Wallace, you goddamn fuÇking liar?

[SaggyBalls]

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

Israel is a democracy. Israeli Arabs vote and have members in the Knesset.

Ahmadinejad's response was nonsensical. The Palestinians have had "referendums." They are called elections. And then Hamas forcfully kicked out their opposition in Gaza. That video is anti-Israel propaganda.

Are there outstanding issues, yes. Borders have been created. Is Israel fully respecting the borders - well, no. Ahmadinejad would rather see those borders erased and Israel destroyed.

[Freak By Night]

That doesn't explain why the "nonsensical" part of the answer was edited out.

[SaggyBalls]

Doesn't seem like Palestineans really got a free and fair referendum, does it, BWM? That's different than an election. It's a specific question rather than an official that can be corrupted and outvoted.

It's actually not anti-Israel, but it's anti-War Propaganda.

The 'nonsensical' part of the video, Freak?

To cut out a huge portion of an interview that incites the western world's contempt of Iran and its leader - while you believe that portion fully or not - is most certainly unjust.

[Freak By Night]

YT - my comment was directed at BWM.

I know why it was edited out; I want to see what he has to say about it.

[SaggyBalls]

Your comment worked reeeeally well with BWM's comment (re: hamas elections)

Though I realize that Ahmadinejad's caled Israel 'The Great Satan', so it's not like I think he ultimitely only has the best interests in mind, but he also doesn't hide his interests from the world.

I often wonder about translating Arabic to English, as the phrases I read often seem to be easily misunderstood.

It really does feel that every time I hear 'Allah' , it feels a lot like 'Jesus' while the concept of 'God' or 'Life' turns the phrasing on its head.

It's really easy to paint Islamic Leaders with a 'crazy' brush, especially since many oppose Israel's existance and with good reason.

It's really too bad that it's so easy for people to confuse Anti-Israel/Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism. It's pretty awful how it's so very for people to be tricked into thinking they're the same thing.

Edited March 5, 2009 by Guest
'Man' not 'The'

[Thorgnor]

Your comment worked reeeeally well with BWM's comment (re: hamas elections)

Though I realize that Ahmadinejad's caled Israel 'The Great Satan', so it's not like I think he ultimitely only has the best interests in mind, but he also doesn't hide his interests from the world.

I often wonder about translating Arabic to English, as the phrases I read often seem to be easily misunderstood.

It really does feel that every time I hear 'Allah' , it feels a lot like 'Jesus' while the concept of 'God' or 'Life' turns the phrasing on its head.

It's really easy to paint Islamic Leaders with a 'crazy' brush, especially since they oppose Israel's existance and with good reason.

It's really too bad that it's so easy for people to confuse Anti-Israel/Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism. It's pretty awful how it's so very for people to be tricked into thinking they're the same thing.

I think it helps the confusion when you say things like "It's really easy to paint Islamic Leaders with a 'crazy' brush, especially since they oppose Israel's existance and with good reason."

Problem being, not all Islamic leaders support a grudge against Isreal, or seek its destruction. Egypt, and others have been working with Isreal peacefully for a long time, are their leaders not Muslim? Of course they are, but its easy to get confused when people say things like "Muslims are..." or "Zionists are..." which instead obscure the complexities of real people who have different polito-religious views. The religions aren't at odds with each other as much as some humans who claim to represent them are.

Hence my whole "Legitimized politics" comment before. The leaders are the poeple who are recognized from the outside as such and therefore its easy to say that because a person represents a whole nation, they also represent the unified political views of the nation, but no individual can represent all of the diversity within a nation, let alone a religion. Its the further characterization of "Muslims" and "Jews" and "Christians", or for that matter "Americans", "Isrealis", or "Arabs", as monolithic groups that prevents us from seeing individual views and actions as legitimate representations of differing politico-religious idea(l)s.

If a leader says "Iranians do ..." and then one Iranian doesn't comply they jeopardize their "belonging" in the group. Seems obvious and stupid to point it out I guess, but in this way it isn't hard to see that when leaders claim "Canada is..." or "Muslims believe..." they are making political judgements and by virtue of their office, manufacturing ideological representations of good and bad citizens out of the actions of ordinary people who do different things. It is the leaders who classify criminality, terrorism and other anti-social pathologies. It is the citizenry, through reference to "legitimate" beliefs and behaviours who make these distinctions real through our daily expectations of difference and the idea that we know what to expect from certain people because "they are..."

I know its not your intention but every time you write that "Jews are" or "Muslims are" your making the problem worse. Calling all Jews in Isreal "Zionists" because some are only makes the meat of your ideas get dry on the conversational flames. I think we need to stop using firmly established Modernist categories to make post-modern political contentions.

If you want to say that the nation of Isreal is bahaving badly say so, but equating "Judaism" at large for a beleif in "Zionism" is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous is saying "Muslims oppose Isreal because..." when we all know that not all Muslims oppose Isreal or that not all of those who we call Muslim call themselves that, or would accept one another as Muslim.

Ahmedinajad only speaks for one nation, and as a weakly supported leader who does not have the backing of his whole nation, similar to Steve's position. Those who lead (the Cons. here in Canada) have a vested interest in maintaining the ideas of their party as "normative" Canadian ideas. This automatically places anyone on the outside of their philosphical camp, or anyone who opposes them, in the position of being seen by the international community as "traitorous" or at the least as fringe elements of the society. Our acceptance of Ahmedinajad's views as representative of "Muslim" voices, or the ideas of "Islam" or "Iran" only deprives other voices of their legitimacy. It silences the dissention and monotonizes the media coverage of the conflicts by obscuring complexities.

"Iran has been ratcheting up the rhetoric"... but it's only one man? I'd be wary of why someone was trying to convince me to believe that somehow "Muslims" or "others" in general, are less than thinking, aware and compassionate beings, just like us. We're making people out to be robots and then getting confused when they don't rely strictly on programming for their behaviour... surprise, surprise, eh?

[timouse]

sure he msitreats gromit, but wallace isn't that bad...

[SaggyBalls]

"Iran has been ratcheting up the rhetoric"... but it's only one man? I'd be wary of why someone was trying to convince me to believe that somehow "Muslims" or "others" in general, are less than thinking, aware and compassionate beings, just like us. We're making people out to be robots and then getting confused when they don't rely strictly on programming for their behaviour... surprise, surprise, eh?

As far as that and the rest of your post, Hear Hear.

Thanks for pointing out the 'they' in my earlier post, as well as the effect on the statement it was in. 'They' is one of the most powerful words in the arsenal of hate and contempt of entire groups of people.

There's huge amounts of rhetoric being flung around, and though some could add that I haven't necessarily done all that I could to prevent it from building up, I'm trying to bring some things to light - if anything, through online discussion - that might help cut through blindness, even if that blindness is in response to some other ignorance.

I hope my punctuation of this thread's title means something to people other than myself.