By: Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

The Western media, led by Israel, is hard at work presenting Iran as a global threat.  Even the brilliant and daring Stephan Walt and John Mearsheimer who argue that the Israeli lobby has too much power are not immune to the damaging sound waves of the controlled media, or the feign-written pages of the newspapers.

Ironic, given that they write at some length about AIPAC’s role in the media, yet they themselves fall in the same trap as the rest of us, believing Israel’s propaganda that Ahmadinejad has declared he is going to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth”, and that Iran is on its way to build nuclear weapons; [i] an allegation that thousands of inspection hours by the nuclear agency watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has refuted.  As for Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric – he can never speak above the hateful, truth-aversion media controlled by AIPAC, for even an Iranian-Jew parliamentary who challenged Ahmadinejad to explain his ‘statement’ is not heard in the American media.[ii]

What is disquieting is for the world to lend ears to these incredulous stories and believe that Iran is a threat.  Recent headlines read that the Bush overture to Iran splits Israel and the neo-cons.   While wisdom would dictate that Iran’s enemies maintain a low profile, (http://www.forward.com/main/printer-friendly.php?id=7937) other more aggressive steps are being suggested to counter the malaise among the Israelis and the neo-cons.

On June 24, 2006, Jonathan Ariel[1] of Israeli News Agency, in a shocking article entitled “Israel Needs a Preemptive Nuclear Strike Against Iran”[iii], suggested a pre-emptive NUCLEAR strike against Iran.  My initial shock was why is the world not outraged? After all, the Israelis have the capability.  Terminology such as ‘Islamo-Nazi’ is alien to us, referring, I assume, to genocide.  But it is not new to them; this will not be their first time.

“Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who had come to America in order to escape Hitler’s clutches, having lost his whole family to Hitler’s systematic killing of Jews, gypsies, communists, and other undesirables, was determined to wake up the world’s consciousness and pass a law to stop genocide.  He was looking for a word to coin the term - An all encompassing word that would describe the assaults on all aspects of nationhood – physical, biological, political, social, cultural, economic and religious.  He wanted to connote not only full-scale extermination but also Hitler’s other means of destruction: mass deportation, the lowering of birthrate by separating men from women, economic exploitation, progressive starvation, and the suppression of the intelligentsia who served as national leaders.”[iv] Thus he combined the Greek derivative geno, meaning “race”, or “tribe”, and the Latin derivative cide meaning “killing”. 

Iran is blameless.  A past free of committing acts of genocide and no intentions of ever wanting to embark on one.  Nor does it have atomic weapons.  Can Israel declare the same?

-     On April 9, 1948, more than 250 villagers at Deir Yassin were massacred by a Jewish underground group known as Lohamei Herut Yisraeil led by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.  The intention was to strike terror into the Palestinian population and frighten the people into leaving (in effect, deportation).  Following the massacre, Zionist forces drove into Arab villages with loudspeaker trucks shouting “run with your lives unless you want another Deir Yassin”.  Virtually the entire population of two major Palestinian towns, Lydda and Ramle, which were numbered some 50,000-70,000 were stampeded by the Yishuv’s army.[v]

-          The illegal barrier which prevents the Palestinians to go to work and deprives them of their livelihood.

-          Withholding funds and encouraging the international community to do likewise creating one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the Gaza and West Bank.

-          More than 100,000 Palestinians worked in Israel in the late 1980s, mainly in menial and poorly paid jobs.  In the first 20 years of occupation, $1 billion was deducted from wages of Palestinians employed in Israel for employment benefits for which they were ineligible.[vi] 

-          Women and children being held in prison – especially children.  Lowering birthrate.

Under Lemkin’s description of genocide, its treatment of Palestinians, and its constant threat to Iran with its arsenal of some 200-300 nuclear warheads, is a threat to humanity, Iran is not.  The media’s attention has been focused on Iran with ramblings about religious fanaticism.   In truth, if state and religion are not kept apart, then there will be wars.  However, it would a mistake to think that Israel is a secular democracy and different from Iran. 

Israel’s electoral system is based on proportional representation which awards seats in the Knesset (parliament) to parties in exact proportion to their share of the total vote.  Even the Mapai, Israel’s major labor party, could not obtain a majority vote.  As such, it had to incorporate religious parties in order to form government.  While the Mapai had a free hand at defense, the religious faction took over education and introduced religion in public schools.  All Israelis are subjected to religious law in their personal lives, which among them means that there is no secular marriage or divorce, hence women cannot initiate divorce![vii]  I wonder if women’s rights’ group has ventured into Israel?

While Israel wishes to see Iran destroyed so that they realize what Max Nordau said (a close friend of Herzl’s): “[W]e are going to Palestine to extend the moral boundaries of Europe as far as the Euphrates.”[viii], a genocide of this magnitude, will not go unnoticed.  Taking on the world, is not an easy task.

... Payvand News - 6/28/06 ... --