's weapons 
program necessary to thwart it, effectively confirms that the  supposed 
"intelligence" is patchy and inadequate.

The Bush  administration's casual neglect of North Korea's nuclear program 
indicates that  nuclear weapons are not, in fact, the issue here. The neocons 
are intent on  changing the regime in Iran and so have deployed their 
propagandists to promote  the "nuclear weapons" scare just they promoted the Iraqi WMD 
scare. Republican  rhetoric and right-wing news commentators have fallen into 
line, obediently  repeating baseless assertions that Iran has a "nuclear 
weapons program," is  threatening the world and especially Israel with its "nuclear 
weapons program,"  and must not be allowed to complete its "nuclear weapons 
program." Those who  nervously point out that hard evidence is actually lacking 
about any Iranian  "nuclear weapons program" are derided as naïve and 
spineless  patsies.

Worse, the Bush administration has brought this snow-job to the  UN, 
wrangling the Security Council into passing a resolution (SC 1696) demanding  that 
Iran cease nuclear enrichment by August 31 and warning of sanctions if it  
doesn't. Combined with its abysmal performance regarding Israel's assault on  
Lebanon, the Security Council has crumbled into humiliating obsequious  incompetence 
on this one.

Like all phantasms, the nuclear-weapons charge  is hard to defeat because it 
cannot be entirely disproved. Maybe some Iranian  scientists, in some remote 
underground facility, are working on nuclear weapons  technology. Maybe feelers 
to North Korea have explored the possibilities of  getting extra components. 
Maybe an alien spaceship once crashed in the Nevada  desert. Normally, just 
because something can't be disproved does not make it  true. But in the neocon 
world, possibilities are realities, and a craven press  is there to click its 
heels and trumpet the scaremongering headlines. It doesn't  take much, through 
endless repetition of the term "possible nuclear weapons  program," for the 
word "possible" to drop quietly away.

Evidence is, in  any case, a mere detail to the Bush administration, for 
which the desire for  nuclear weapons is sufficient cause for a pre-emptive 
attack. In US debates  prior to invading Iraq, people sometimes insisted that any 
real evidence of WMD  was sorely lacking. The White House would then insist 
that, because Saddam  Hussein "wanted" such weapons, he was likely to have them 
sometime in the  future. Hence thought crimes, even imaginary thought crimes, 
are now punishable  by military invasion.

Will the US really attack Iran? US generals are  rightly alarmed that bombing 
Iran's nuclear facilities would unleash  unprecedented attacks on US 
occupation forces in Iraq, as well as US bases in  the Gulf. Iran could even block the 
Straits of Hormuz, which carries 40 percent  of the world's oil. Spin-off 
terrorist militancy would skyrocket. The potential  damage to international 
security and the world economy would be unfathomably  dangerous. The Bush 
administration's necons seems capable of any insanity, so  none of this may matter to 
them. But even the neocons must be taking pause since  Israel failed to knock 
out Hizbullah using the same onslaught from the air  planned for Iran.

But Israel can attack Iran, and this may be the plan.  Teaming up, the two 
countries could compensate for each other's strategic  limitations. The US has 
been contributing its superpower clout in the Security  Council, setting the 
stage for sanctions, knowing Iran will not yield on its  enrichment program. 
Having cultivated a (mistaken) international belief that  Iran is threatening a 
direct attack on Israel, the Israeli government could then  claim the right of 
self-defense in taking unilateral pre-emptive action to  destroy the nuclear 
capacity of a state declared in breach of UN directives.  Direct retaliation by 
Iran against Israel is impossible because Israel is a  nuclear power (and 
Iran is not) and because the US security umbrella would  protect Israel. Regional 
reaction against US targets might be curtailed by the  (scant) confusion 
about indirect US complicity.

In that case, what we are  seeing now is the US creating the international 
security context for Israel's  unilateral strike and preparing to cover Israel's 
back in the  aftermath.

Is this really the plan? Some evidence suggests that it is on  the table. In 
recent years, Israel has purchased new "bunker-busting" missiles,  a fleet of 
F-16 jets, and three latest-technology German Dolphin submarines (and  ordered 
two more)- i.e., the appropriate weaponry for striking Iran's nuclear  
installations. In March 2005, the Times of London reported that Israel had  
constructed a mock-up of Iran's Natanz facility in the desert and was conducting  
practice bombing runs. In recent months, Israeli officials have openly stated  
that if the UN fails to take action, Israel will bomb Iran.

But  Hizbullah, Iran's ally, still threatens Israel's flank. Hence attacking  
Hizbullah was more than a "demo" for attacking Iran, as Seymour Hersh 
reported;  it was necessary to attacking Iran. Israel failed to crush Hizbullah, but 
the  outcome may be better for Israel now that Security Council Resolution 
1701 has  made the entire international community responsible for disarming 
Hizbullah. If  the US-sponsored 1701 effort succeeds, the attack on Iran is a go.

As  Israel and the US try to make that deeply flawed plan work, we will 
doubtless  continue to read in every forum that Iran's president - a hostile, 
irrational,  Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying Islamo-fascist who has threatened to 
"wipe Israel  off the map" -- is demonstrably irrational enough to commit 
national suicide by  launching a (nonexistent) nuclear weapon against Israel's mighty 
nuclear  arsenal. The message is being hammered home: against this 
media-created myth,  Israel must truly "defend itself."

Virginia Tilley is a professor of  political science, a US citizen working in 
South Africa, and author of The  One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace 
in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock  (University of Michigan Press and 
Manchester University Press, 2005). She can be  reached at _tilley at hws.edu_ 
(mailto:tilley at hws.edu) .  

_www.counterpunch.com_ (http://www.counterpunch.com)