Yesterday on ATC, Eric Westervelt's piece on Iran might have well have been written by Dick Cheney or the Israeli Defense Forces. Consider these statements that formed the substance of the report:
Melissa Block: "....some Iranian leaders have called for Israel's destruction....and Israel is within the reach of some Iranian missiles."Wow, kind of makes you want to climb in cool stealth bomber with Ripper and head for Tehran. Too bad we can't hear about the less than stellar behavior of US/Israel regarding the Non Proliferation Treaty and how the "West's" hypocrisy is driving proliferation.
Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz: "We want to make sure we're prepared for every option. We don't want war, we want peace. But we will not let that second Holocaust take place."
Westervelt: [Dr. Shmuel Bar, who directs Israel's Institute for Policy and Strategy] "says Iran is renowned for using diplomacy as a stall tactic."
Bar: "I don't think that anybody really does believe that there's a diplomatic solution. The Iranians are well known for attrition and wearing down their opponents with never-ending negotiations that can go on and on. This is their strategy and has been their strategy forever."
Bar: "Iran is a country which is openly committed to destroying Israel, is committed to performing another Holocaust. I think that what's happened in Israel the third generation after the Holocaust has sort of gone back to a Holocaust mentality, sense that 'yes this could happen again.' The statements coming from Iran have exacerbated that feeling."
Westervelt: "...it's not clear whether direct engagement will prevail, or how long Israel is willing to wait. As Deputy Prime Minister Mofaz put it recently, 'it's a race against time and time is winning.'"
(apologies to Gary Larson)
10 comments:
Wow, talk about war baiting.
And there's yet another aspect to this 'Iran bombs Israel' thingie: a significant number of Palestinians live and work in Israel, or travel to and from Israel every day from the Palestinian enclaves. What happens to them when the bomb hits? What happens to Iran for wiping out Palestine as well as Israel? What happens to Iran when any 'nuclear gesture' that they would ever even contemplate would automatically be doomed by the superior preemptive efforts made by the US/Israel dominance in the region?
Fact: Israel is a badass 'don't ever try f@#*ing with me' neighbor, posing as a poor defenseless waif. They are experts at preemptive war, which they justify to no end. And the hawks in Israel continually exploit the tragic victims of the Holocaust, which, by the way, in case anybody forgets, was a European manifestation, not a Middle Eastern one.
I like that Palestinians are arming themselves with videocams and other recording devices nowadays - Rodney King goes Gaza, eh?
And I didn't find that out from NoPR/AIPAC McNews (especially in my joyful self-imposed exile).
big pink fuzzy, not all npr stations are alike. Mine had a story about that very topic yesterday.
Jewish filmmakers talking about the occupation.
http://www.yourcallradio.org/
not all npr stations are alike
But most of 'em are. The one you linked to happens to be in San Francisco, which keeps it, nominally, open-minded. For the most part NPR is teh suck.
I would agree that there is a lot of variation in local NPR stations. Our local WILL AM-580 does some fine programming. But the NPR news is a sham (and a HUGE money suck from the local affiliates). I'd love to see movements to boot the NPR news off the locals or at least counter it with equal time from Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio, etc. I have to say though, that as NPR news seems to get worse and worse; it's harder and harder for me to fill out that annual check to my local.
I dropped the contributions to NPR quite a while ago, after they got that big cash endowment (with its associated corporate conditions), and now channel my charitable checks to Oxfam, which, last I checked, is pretty clean and sincere.
I understand many of the locals need all the bucks they can get to do some of the good things they do, (after NPR plunders their 'share') but hell, we got some tsunamis and cyclones and earthquakes to attend to.
No brag, just fact.
I am rather amused by the dogmatic and neandrathal level anti-Israeli comments in this blog (Fact: Israel is a badass...) . I would like to note:
The Middle East has never behaved according to the rationality that would drive nations to realize that certain actions are counter-productive. Almost all the wars in the ME were due to hubris of leaders, misperceptions, brinkmanship and escalation that got out of hand. Therefore, to assume that Iran won't use nuclear weapons because of rational considerations runs counter to experience.
Israel is not a party to the NPT and therefore cannot be accused of breaking any commitments to it. Iran - like North Korea and Iraq - is a signatory of the pact and blatantly ignores its obligations.
The holocaust happened in Europe but the most popular translated book in the Arab world is Mein Kampf, Ahmadinejad denies that the holocause took place but very clearly calls for wiping Israel off the map. Pretenses of the American left that he either doesn't mean it (just Middle Eastern rhetoric) or was misquoted are absurd.
Arab and Muslim regimes are famous for genocide - the Kurds in Halabja, Egyptian use of chemical weapons in the Yemen, the Assyrians in Iraq, the Armenian genocide in Turkey, pogroms against Jews in Hebron, Baghdad, Yemen, Morrocco etc. When they can destroy people who are not like them - they do it. Israel realizes that and naturally has no intention to allow that to happen just so some ignoramus on the other side of the world will not think them to be "bad assed".
I wonder what any of the commenters here would propose were a country neighboring them to fire at them rockets at a rate of 40 a day and declare that its manifest destiny is to wipe them off the face of the earth- turn the other cheek?
Well anon, you check-mated, canceled-out and debunked me (including my colloquialism) due to my obviously benighted thoughts about Israel. However, I wasn't trying to sum up the entire subject - it was just an observation, which I believe has truth to it. I am not anti-Israel in my sentiments, but I am critical of the hawks therein (and in any nation, particularly the US). I have always hoped that Israel might serve as a regional leader in enlightened conduct, but the complexity of the overarching situation makes conditions seem utterly intractable. I once heard Netanyahu make one of the most intelligent and eloquent explanations for the policies of Israel, but down on the ground, it's all emotions in play. Plus, the 'two way street' factor (i.e. the case of the Palestinians) becomes more emboldened as time goes on. And as far as NPR is concerned, I have my doubts as to their objectivity in many of their reports from the region.
This of course will be debated ad infinitum. To be sure, I am eminently unqualified to speak in depth on these issues, but I am still eligible to comment, based on the input at hand.
Also, it may indeed seem like the tone of some of these messages is anti-Israeli, to which you make reference. Speaking for myself, this is largely because, within an NPR context (which is the theme of this blog), so many reports seem to be pro-Israel or at least incomplete in their interpretations of events and their consequences. A significant number of NPR reports are called into question based on other sources that might have a different perspective on the given subject, as demonstrated by the host of this blog. Thus, the tone I adopt can be on the critical side, but it is a response rather than a thorough overview. In the larger scheme of things beyond this blog, the debate opens far wider, of course.
Thank you for the points you made.
Jewish filmmakers criticizing Israeli policies is anti-Israel? Ok. Arming Palestinians with cameras is anti-Israel?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jul/30/beaumont.palestine
So slamming Bush's twisted policies is anti-American? ok.
Back to NPR: I'd like my local station to drop npr news, but the local call-in show is better than most shows on my local pacific station, imho.
For me, NPR and the US corporate media are simply propaganda with respect to Israel/Palestine. The evidence is voluminous, for anyone really interested in getting to the heart of the issues on this subject.
No, being critical of Israel is not to be an anti-semite. This is total bunk.
It is disappointing that--given the well documented US slaughter of civilians on all corners of the globe--Israel would cozy up to US imperialism and rightwing forces of reaction. Israel is reduced to being a german shepard for the new nazi ideology of US global supremacy.
Thankfully many honest Jewish folk call out governments for their imperialism, their genocidal policies, and for their abject hypocrisy. Folks like Noam Chomsky are simply being honest, thinking human beings--and they get all the shit from people that buy state-propaganda like it is standard culinary fare.
I choose to eat better than that.
The empire puts shit-on-a-stick, covers it with perfectly good chocolate, and so many people eat it with smiles on their mug. To me it's just creepy.
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