Ahmadinejad on the way out?

[CapelDodger]

Do the Islamic Republics of Iran and Afghanistan equally disturb you?

I'm not disturbed.

How about the Arab Republics of Egypt, Syria, and Libya?

And the Czech Republic?

How about them? I'm afraid I really don't get your drift.

 

[CapelDodger]

Well, Churchill never did have the distinction of blathering in an Internet chat room, but, still...

But still what? Not even his friends described him as clever (his career was littered with errors) and his schooling was expensive but not terribly good.

You forgot Italy, France, Japan, the entiire League of Nations, US President Woodrow Wilson, both Houses of the US Congress, the UN, and, most importantly, God.

There is no God, so that gets you no points. The League of Nations had nothing to say about a Jewish Homeland. Woodrow Wilson was persuaded that there were Jewish votes in a vocal support of it. Where the Japanese come into it I don't know, but I doubt they were responding on principle. The US Congress doesn't impress anyone. As to the UN, look at its membership in 1948. Not terribly representative, was it?

Those familiar with colonization and the history of Zionist immigration to Palestine would immediately discern between the two, as Jews were not sent to Palestine by any metropole with the intent of ruling the population already there, exploiting their labor and stealing the natural resources.

Irrelevant. They went there with the explicit intention of creating a self-ruling colony - a Jewish State - and that is colonisation.

Indeed, Zionists represented anti-colonialism, as they arrived with a very strong work ethic of their own and a passion for renewing the land, in effect, adding considerably to the resources.

Are you claiming that Boers, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders don't have a strong work ethic? As to their "passion for renewing the land" that's largely myth.

Studying Zionist leaders, such as Jabotinsky, Weizmann and Ben Gurion reveals their intent to avoid infringing on the Arab population, and, in fact, to live and work in peace and in cooperation with the Arabs.

That's rubbish - especially regarding Jabotinsky. Whatever a Jewish State might be, it doesn't have an Arab majority. The question was : how will the "transfer" of Arabs be achieved? Buy them out, or force them out? It soon became clear that they wouldn't be bought out (they felt a connection with the place, unsurprisingly) which left the forcing out which occurred.

I'd recommend you do a bit of research into the subject matter on the Faisal-Weizmann Agreements for some much-needed enlightenment.

I suggest you look into how little Weizmann could be trusted.

Nonsense. No further comment necessary.

You have no response then.

You have read Herzl's The Jewish State haven't you?

Well, there was that little thing about the 4,000-year connection between Jews and Palestine. But, who's counting?

Even the Bible only makes it 3000 years, and anyway so what? Life is about the living.

More nonsense. Churchill is not missing anything.

You evidently have not spent much time in either country. Clue for
you: The Vatican and Greek Orthodox Church are integral parts of every aspect of life in Italy and Greece, respectively.

No they aren't. No more than the Church of England is an integral part of British society.

More cluelessness.

...

Meaningless prattle.

That's your best shot?

As it should be. Having been attacked in three wars, and, today, surrounded by numerous terror factions, 22 hostile Arab states, 350 million hostile people, provides a cogent case for a strong military.

It makes a good case for not being there in the first place, doesn't it? This was the inevitable result.

No insight whatsoever. Speak with Israeli Arabs, and, they concede they'd never want to live in an Arab country. They have it way too good in Israel.

Do they want to live in a Jewish State?

Palestinians are just people...who have elected terrorists as their government. They knew what they were doing. They did not vote for Hamas to have their trash picked up on time.

They could have voted for Fatah - but then they're terrorists as well, aren't they?

As for Israel not envisioning Palestinians there, you might want to edify yourself and read the PLO and Hamas charters to gain some much-needed insight into who doesn't want whom to live there. Israel has consistently supported Pal statehood. Problem is, the Pals do not want statehood. Too much work.

Racism pure and simple.

You forgot the part where the Ottoman Turks conspired with the Arabs to dispossess the Bedouins of their land.

Bedouins are Arabs. Look it up.

In the later 19thCE the Ottomans introduced property laws more in line with the Western model to encourage inward investment. (Prior to this there was a welter of local customary laws and rights : the Ottoman Empire was highly devolved, in the traditional Eastern manner.) This opened up all sorts of opportunities for graft and swindles which were eagerly taken up. In Palestine this involved quite a lot of money from Lebanon (Christian and Moslem) and from Jerusalem (including Jewish).

Nothing is as simple as it seems.

Actually, no. There was no reason for Pals to be uprooted because of the simple, logical fact that Pals were offered their own state with UN Res. 181.

Which the Palestinians in the Israeli sector would have to move to. That's uprooting.

Sorry, this makes no sense at all. I'm seeing a trend.

So am I. I'll spell things out more.

In 2007 Hezbollah deliberately and obviously provoked the Israelis, and the Israelis leapt at it. This was easily predictable : the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon never sat easy with the army or the government. They were gagging for an opportunity to go in there and slap Hezbollah about.

It was a war both sides wanted, but Hezbollah chose the time. And Hezbollah came out of it better.

Makes you think, doesn't it? Maybe the Iranians are playing the same sort of game. Maybe they want Israel to attack them. I can think of a number of reasons why they might. Then again, it could be a double-bluff.

Iranians have been carpet-merchants for thousands of years. Deviousness is second nature to them.

 

[CapelDodger]

I doubt it. The Soviets inner council in the 1990's comprised solely of old-timers in their 80's who were veterans of WWII. This was a result of the paranoia instilled by Stalin after WWII, in which only those who risked everything defending the Russia were considered loyal enough.

It was more to do with endemic corruption really. Their families depended on them for patronage and influence.

The Guardian Council doesn't suffer that issue. They have been careful to promote younger members to the higher ranks based, primarily, on Islamic scholarship and political acumen. (The Supreme Council of the Revolution is even more diverse.) While the Supreme Leader, Ali Khameni is in his 70's, but he took over peacefully after Khomeini died more than a decade ago.

Apparently Khameini wasn't qualified because he wasn't an Ayatollah. He had to be promoted overnight (cutting all sorts of corners by special dispensation) to take the post. Which doesn't say much for the selection of available Ayatollahs.

It puts me in mind of those cardinals back in the day who were made priest one day, bishop the next, and got a red cap on the third. It was usually part of a deal with a military power. Revolutionary Guards lurking in the background perhaps?

Moreover, many members of the council are in their 50's and they grooming members of the Council in their 40's to move up in the ranks.

Gorbachev was 54 when he took over. Look how that turned out.

Iran is not going to follow the foolish mistakes of the Soviets.

They have the sovereign power to make their own foolish mistakes, and I've no doubt they will.

They are politically astute. Do not put your money on a Soviet-style collapse. Rather, the biggest likelihood is a gradual moderation as the Council is forced to make compromises in order to maintain some support among an increasingly liberal population. But things rarely work out when you have such a long-range timeframe.

I think there are patterns in history. As the great Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes". The pattern here is the pattern of Revolutions.

The rhetoric of revolutions rings down through the generations, but the political structures don't. They are generally set up to defensively, but when the dragon's been quiet for a generation or two the threat of it doesn't rouse people any more. It takes an imaginative leap to regard the West as a continuing threat to Iranian independence, however real it was thirty years ago. With Obama in command its simply not credible.

I reckon these are the dog-days of the Iranian Revolution. If Ahmedinejad is re-elected it can only accelerate the process and make it messier.

 

[geni]

It puts me in mind of those cardinals back in the day who were made priest one day, bishop the next, and got a red cap on the third. It was usually part of a deal with a military power. Revolutionary Guards lurking in the background perhaps?

Perhaps or it could be that he does appear to be fairly neutral on the should power come from god or the electorate issue.

 

[Marc39]

Not even his friends described him as clever (his career was littered with errors) and his schooling was expensive but not terribly good.

Keep digging a hole of discredit by disparaging Winston Churchill.

There is no God, so that gets you no points.

You don't know, so that loses you points. Einstein said God exists. I'd rather listen to Einstein than some Internet chat room guy.

The League of Nations had nothing to say about a Jewish Homeland.

The League's Palestine Mandate, a legally binding document, called for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Woodrow Wilson was persuaded that there were Jewish votes in a vocal support of it.

Incorrect. It was Truman who needed to be persuaded. Read Beschloss's biography of Truman for much-needed insights. Ultimately, and, importantly, Truman acknowledged to have supported Israeli statehood because it was the right thing to do. He said he expected to be in the book, "Great Men and Famous Women" as a result of his contribution to Israeli independence.

Where the Japanese come into it I don't know, but I doubt they were responding on principle.

Your views are not in command of the facts, yet, you speculate about Japanese principles? The Japanese were among the World War I Allies who met at the San Remo Conference, where they outlined a Jewish homeland in Palestine in what is known as the San Remo Resolution.

The US Congress doesn't impress anyone.

Now, you're speaking for everyone? It impresses me, considering how rare it is for both Houses of Congress to agree enthusiastically on any matter, and, issue a resolution in support for Israeli statehood.

As to the UN, look at its membership in 1948. Not terribly representative, was it?

The UN also granted statehood to the Palestinians at the same time, so, their "membership" seemed pretty "representative" of both Jews and Arabs.

Irrelevant. They went there with the explicit intention of creating a self-ruling colony - a Jewish State - and that is colonisation.

Your confusion over colonialism is certainly relevant, since you are misguidedly libeling millions of Jews as colonialists. Your statement, "They went there with the explicit intention of creating a self-ruling colony" highlights that confusion as the foundation of colonialism is not self-rule, but, ruling the population of the colonized state. Additionally, Palestine has never been a sovereign state, further undermining your failed argument for colonialism in Palestine.

That's rubbish - especially regarding Jabotinsky. Whatever a Jewish State might be, it doesn't have an Arab majority.

No, it's truth, especially regarding Jabotinsky. A Jewish state with an Arab majority would be self-defeating The design of UN Res. 181 was that of a Jewish state with an Arab minority AND an Arab state...with a Jewish minority.

The question was : how will the "transfer" of Arabs be achieved?

Wrong. There was no transfer. The evidence is 1.5 million Israeli Arabs today.

Buy them out, or force them out? It soon became clear that they wouldn't be bought out (they felt a connection with the place, unsurprisingly) which left the forcing out which occurred.

There was no need to force Arabs out--They had their own state waiting for them right there. They rejected it.

No more than the Church of England is an integral part of British society.

Queen Elizabeth is the supreme governor of the Church of England, which is indicative of the influence of the church.

As for your denial of the Greek Orthodox Church being an integal part of Greek society, the Greek Constitution states, "The prevailing religion of Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ."

The president of Greece must be affiliated with the church and he is sworn in according to the rites of the church. Major church holidays are also state holidays. Additionally, most senior positions in the military, the judiciary, and public schools are de facto restricted to Orthodox candidates.

As for the powerful role of Catholicism in Italy, which you also deny, it was the Italian Parliament that passed the Law of Guarantees which let the Pope keep many of the privileges he would have enjoyed had he still ruled over the Papal States, including the right to send and receive ambassadors and have full diplomatic immunity.

Earlier, the Vatican and Mussolini in 1929 signed an agreement, known as the Lateran Pacts, a treaty establishing Catholicism as the state religion of Italy. Italian treaties make Catholicism the only religion in the world with a diplomatic corps and a privileged position at the United Nations. The Church uses its status at the UN to advance its own agenda on issues such as contraception, the family and women's and gay rights.

Do they want to live in a Jewish State?

Evidently. Nobody is keeping them chained. The Israeli Arab population has grown from less than 200,000 to 1.5 million today. Where else do you think they'd rather live? Saudi Arabia? Gaza? Yemen? Syria?

Bedouins are Arabs. Look it up.

You're telling ME to look information up. Laugh out loud.

In the later 19thCE the Ottomans introduced property laws more in line with the Western model to encourage inward investment. (Prior to this there was a welter of local customary laws and rights : the Ottoman Empire was highly devolved, in the traditional Eastern manner.) This opened up all sorts of opportunities for graft and swindles which were eagerly taken up. In Palestine this involved quite a lot of money from Lebanon (Christian and Moslem) and from Jerusalem (including Jewish).

Encourage "inward investment" only among the Arab aristocracy, undermining the Bedouins, taking their land and turning them into sharecroppers and tenant farmers.

Which the Palestinians in the Israeli sector would have to move to. That's uprooting.

"Uproot" suggests displacement from one's country. UN Res. 181 provided for a Palestinian minority in Israel. There might have been a need for some shifting, but, the Palestinians flatly rejected statehood due to a rejection of Israel, so, it was a moot point.

In 2007 Hezbollah deliberately and obviously provoked the Israelis, and the Israelis leapt at it.

"Leapt at it"? The Israelis responded to acts of war by Hizbullah. Similarly, the US "leapt" at retaliating against the Taliban after 9/11. It's known as self-defense.

This was easily predictable : the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon never sat easy with the army or the government. They were gagging for an opportunity to go in there and slap Hezbollah about.

Israel was entitled under the law to not only slap Hizbullah around, but, to destroy them and destroy every military installation.

Maybe the Iranians are playing the same sort of game. Maybe they want Israel to attack them. I can think of a number of reasons why they might. Then again, it could be a double-bluff.

Israel is in no position to play a game of chicken. Iran has put into motion a justified Israeli strike. Hopefully, Israel will bomb the Mullahs back into the Middle Ages.

 

[Thunder]

The League's Palestine Mandate, a legally binding document, called for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

The Mandate for Palestine was terminated in 1947.

In fact, none of the WW1 mandates continue to exist. This includes the one for Palestine.

And for that matter, the territory known as Palestine, no longer has any official existence. It is now only a geographical region, just like Appalachia.

The main goal of the Palestine Mandate was the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Mission Accomplished.

Let it go.

 

[Tin Foil Timothy]

The Mandate for Palestine was terminated in 1947.

In fact, none of the WW1 mandates continue to exist. This includes the one for Palestine.

And for that matter, the territory known as Palestine, no longer has any official existence. It is now only a geographical region, just like Appalachia.

The main goal of the Palestine Mandate was the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Mission Accomplished.

Let it go.

No it's not. There's much more land to steal!!

 

[Marc39]

There's much more land to steal!!

Definitely. Jewish settlements currently represent only about 3% or 4% of Judea and Samaria, leaving a heckuva lot more land for Jews to settle on. Just a friendly reminder to you: International law supports the Jewish settlements, so, there is no stealing of land. Capice?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

The Mousavi supporters that Christiane Amanpour interviewed today certainly seemed excited about the potential for reproachment and better relations with the U.S.

One can only hope.

 

[Puppycow]

Mousavi win wouldn't stop Iran's nuke drive, Israel warns

As more than 46.2 million eligible Iranian voters choose their president in elections on Friday, senior Israeli defense officials who closely watch Iran stress that the outcome is unlikely to have any impact on Teheran's continued race toward nuclear power.

Whether the winner is incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his reformist challenger, the former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the consensus in the Israeli defense establishment is that the centrifuges in the underground bunker at Iran's Natanz facility will continue spinning and enriching uranium.

In contrast to Israel, where the focus when it comes to Iran is overwhelmingly on the nuclear program, domestically, the elections are more about growing unemployment - estimated at close to 20 percent - and runaway inflation, which recently topped 30%.

In a country where 70% of the population is under the age of 35, the future is not bright for Iran's youth, analysts note. Every year 1.2 million people graduate from the country's universities. Out of those, only about a third are able to find jobs. The price of basic commodities has also spiked over the past year by more than 150%.

The Mousavi-Ahmadinejad showdown also focuses on Islamic law. The incumbent has expanded the reach of the Shari'a since his election in 2005. Mousavi, on the other hand, appears at election rallies together with his wife and promises equality for women.

While all of this is important for understanding the Iranian people, Israel's attention is not on the cost of bread and meat but on the future of Teheran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the defense officials stress. For this reason, there are some in the defense establishment who are silently praying that despite Mousavi's recent climb in the polls, Ahmadinejad wins Friday's vote.

Good grief, talk about cynical pessimism.
We want the scary guy, the holocaust denier, to stay in charge so that, what? The chances of war will be even higher?

 

[DC]

 

[mortimer]

Looks like Ahmadinejad is going to win... with 50% of the vote counted, it's 68% Ahmadinejad, 30% Mousavi.

 

[dudalb]

I wonder if a lot of the international media has not been indulging in wishful thinking about Ahmadinejad going down.
Not that it matters all that much, the real power is with the Mullahs, as if always has been.

 

[geni]

Keep digging a hole of discredit by disparaging Winston Churchill.

On this forum Winston Churchill doesn't get the automatic pass to sainthood.

 

[marksman]

I wonder if a lot of the international media has not been indulging in wishful thinking about Ahmadinejad going down.

Yeah, I predicted that before the vote. The West does this all the time, pining for that next Velvet Revolution. It's not happening in Iran. Yeah, the teenagers are all hipster American wannabes. But then they get old enough to vote and the inherent conservative nature of Iranian culture sets in. It doesn't even look like Ahmadinejad had to cheat to win re-election.

I am highly doubtful that Ahmadinejad will be defeated. There seems to be a lot of wishful thinking going on, a need to "prove" that Iran is truly a democracy, and a hope that the election of a moderate with begin to "fix" politics in the region because Iran is a highly destabilizing negative influence in the region. But I don't think it's going to happen.

Should I apply for a million dollars? No. It's not rocket science to think the incumbent gets re-elected. It just means not getting swept up in unrealistic sentimental notions of voter revolutions.

Not that it matters all that much, the real power is with the Mullahs, as if always has been.

The Mullahs are not idiots. If Mousavi had been elected, they'd have moderated their positions as much as they could within their philosophical/religious constraints. But, it turns out, they don't have to because the Iranian people were more than happy to keep the conservative, homophobic, bellicose Ahmadinejad in power, no matter how much Western media would have loved to have seen Mousavi win.

 

[tomwaits]

I heard on the radio that Mousavi was also claiming victory. Things could get interesting...

 

[CapelDodger]

The main goal of the Palestine Mandate was the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Mission Accomplished.

The main goals were strictly imperialist. The Balfour Declaration was a real embarrassment (a war-time expedient that actually proved of no value) but the Brits were stuck with it. Remember, by the end of the Mandate Zionist terrorists were killing British soldiers and policemen.

Goal the first : secure the Suez Canal. Goal the second : secure communications with Iraq (another Britsh Mandate, securing the Gulf and Iran's oilfields). Goal the third : keep the French out.

 

[a_unique_person]

My bold, which defines why this is an intractable problem.

God don't give a **** about Jews, Arabs, Xians, or anyone else.

 

[CapelDodger]

I wonder if a lot of the international media has not been indulging in wishful thinking about Ahmadinejad going down.

Perhaps. Another influence might be the visibility of Mousavi's support : young, urban, on-line, photogenic. Conservative support is older, rural, off-line and easy to miss.

Not that it matters all that much, the real power is with the Mullahs, as if always has been.

Political power is always a matter of compromise, alliances and pragmatism. Absolutism never lasts. The system bends or it cracks.

The conservative rulers remember that their revolution was made on the streets, despite the Shah's police state and huge army. This is always on their minds.

They are demographically doomed. Generations are growing up that don't remember the Revolution or the Iran-Iraq war and don't feel threatened by the US bogey-man. They are suprememly confident (as the young always are) that they could do things better, and at some point they will say "enough is enough".

 

[CapelDodger]

God don't give a **** about Jews, Arabs, Xians, or anyone else.

People create gods which are concerned with them. It's in our nature.