"Iran can also be wiped off the map"

[Cecil]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961301962&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map."

"Teheran is making a mockery of the international community's efforts to solve the crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program," Peres told Reuters, adding that "Iran presents a danger to the entire world, not just to us."

Uh-oh.

 

[David Swidler]

Not just a seeming escalation, but counterproductive from Israel's standpoint. With the international community finally agreeing with Israel that Iran's nuclear program is not just a threat to Israel, Peres emphasizes Israel's unique position - not to mention hinting a little too broadly at Israel's capabilities. And Israel's non-membership in the NPT.

The man is highly regarded internationally, and I wonder why.

 

[CapelDodger]

The man is highly regarded internationally, and I wonder why.

He was bag-carrier for Rabin, who had some real substance. Nobody ever bothered to kill Peres. And I'm not sure he's highly regarded anywhere outside his own skull. The perennial "almost" man. Whatever it is, he's never quite up to it.

Iran can't be wiped off the map. It was there long before maps were invented. It's there in the Bible and Greek history. It's not some fleeting entity like Davidic Israel or the Israel of today. Not something that an empty suit like Peres could ever comprehend.

 

[Jimbo07]

Iran can't be wiped off the map. It was there long before maps were invented. It's there in the Bible and Greek history.

I think DS is getting at the fact that nuclear weapons allow one to say 'nurtz to Greek history.' It's not easy to preserve one's culture with no remaining cities and flesh blistering off the bones of the unlucky survivors.

Dangerous... definitely.

 

[Rob Lister]

I agree Jimbo. I don't know what CapelDoger's point is. Fact is, Israel can, right this moment, turn every major and minor population center in Iran into a sheet of radioactive glass. While Iran is trying achieve the same degree of power, just by their doing so is going to cause Israel to go into nuclear production overdrive. They really have no other choice that I can see (other than voluntarily turn west and walk into the sea).

The UN Gets the Respect It Deserves thread illustrates that not all people think this will esculate. I'm pretty darn certain it can esculate way, way out of control, especially with Iranian leadership making some of the rhetorical speeches they do to their own population.

 

[CapelDodger]

I think DS is getting at the fact that nuclear weapons allow one to say 'nurtz to Greek history.'

What you (and Rob Lister) are missing is that a map is a diagrammatic representation of reality, not reality itself. Were the Iranian plateau to be nuked to radioactive glass it would still appear on maps as an expanse of radioactive glass. A modern equivalent of "Here Be Dragons".

Israel isn't on the map yet but Olmert (aka the Mouth of Sharon), has pledged to get it there by 2010. Let's see how that works out.

The USSR was wiped off the map in the 90's. Russia is still with us. Peres's problem, which is a reflection of zionism's fundamental problem, is that he sees the world as a map, not as it is. That Europeans - Westerners - can impose themselves on the real world by drawing lines on maps and then beating the natives into accepting their new "reality".

Such thinking will not stand the test of time. The European map of the post-Ottoman Eastern Empire, wrangled out in Paris after the Great War, is not going to stand the test of time. Iran/Persia will emerge again, as it has after past eclipses, as a regional power. Modern Israel will feature in history much the same as the Crusader Kingdoms do.

What really pisses me off is that Jewish culture, which has real staying-power for good reasons, might go down with Israel, which is frankly un-Jewish but claims to be its essence. Real estate and bloodlines are not what it's about.

 

[Jimbo07]

CD... what are you talking about?

 

[Rob Lister]

good question. It reads good though. I'm sure it applies to the current situation somehow.

 

[Mendeli]

Israel isn't on the map yet but Olmert (aka the Mouth of Sharon), has pledged to get it there by 2010. Let's see how that works out.

You mean Palestine isn't on the map yet?

 

[David Swidler]

What really pisses me off is that Jewish culture, which has real staying-power for good reasons, might go down with Israel, which is frankly un-Jewish but claims to be its essence. Real estate and bloodlines are not what it's about.

CD, I'll be polite and say that I have no idea what you're blabbering about.

As someone who lives in Israel, I can say with certaintly that your description of the state is at best ignorant. How much time have you spent in Israel, CD? How many Israelis (not ex-pats) do you talk to regularly? Jewish culture does lie at the root of the modern state, and it's pervasive (but avoidable). Wishing it were otherwise don't make it so.

Try explaining your bizarre understanding of Zionism to the vast majority of Jews, who identify with and support the state of Israel, even moving here by the thousands every year not to escape persecution, but because the state's existence allows them to fulfill a 2500-year-old dream. You'll get either blank stares or "What are you on?"

As of July 2005, more Jews live in Israel than any other country. And it's the fastest-growing Jewish community in the world. The evidence doesn't support your assertions.

 

[Leif Roar]

Fact is, Israel can, right this moment, turn every major and minor population center in Iran into a sheet of radioactive glass.

Hardly. Israel has a fairly limited long-range delivery system, and can only really threaten western Iran.

 

[Gravy]

What you (and Rob Lister) are missing is that a map is a diagrammatic representation of reality, not reality itself. Were the Iranian plateau to be nuked to radioactive glass it would still appear on maps as an expanse of radioactive glass. A modern equivalent of "Here Be Dragons".

I thought Iran was a political entity.

What really pisses me off is that Jewish culture, which has real staying-power for good reasons, might go down with Israel, which is frankly un-Jewish but claims to be its essence.

Can you provide support for your statement that "Israel" claims to be the essence of Jewishness?

 

[Skeptic]

As someone who lives in Israel, I can say with certaintly that your description of the state is at best ignorant. How much time have you spent in Israel, CD?

I'll bet you, dollars to donuts, that CD couldn't ask for a cup of coffee in Hebrew and never was within a thousand miles of israel.

Which, naturally, doesn't stop him from "knowing" everthing there is to know about israel.

What really pisses me off is that Jewish culture, which has real staying-power for good reasons, might go down with Israel, which is frankly un-Jewish but claims to be its essence.

It is interesting (in a perverse way) to note that, if israel is destroyed, CD would not be mad at those who destroyed it, but at the destroyed israel for hurting "jewish culture" by its destruction. If a second holocaust occurs in "occupied Palestine", CD would be at most be indifferent, and at worse support it and be angry with the victims.

Obviously, for all his love of "jewish culture", CD has nothing but loathing and hatered towards jews, or, at least, towards those jews who live where he thinks they shoudln't. Perhaps "bloodline and real estate" is not what judaism is about, but self-hate certainly is.

 

[Mycroft]

What really pisses me off is that Jewish culture, which has real staying-power for good reasons, might go down with Israel, which is frankly un-Jewish but claims to be its essence. Real estate and bloodlines are not what it's about.

What really seems to piss you off is that the people who actually live that culture might decide for themselves what their culture means to them and how to express it rather than following your patronizing and condescending directions.

Culture isn't a static thing to be preserved in amber. It's fluid, to be reinterpreted and expressed anew with each new generation. Get with the 21st century, gramps.

 

[Megalodon]

I'll bet you, dollars to donuts, that CD couldn't ask for a cup of coffee in Hebrew and never was within a thousand miles of israel.

Which, naturally, doesn't stop him from "knowing" everthing there is to know about israel.

So, I guess you'll be able to post the quote where CD claims to "know" everything there is to know about Israel.

...if israel is destroyed, CD would not be mad at those who destroyed it, but at the destroyed israel for hurting "jewish culture" by its destruction.

And a quote for this one also...

If a second holocaust occurs in "occupied Palestine", CD would be at most be indifferent, and at worse support it and be angry with the victims.

And for this one...

Obviously, for all his love of "jewish culture", CD has nothing but loathing and hatered towards jews, or, at least, towards those jews who live where he thinks they shoudln't.

And for this one also.

Not even trying to defend CD. I just get upset when you start with your lies about other posters, trying to win the debate by bullying.

Now, will you prove me wrong and show me the quotes, or just leave to distill your poison in some other thread? Either way, we all win.

 

[CapelDodger]

good question. It reads good though. I'm sure it applies to the current situation somehow.

I'm glad it reads well.

At the root of this thread is what Ahmedinejad meant by "wiped off the map", as translated from the Farsi into English. It's clear what Peres means by it : Israel could annihilate Iran's population. From that it's pretty clear he interprets an end to the Jewish State as equivalent to the annihilation of the Jews in Israel. I suspect your interpretation is much the same.

I'm on record as favouring a one-state solution in Palestine, based on the original Mandate that included Jordan. That would wipe Israel, the explicitly Jewish State, off the map but would not wipe out the Jewish population. It would mean the return of much of the Palestinian diaspora and no end of property disputes, but that could be handled. It's not as if the Jewish community isn't experienced in such matters, as the aggrieved party.

If Israel continues to insist on Herzl's nationalist dream of a Jewish State, it has no long-term future. I'm not one to be hypnotised by the current situation, I realise that what's current to me is going to be somebody else's history. The current crisis, as it's portrayed, of Iran's nuclear programme - which is explicitly not military, for what that's worth - will be chaff in the wind come the next hyped crisis.

 

[CapelDodger]

You mean Palestine isn't on the map yet?

Have you heard that it is? I missed that. Damn my Eurocentrism. I assumed Palestine would be what was left of the truncated Mandate territory that remained outside Olmert's map-drawing over the next four years.

 

[CapelDodger]

Try explaining your bizarre understanding of Zionism to the vast majority of Jews, who identify with and support the state of Israel, even moving here by the thousands every year not to escape persecution, but because the state's existence allows them to fulfill a 2500-year-old dream. You'll get either blank stares or "What are you on?"

Thousands every year, while millions don't move to Israel. They'll send money, they'll empathise, but that dream of reconquering David's empire doesn't move them enough to actually move. Those that do move or whose ancestors did, the people you mix with, are a self-selected sample.

How much time have you spent in Jewish communities outside Israel? The communities that could move to Israel but don't? I've never been to Israel (rumour is I couldn't if I wanted), I'm more experienced in long-established Jewish communities. Naturally I've met many ex-pat and peripatetic Israelis, with a wide range of views. Almost all of them Ashkenazi, though, so my insight into the rich tapestry of Israeli society is necessarily limited.

As of July 2005, more Jews live in Israel than any other country. And it's the fastest-growing Jewish community in the world. The evidence doesn't support your assertions.

"More Jews live in Israel than any other country", still not an absolute majority then. Despite the 2500 year-old dream. It has to make you wonder how prevalent that dream actually is. Israel has generally been second-best to the US as a destination.

Why is it the fastest-growing? Surely not because of the thousands of immigrants each year, a drop in the bucket. The Russian torrent has abated. The settlers have a high birth-rate, they see breeding as a religious duty, but that's a small base to expand from. There are no pogroms going on.

Perhaps it's due to different measuring techniques. It's easy to establish who's Jewish in Israel, it's been defined, one Jewish grandparent and you're Jewish. In other societies it's more to do with ticking a box on a census-form. Just a thought.

 

[CapelDodger]

I thought Iran was a political entity.

Iran is a nation in the current nation-based scheme of things, which I suppose makes it a "political entity". It has defined borders and sovereignty, thereby being eligible for UN membership. Even if glassified and uninhabited it would still have a seat at the UN and remain a "political entity".

Can you provide support for your statement that "Israel" claims to be the essence of Jewishness?

Check out David Swidler's post.

 

[rocketdodger]

Hardly. Israel has a fairly limited long-range delivery system, and can only really threaten western Iran.

As far as missiles go, yes. Most of Israels nuclear arsenal is in the form of bombs if I am correct. But this doesn't mean they can't just fly over Iran... I don't think Iran has the capability to resist the Israeli air force much.