Khodadad Rezakhani

This is a very sensless post

And another diversionary tactic by an IRI supporter and off course we have our fellow leftists and anti-Israeli/Jewish propagandist joining in.

Nobody gave a shit here when Shirin Ebadi's offices were closed, 9 Iranians were executed last week or that half the Iranian population leaves under poverty (high inflation, high unemployment, sex slave sigheh industry to add to the never ending list). Somehow, a conversation by some idiot in Starbucks becomes the talk of the town and "genocide" by Jews against the poor Palestinians becomes the talk of the intellectuals and philosophers of Iranian.com.

I guess because the IRI is a "democracy" and had these thugs elected in a "democratic election" makes everything ok. Our so called "intellectuals" and "historians" can now concentrate on fixing the evils of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and protect the "democratically elected" retards who run the Hamas.

Raise your voice against the genocide of women and children in

Gaza. Here is a list of demonstrations being held or actions to be taken against the slaughter of women and children.

Tuesday, December 30: National Day of Action
Emergency Demonstrations on Tuesday, December 30 and other days (listed below)

In San Francisco there will be a demonstration at the Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St. at 5:00 pm. Demonstrations will also be held in cities around the country. See below for an initial list. If there is a demonstration in your city, email the details to info@answercoalition.org so it can be posted on the ANSWER Coalition website and listed in any future emails.

Take Action:
- Demonstrations Across the Country
- Send a letter to the State Department and Congress

Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, December 30
4:30 pm
State Department: 22nd St & C St NW
Contact: 202-544-3389 x14, dc@answercoalition.org

San Francisco
Tuesday, December 30
5:00 pm
Israeli Consulate:456 Montgomery St.
Contact: 415-821-6545, answer@answersf.org

Los Angeles
Tuesday, December 30
4:30 pm
Israeli Consulate: 6380 Wilshire Blvd.
Contact: 213-251-1025, answerla@answerla.org
* * * * *

New York City
Tuesday, December 30
5:00 pm
Israeli Consulate: 800 2nd Ave (b/w 42nd and 43rd Sts)
Contact: 212-694-8720, nyc@answercoalition.org
* * * * *

Fort Lauderdale, FL
Tuesday, December 30
5:00 pm
Federal Building: 299 E. Broward Blvd.
Contact: 954-707-0155, FtLauderdale@answerfl.org

Chicago
Details to be announced
Contact: 773-463-0311, answer@chicagoanswer.net

Boston
Details to be announced
Contact: 857-334-5084, boston@answercoalition.org

Seattle
Saturday, January 3
12:00 noon - 2:00 pm
Westlake Park: 4th and Pine
Initiated by Voices of Palestine
Contact: general@voicesofpalestine.org

If there is a demonstration in your city, email the details to info@answercoalition.org so it can be posted on the ANSWER Coalition website and listed in any future emails.

Send a letter to the State Department and Congress: Join with people around the country and around the world who are demanding an end to U.S. aid to Israel. This is an urgent situation and we must all act now. You can send a letter with our easy click and send system demanding an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Without U.S. aid, the Israeli military attacks, siege and blockade of Gaza could not be continued. Click this link now to send a letter to the State Department and elected officials in Congress.

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
//www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311

Your signatures are missing on Human Rights Office Closure

I do not see your signatures Khodadad Rezakhani and many others on this petition site below protesting the shutting down of the human rights office in Tehran while you are all crying human rights violations in Gaza!

How far this hypocrisy is going to be extended? Iran is on verge of destruction and you cry wolf elsewhere! 153 signatures is disgrace for Iran and Iranians.

//www.gopetition.com/online/24166.html

Israeli soldier: "It's like duck hunting"

12 more people are killed today by the savage Israeli war machine, including 3 little girls. To the zionists it is like "duck hunting". Christian Science Monitor reported today.

To David ET: We are the sheep and mullahs are our shepherds

Do not be surprised and wonder why nobody gives a hoot about human rights abuses inside Iran.

Iranians, both inside and outside Iran, have been brainwashed and conditioned by the ruling Iranian mullahs for the last 30 years to think like they want them to think. They have greatly succeeded and you can see the result of that success on this Website alone.

Amazed

I am just facinated with the amount of obsession some of you guys have with Isreali-Arab conflict. Clearly omatism pschychee has rubbed off on some of you people or you have nothing better to do or talk about.....

Have you not heard of famous saying: before you put order in your neighbors house, you should fix your own house first.

Get over it. There are 21 arab countries out there, with billions in pertro dollar, more land than you can imagine (They can create ten palestine and they will still have plenty land left!), millions of young men that they can create probably largest army in the world to fight Isreal. Let them deal with this issue!!!!

Get Your Facts Together, Mr. "Historian!"

You wrote:

"Now, these days when I am reading, thanks to the internet, about the Israeli attack on Gaza and killing of over 250 people, and the fact that it is going almost completely unnoticed in the CNN, MSNBC, and FOX, it makes me wonder even more."

That is a blatant lie! You can lie as much as you want about the events of the past centuries as a "historian" and many may not even notice them for the lack of interest, but not about the current events which can be verified by a few cliks on a computer keyboard!

For the last four days I've been getting all the news about the situation in Gaza from CNN, CBS and BBC. After reading your blog, I checked Fox and they are covering the events very closely!

Why such a shameless lie, I wonder!

Zion

No one said Jews are a race.  Reread the post.  FYI:  Although you looked it up for the first time a few days ago Ysrael is a transliteration spelled both Ysrael and Yisrael. 

This might help you understand how groups that are not racially distinct (in this case semitic peoples) can be considered victims of racial discrimination under the law.  In the context of Arabs and Jews the discrimination is based upon physically identifiable characteristics of "groups" of peoples. 

//supreme.justia.com/us/481/615/case.html

At News blog next door

 Shirin Ebadi's private office was stormed yesterday.

//iranian.com/main/news/2008/12/29/shirin-ebadis-private-law-office-stormed-irans-security-forces

The news blog has no comments.

Where are the ones who cry human rights violations in Gaza? Hello? Any body? Don't rush , one at a time, there is room for everyone to care there too!

More than 300 comments about Palestine/ Israel and none there? 

Does IRANIAN Shirin Ebadi have human rights too or only Palestinians do?

Thanks for this blog

I admire your passion for justice and your logic in debates. Thanks Khodadad

parthian jan

the pathetic mullahs are acting just like the pathetic american leaders. they supply the opposite sides. in fact, a great number of the most zealous israeli settlers and military personnel are american citizens. much as we all despise them, how are the mullahs any different to the americans in being interventionist, and why would we side with one against the other on this issue other than through the merits of the situation in Palestine/Israel regardless of Iran and USA government positions?

our resistance against the mullahs cannot be based on our opposition to Palestinians or support for israel. that would make our internal struggle subservient to external issues.

Peace!

crazy, pathetic mullahs

Those pathetic mullahs who would never sent their own children to fight wars are signing up gullible Iranian youth to go fight in Israel. I hope our so called great gracious humanitarians on this website are not surprised or outraged when Israel and United State decide to bomb the hell out of Iran. What the pathetic mullahs are doing is interfering in an issue that Iran has no business interfering in, much less signing up volunteers to go fight there. What they are doing can be constituted as an act of war. As far as I know Israel has not declared such war on Iran.

Khodadad jan

This is an excellent and outstandingly sincere piece. Thanks for sharing.

For whatever reason, i have always seen a close affinity between fundamentalism, zionism and fascism. Not that all the world's problems relate to these alone - not at all. but there is a dynamic (not sure what to call it) that propels these to appear in succession and also simultaneously in different places. The old action and reaction idea, or the thesis/antithesis model. 

All such 'isms' have a paranoid view of the world that sees itself as a victim whose survival depends on the destruction of the other. morality therefore does not come into it when push comes to shove.

it was therefore possible to see zionism developing into what it is today. it is just another form of fundamentalism with more modern decorations. actually, i would say that it was the first fundamentalist state established in the region in the modern era. Pakistan was also another. both these states were established around the same time through ethnic cleansing and mass migrations of people according to their religion, except the israelis were foreign colonizers who offered nothing other than ghettos and refugeeship to the displaced Palestinians. True too that many neighbouring countries did the same to many Palestinians once they were displaced.

a few years ago, one was constantly faced with references to the holocaust and anti-semitism soon as Palestine was mentioned. Today, there is an outright agenda to wipe out Palestinians without any remorse or justification. just blaming them for what is coming to them. 'it is all their own fault'. Just like many Germans used to say about the jews.

what is happening now, though, will inevitably lead to a fundamentliast reaction. Hamas' refusal to cave makes both sides more violent. Hezbollah has made a direct appeal to the people of Egypt to rise against their leaders. The IRI is consistently gaining strength from the violnce unleashed on the region by the US and Israel.

all in all, we are faced with a failed state of the rule of international law. the answer must be in a return to multilaterlaism, but a genuine form of it rather than one dominated by the victors of WWII. A new 'thesis' of sorts.

and i see a silver lining with the economic rise of other countries in recent decades. i just hope that the new tide arrives before another world war, which is a real possibility right now.

Peace!

I keep saying...

I am always perceived as a staunch defender of Israel. Truly, I am not, although between Arabs, and Israel, I would prefer and support Israel. I believe Israel's exitance in the past 60 years has helped Iran breath for a little while in the past 15 centuries. I see all issues through an Iranian (hopefully a genuine Iranian) prism.

People, Israel can very well defend for itself. There are hundreds of millions of Arabs, and if they had any guts, courage, brain, and culture, they would have been able to negotiate a deal, or stood up to Israel. This problem goes back to 15 centuries ago. Muslims have killed jews as their prophets did in Medina. Ironically, arabs in general are extremely anti-semitic. The problem is that muslims don't like competition, and their crap is very similar to judaism, actually probably copied from it.

Look at the amount of energy we are wasting on this issue when our own country is being torn apart. Way to go IR for creating this distraction. And yes, for those who say this is part of humanity, and we can all be concerned about this issue as well as Iran, I say you are DEAD WRONG! The proof is in the puding, if we could do all these "caring" and "concerning" while we fix our own country, our own homeland would have been fixed. We got major issues, in couple of decades, the social and economic disintegration of Iran will destroy the very fabric of that country. On that day, I bet my life, people like Q will be shedding his crocodile tear while living it up in the evil United States, liberals like JJ will run this website while drinking Margarita, telling us how bad occupation is, but living on Apache land, and I swear to you all, not one arab or Israeli will shed a tear for our beloved Iran. Now keep fighting over this nonsense....

death toll now at least 375

//www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.isr...

That is a novel way to hide the fact...

...that you have nothing more to say in response. You are getting creative Q. Nice.

"Rubbish"? You must be British or Canadian!

I'm not even reading your post because I'm sure you have missed the main point which was about "being thugs". No one takes a backseat to the elected governments of Israel and US in this regard, not even HAMAS. In terms of international crimes and killing of civilians, there are no finer examples.

Not really interested in the rest.

Kurdish, yes the ELECTIONS were held in 2006

the last elections held in Palestine.

It's the Government in the West Bank that is illegitimate according to the constitution or any standard of reasonability.

They are in power there for one reason only: They are preferred by America and Israel, regardless of what the Palestinians want. That's why US illegally interefered with the elections and funneled $2Million to Fatah in the last few weeks, but that wasn't enough.

Yes, it was an election, of course people were divided but the vast majority of seats were won by HAMAS.

Israel and the US have said Hamas is unacceptable. Rather than accept the legitimate electoral will of the Palestinian people and at least pretend they actually believe in Democracy, they are trying to destroy (decapitate) and starve out the HAMAS government.

It will never work. HAMAS will now have even more support. A takeover in the West Bank is probably in the works right now. Which means a civil war because Israel will intefere to keep Abbas (a known holocaust denier but that's OK with Israel) as President by force.

After 60 years Israel is still too stupid to realize that people are not dogs, and can't be intimidated by death and hunger. So this will backfire badly.

Of course, "backfire" assumes that Israeli leaders want peace. Strategically, any kind of even remotely fair negotiation means they have to give up the complete control that they have over West Bank and Gaza.

They don't want to do that. AND they want to continue to service their economy which depends heavily on US free cash and its well developed defense industry (as a result of previous US aid).

Peace is good for neither.
So children have to die.

Rubbish Q,

As usual. Being voted in an election, even if we accept the likes of Carter inn matters like this, is merely a necessary condition for a democracy, not a sufficient one. Democratic leaders abide by democratic constitutions, do not suppress freedom of press and most importantly do not bar future free elections. They allow themselves to be judged by the people in the next round of elections and when voted out, they step down. That is why Hitler, your lovely Islamic presidents and the thugs of Hamas are not democratic leaders, while America, British, French, Israeli... are democratic societies with democratic leaders. A school child can easily comprehend this distinction, a mind blinded by ideological bias and hatred evidently can't.

I hate the rhetoric this time.

The Israelis are going to fight to the death?  They ususually don't use this kind of language.  I think they have completely given up on any form of diplomacy.  Whatever happened 60 years ago and whoever is responsible for what happened......  means nothing to the young adults and children on both sides who were born on that land. 

I think the Israelis and Hamas want a final solution.  The Arab nations came up with two plans and no one accepted them.  Clinton offered Arafat the kitchen sink, but he knew he would be dead the moment he entered Palestine because there is no solution for the militant Palestinians .......other than the anniliation of Israel. 

 I thought turning over Gaza was a good step, but Gaza was destroyed in the process. 

 The author of this thread is a historian and I trust his thoughts.  What impact will the Iranian call to arms have on this conflict?  Egypt and Iran have been at it recently.  Iran wants to send aid and arms through the Egyptian entry point to Gaza and the Egyptians don't want that.  Instability will flow into Egypt ...they claim.   When Egyptian towns did open their doors there were problems with the behavior of the Gazans. 

Years of impoverishment and war affects the mind of people.  Like the Afghans, the Gazans know only war.  I am not sure that they know what the benefits of peace are.  The thought of caged Humans comes to my mind. 

I know of no solution.  I think the story of the thread leader's old man in the restaurant reflects the hopelessness of all of this.  I have heard people say that the only solution is the destruction of one of the sides.  In history, that has been the only solution that has brought peace.  It seems wrong to me.

Yes, people voted for Hamas.  They voted against Fatah because of corruption.  We do that here and end up in a mess too.  (I live in Illinois.)  There should have been a time for the Gazans who don't want this to escape.  I'm sure some mothers would have taken their children out, but where would they go?  No one wants them. 

 I don't think that the Iranian leaders cares about the Palestinians.  This is just another play against the US on their part.  There are people in the Sudan suffering genocide and Iran sides with the murderers there so I don't think the Iranian leaders care about those people who are in danger.  They want to harm America because they can't get over the past either.  More rhetoris...never a solution.  It's hopeless.

Q Are you saying that what happened in 2006 is still in effect

after almost 3 years. I'm just quoting you. Hamas miss management of gaza have put many of their supporters in doubts. You are giving me reference that were published almost 3 years ago. Again if all palestinians chose Hamas there wouldn't be division and a whole where they dig themselves into. Everything is not as black and white as you think my friend. The reality on the ground is totally different. You should know these better.

To Javid and David ET

Javid,

Q my dear, Israeli leaders come to power with elections too. So did Bush. So did Ahmadinejad. So did Hitler, for that matter. What's the point? It's their actions that matter, not how they came to power.

Javid and David ET, my dears you are both right about this fact regarding HAMAS's status which is equal to that of all the other leaders you mentioned.

So please, start referring to American and Israeli governments as "thugs" from now on and there won't be any contradictions, OK?

Kurdish Warrior

In 2006, HAMAS was elected in free and fair elections to represent ALL of Palestinian territories. It defeated Fatah and the election was observed by internationally recognized watchdog groups.

US and Israel decided they can't accept the choice of the Palestinian people. So they started playing games pretending Mahmoud Abbas' party was still in charge, stretching his vaguely defined "role" as President to continue to deny HAMAS the rights that the Palestinian people granted it in the election. For example, the (formerly) ruling Fatah party would not relinquish control of the security aparatus and UN representation teams.

This is all very well documented. I assume Kurdish Warrior is either joking or really REALLY brainwashed not to know these facts.

//www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-01-26-hama...
//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4650788.stm
//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...

Q

Hamas (the thugs) are the elected representatives of ALL of Palestine???? According to who and what reference???? People of Palestine are divided in three groups..Hamas supporters, Fatah supporters and Those whom chosen to be silent and are on neither side... many who chosen Hamas had no options because of Fatah's weak performance as a government, and off course its corruption. The only solution for Palestine state is a unity democratic secular government...As long as people of palestine are divided and put religion rather than their nation as priority there won't be any peace and they have only themselves to blame.

2 Liberals, Jahanshah and me

Dear Jahanshah
We have 2 things in common. We both live in California and we both enjoy the warm hospitality culture of Mexico, we go and relax there.

And yet we have a 3rd common point: We are both shielded by the US government from those who legitimately claim our homes are built illegally on property forcibaly taken away from Mexicans.

You may be more generous and willing to grant the land that is not yours to those whom you think it belongs to. I am more selfish and besdies I suggest Palestinians already may have their homes, it is called Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

Shame

Yeah Aziz, the legitimate aspirations of those 5 millions cannot be bombed away. They will have their state sooner or later. It's just a crying shame so many have to suffer and die to get there while diabolical fanatics on all sides feed on each other.

To "Q ": About elected Hamas "Thugs"

I already had addressed your comment about Hamas being elected in the body of the comments where I wrote:

"Germans supported Nazi's , Iranians chose IR in 1979 and Palestininas
chose Hamas .....and they all paid heavy prices for their mistakes.."

For more explantion refer to Jahanshah's reply to you, titled: " Free and Fair Elections!"

and if you want even more detailed explanation read my blog: Referendum Rabbits !

Thank Aziz

For always being a voice of reason and integrity. It is a rare thing here these days.

the G word

700,000 Palestinians of 1948 are over 5,000,000 today (Five Million).

While we are tearing each other apart on the Iranian.com, lets not use "Genocide" unless someone can explain what they mean by the G word.

Stop digging Khodadad

That was just some sarcasm for you buddy (as if you didn't get it!) You were caught making an ugly allusion. That was bad, but everyone makes mistakes. Stop digging when you hit bottom, it only makes it worse. Give it a rest.