Needless to say, as the world foams with synthetic shock at Ahmadinejad’s declaration of intent to wipe Israel off the map, no Arab state has expressed its own outrage, revulsion etc. Most have remained silent. Well, there’s a surprise! According to the BBC News website, Egypt said:

We are way beyond this type of political rhetoric that shows the weakness of the Iranian government...

while Turkey called on the Iranian government

to display political moderation

which is not what one might call the most full-hearted repudiation of genocide. The silence or, at best, mealy-mouthedness of the Arab world furnishes an eloquent reminder that it overwhelmingly supports the Iranian aim of eradicating Israel, even though it may not support its current tactics. Indeed, with the exception of Egypt and Jordan, the Arab world has never renounced the war of extermination that it first waged against Israel when it came into existence.

The Palestinians, however, are far too street-wise to fall into the trap. Their support from European dupes depends, above all else, on the myth assiduously peddled that they do not want to destroy Israel. Thus Saeeb Erekat, their chief negotiator:

‘Palestinians recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and I reject his comments’, he told the BBC News website. ‘What we need to be talking about is adding the state of Palestine to the map and not wiping Israel from the map,’ he said.

But the Palestinians have indeed wiped Israel off the map – in their own schoolbooks, where Israel does not appear at all on the maps of the Middle East, or on the map on their insignia which delineates the putative state of Palestine as the entire area presently composed of Israel and the disputed territories.

The Palestinians’ charter still calls for the destruction of Israel; its spokesmen have periodically repeated that the two-state solution is merely a Trojan horse for one Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel; they have rejected all offers and opportunities for a separate Palestinian state; they persist in their demand for the right of Palestinian settlement in Israel, which would destroy it as a Jewish state, even while they call for a state of their own.

In other words, Erekat’s words are opportunistic humbug. The Palestinians remain committed to the ethnic cleansing of the Jews and the destruction of the sovereign state of Israel – just as Ahmadinejad declared.

Nor is the shock, revulsion etc expressed by Tony Blair necessarily shared by his fellow Brits. Indeed, from the evidence of respondents to the BBC website, it seems that a number of them are positively sanguine about the prospect of a second Jewish holocaust:

• It is also somewhat in poor taste for us Brits to condemn Ahmadinejad's fiery wording when our government has stood by an American President who is even more guilty of such charges. Bush and Blair led an illegal war where thousands of innocent people have died and for us to now turn around and comment from afar on a situation in the Middle East that we have made far worse is beyond belief...

• Is this story true? The current American regime is expert at creating faked excuses for military and political action. The WMD scam in Iraq for example. The Americans who operate in concert with Israel have made almost daily unsubstantiated threats against Iran, Syria, and any country that opposes a domineering foreign policy. Maybe Iran is just sick of Americans...

• Israel continues its brutal human rights abuses against Palestinians ...and the rest of the middle east therefore continue to hate Israel. In a nutshell. When will we see justice for the innocent people killed? America provides billions of dollars annually to Israel, which is used on advanced military hardware mercilessly against palestinian people. Only when the killing stops will ties be mended.

• OK, his remarks were a bit strong, and personally I do find them offensive. But I'm not sure it's any worse than what Bush said about Iraq, and at least Ahmedinejad is using only words, not bombs.

Israel has called for Iran to be thrown out of the United Nations. Its Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed his ‘dismay’ at Ahmadinejad's remarks. Dismay, eh? Steady on, world.

Posted by melanie at October 28, 2005