Thursday, March 11, 2010

Taboo Inhibits Frank Iran/Israel Talk

By Ray McGovern
March 11, 2010

Participants at an otherwise informative discussion on “Iran at a Crossroads” at the Senate on Wednesday seemed at pains to barricade the doors against the proverbial elephant being admitted into the room — in this case, Israel.

Read on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you Ray for another article of tenured insight and analysis. Yes yes and also yes, the true objectives of American statecraft seems to have been directed toward the preservation of Israeli hegemony in the middle East. That preservation does NOT appear to be in/of American interests per se. As America's No. 1 Welfare Queen, Israel should downsize her acquisitive proclivities during these times of economic problems because she is creating expensive problems that America can't afford.

Maybe America should only give aid to countries that HAVE NOT spied on her or attacked and killed hes troops..!! tgw

Morton Kurzweil said...

Your story has touched my heart. It reminds me of another tale where our hero drops from a plane into the the crater of an exploding volcano. Chapter two begins: 'After escaping from the volcano . . . ".
The hero in this case is a Christian commenting on the survival of Israel.
The elephant is religion. Beliefs have confused and condoned genocide and xenophobia for millennia in lands of limited resources where populations and property preclude the mutual cooperation of cultures.
There would be trust if there was distrust of the myths of religious morality. Christians, Muslim, and Jew have fought for religious dominion the Middle East because it has been the accepted order of things - but this was not so in the empire of Cyrus, when there were no Christian or Muslim sects. The Pagans lived in peace with Zoroastrians, Jews and every other culture between Greece and India. They lived in a world of free interplay of ideas, customs, and a thriving trade in goods and science.
It is the pettiness of Divinity that is the elephant in every nation today, the immorality of superiority of might, the ethics of victory as the harbinger of virtue that is the dung that follows the elephant into the room.

Jimbo said...

A roadblock to progress on the Iran-Israel front are the comments/actions of Ahmadinejad re Israel being "wiped off the map" and his holocaust denial. This more than almost anything is what sticks in my craw. Whether or not his words were twisted by the press or that he does or doesn't believe the holocaust story, if he'd apologize or at least clarify his words/actions in this regard some of the tension might be relieved. With positive action on Iran's part I think we would then see a more liberal US approach to Iran vis a vis Israel.

John L.Opperman said...

If "Jimbo" paid attention, he may have learned that Ahmadinejad said the regime, Not the state should be gone, and as to the holocaust, it is tiresome Israel over-uses it as excuse for every action (my words, not his).

But he should apologize whether he said it or not???

Iran has virtually followed the letter of the "law", whereas Israel has violated literally every law on the books.

Most of us understand where the "tensions" come from.
~John L.