'Dictator's cut'

Translated from Farsi in the February issue of Harper's, an Iranian journalist's reaction to director Oliver Stone's interest in shooting a documentary of President/nut job Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In light of the history of measures by Western media against Iran's Islamic system and the dominant influence of global Zionism on that media empire, being optimistic about Oliver Stone's request or hoping that he refrains from deliberate manipulations would be an irreparable mistake.

Oliver Stone is the director of the film Alexander, about Alexander of Macedon. Because of Alexander's overthrow of the Achaemenid dynasty and the savage mass killings carried out by his army, he is hated by Iranians. Throughout his film World Trade Center, Stone tried to show 9/11 as an attack by the world of Islam against the West. The Doors commemorated one of America's most perverted, half-mad singers, who enjoyed urinating on the heads of his fans during concerts. ]FK drew a picture of John F. Kennedy as a political saint, as ordered by America's Democratic Party. The film played an undeniable role in Bill Clinton's successful run for the White House. In Nixon, an overthrown and warmongering president who initiated several conflicts is shown as an innocent and blameless individual. All these facts leave no room for doubt concerning Oliver Stone's allegiance to America's key policies, even if some groups, out of ignorance, call him an independent filmmaker.

How can we voluntarily go under this filmmaker's knife? The outcome of such a venture will not be a realistic portrayal of Ahmadinejad the intellectual and peacemaker but a portrait of Ahmadinejad according to Stone, Hollywood, and global Zionism.

Yeah, if Ahmadinejad looks bad, it's the Jews fault. That lovable old dictator is really a pretty decent guy ...

The danger of being gay in Iraq

The president of Iran might think his country is free of gays, but, for many years, gays and lesbians lived openly in Iraq. No longer, the NYT reports, largely due to increased sectarian violence:

In January, a United Nations report described the increased persecution, torture and extrajudicial killing of Iraqi lesbians and gay men. In 2005, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for gay men and lesbians to be killed in the “worst, most severe way.”

He lifted it a year later, but neither that nor the recent ebb in violence has made Mohammed or his friends feel safe. They yearn to leave Iraq, but do not have the money or visas. They agreed to be interviewed on the condition that their last names not be used.

They described an underground existence, eked out behind drawn curtains in a dingy safe house in southwestern Baghdad. Five people share the apartment — four gay men and one woman, who says she is bisexual. They have moved six times in the last three years, just ahead, they say, of neighborhood raids by Shiite and Sunni death squads. Even seemingly benign neighborhood gossip can scare them enough to move.

“We seem suspicious because we look like a cell of terrorists,” said Mohammed, nervously fingering the lapel of his shirt. “But we can’t tell people what we really are. A cell, yes, but of gays.”

The soccer player's Israel boycott

My colleague Karmel Melamed, an Iranian-American Jew who loves writing about any topic with even part of one of those three words in it, has a post over at his blog about an Iranian-born German soccer player who refused last week to play in the European Under-21 Championship in Tel Aviv. I guess he picked up where the British academics left off.

It is not only unsportsmanlike for any player to wage a private boycott against a country including Israel, but especially insulting when a player from Germany of all places with its history of anti-Semitism displays this type of behavior!

Indeed, it seems, as good a punchline as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to us, some people actually take the guy seriously. (Yeah, I saw those Tehran U students protesting his presence). This also is not the first time an Iranian player has participated in such a boycott. Well, sports in Israel have been through worse.

Ahmadinejad's Israel whoppers

Libby Purves, a fan of The God Blog, has compiled a top-30 list of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's "jaw-dropping quotes" on Israel. Here's the top eight:

1. "Israel must be wiped off the map … The establishment of a Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world . . . The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of the war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land."
October 26, 2005
(In an address to 4,000 students at a program titled, 'The World Without Zionism')

NB The translation of this quote is debated and has also been read as "Israel must disappear from the page of history"

2. "The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat. Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
April 14, 2006
(In a speech at the opening of the "Support for the Palestinian Intifada" conference on April 14-16 hosted in Tehran)

3. "Today, they [Europeans] have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets … This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [Jews] so that the Jews can establish their country."
December 14, 2005
(Speaking to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan)

4. "The Zionist regime is the flag bearer of violation and occupation and this regime is the flag of Satan. …It is not unlikely that this regime be on the path to dissolution and deterioration when the philosophy behind its creation and survival is invalid."
August 18, 2007
(Address to an international religious conference in Tehran)



5. "A new Middle East will prevail without the existence of Israel."
August 4, 2006
(as quoted by Malaysian news agency Bernama website)

6. "In parallel to the official political war there is a hidden war going on and the Islamic states should benefit from their economic potential to cut off the hands of the enemies."

7. "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces.... Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem? If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe."
December 8, 2005
(While speaking to journalists at an Islamic summit in Mecca)

8. "The Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan . . . Many Western governments that claim to be pioneers of democracy and standard bearers of human rights close their eyes over crimes committed by the Zionists and by remaining silent support the Zionists due to their hedonistic and materialistic tendencies."
February 28, 2007
(to a meeting of Sudanese Islamic scholars in Khartoum)

Ahmadinejad's public rest stop

Does Larry Craig wear Birkenstocks? Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can say whatever he wants, but we know the truth.

A love song for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Last weekend, there was all kinds of concern about Columbia inviting the crazy president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak to students while here to address the United Nations about his country's illicit nuclear program. I too shared the concern, but the "petty and cruel dictator" opened his mouth and said, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country."

This was great fodder for all, and thank you to "Saturday Night Live" -- which on a rare occasion I was DVRing tonight because King James is hosting -- for taking advantage of the opportunity. They just pilloried Ahmadenijad with a brilliant serenade from Andy Samberg, who loves Mahmoud's "silly brown eyes, butter pecan thighs and hairy butt."

Samberg, who is both Jewish (sorry, Mahmoud) and half of the "Dick in a Box" team, had some other choice lyrics:

They call you weasel
They say your methods are medieval
You could be the Jews
I'll be your Jim Caviezel

You're crazy for this, Mahmoud
You can deny the Holocaust all you want
But you can't deny there is something between us

The digital short is online here and embedded below.

Come to Columbia, Mein Fuhrer

This one has been creating quite a furor while I was away this weekend. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, the American antagonist and Holocaust denier, is scheduled to speak at Columbia University in New York today.

In defending the Ivy League university's invitation, Dean John Coatsworth told Fox News that they'd invite Hitler if he were in town. Glad I live on the Left Coast. The dean's message can be seen here and below:



The Manhattan campus has long been a destination for bright Jewish high school seniors, well before other Ivies dropped the Jew quotas. The New York Sun notes the irony of Jewish students learning of today's globe-trotting guest after breaking fast and singing online after Yom Kippur ended Saturday.

Dean Coatsworth seems to be laboring under the illusion that had Columbia actually hosted Hitler in the late 1930s, World War II and the war against the Jews might have been prevented. The dean appears to be ignorant of history. The archives of the New York Times disclose that in December 1933, Columbia's president, Nicholas Butler, extended an invitation to Hitler's ambassador, Hans Luther. A protest was made by the Social Problems Club, which, according to the report in the Times, said: "Inviting the Nazi envoy to lecture on the foreign policy of his government and giving him an official reception means not only failing in our duty to oppose the Nazi onslaught on culture and in our duty to defend our German colleague but signifies, if not an open endorsement of the Nazi actions, at least placing their principles on the same level with other viewpoints."

To a Muslim leader, Israel is 'Satan'

"God's Warriors" begins tonight on CNN. But on Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (everyone's favorite) let us know who he thinks is Satan's warrior: "The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and Satan."

In honor of Ahmadinejad's statement, Slate posted a two-year-old explanation of what the Muslim Satan is like.

What does he look like? Muslims don't have a clear iconography for Iblis, and there's no Shaitanic counterpart to the red-skinned, pitchfork-wielding demon of Christianity. During the hajj, Shaitan is represented by a featureless stone pillar or wall. Pilgrims "stone Satan" by throwing rocks at the wall.

In Iran, where the Ayatollah Khomeini first dubbed the United States "the Great Satan" in the late 1970s, the words might evoke the divs, or devils, of Persian mythology. These were often depicted as gnarly-looking creatures with horns, dark skin, and protruding teeth. (Ancient literature describes the invasion of Persia by a particularly nasty monster called the White Div.) Posters from the Iranian revolution sometimes depicted Jimmy Carter or Uncle Sam in a demonic guise. In this one, a figure representing Israel and America stands over the shah, who is intertwined with a serpent.

Holocaust denial or alter kaker row?

Loyal readers know that I wasn't raised Jewish and that my strongest association with Jewishness is with experiencing anti-Semitism. The potent embodiment of that is the Holocaust. My belief -- based on 4,000 years of history -- is that the world does not care if you practice Judaism if your last name is Greenberg. To anti-Semites, you're a "Jew."

I say this as a preface to what will follow, because I have no interest in spurring Alan Dershowitz to start a campaign to deny me tenure at The Journal. I am not a revisionist. I know the Holocaust happened, and I lament the fact so many Jews my generation want to separate themselves from the guilt of that memory -- lest we forget.

And I understood the concern of eastern Ventura County Jews this week as they dealt with what they believed was a Holocaust denier who had used a public facility to spread his hate. From today's Jewish Journal:

The way Jews in the Conejo Valley describe it, Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the propaganda proffered as academic discourse at the Goebel Senior Adult Center last month. That's when John Bravos, a commissioner of the publicly funded facility, focused a lecture in his comparative religion series on the Holocaust. The first question asked by a flier for the event was: "Did it happen?"

When about a dozen seniors showed up, Bravos began by talking about deniers who use the phrase "so-called Holocaust," comparing the atrocities of World War II to other genocides and saying that far fewer Jews were murdered by the Nazis than historians have long believed.

"I was devastated and irate and just very insulted and offended," said Honey Bencomo, a 67-year-old Jewish woman from Agoura Hills who attended the lecture with her husband, who is Catholic. "He was talking about something that is a very significant part of Jewish history and was saying it didn't happen."

But when I talked to Bravos, I wasn't sure he had been understood correctly. What I heard were the words not of a Holocaust denier, or "revisionist," but of a confused octogenarian.

And from the rancor exhibited at Tuesday's meeting -- a meeting of more than 200, where Jews attacked the motives of other Jews who defended the accused -- it seems that no matter what his intent was, the damage to the Conejo's Jewish community has been far more substantial than the pain of hearing a "nutcase" (Bravos' word) like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad call the Holocaust a myth.

Mid East meltdown

No, not that meltdown, but with the nuclear ambitions of so many Arab nations, not to mention Iran, such a future is not hard to imagine. I'm talking about the epidemic fragmenting of Middle East nations under the weight of sectarian enmity and economic volatility that historian Niall Ferguson writes about in today's LA Times.

Any lingering hopes of a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians evaporated last week as the Islamist extremists of Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the more secular Fatah party, now finds himself president of the West Bank only. The next Middle Eastern peace plan will have to be a three-state solution: Israel, Hamastan and Fatahland.

Did I say three? I meant four. Because no peace could last long if it didn't somehow end the threat to Israel posed by Hezbollahstan — the strip of Lebanon controlled by the Iranian-backed terrorists whom Israel failed to obliterate last summer.

Meanwhile, even as hooded Hamas gunmen and Fatah forces traded bullets in Gaza, and even as another anti-Syrian politician was blown to pieces in Lebanon, Sunni militants in Iraq destroyed the twin minarets of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, finishing the job they began last year, when they demolished its golden dome. Nothing could be better calculated to intensify the sectarian conflict there and push the country another step closer to bloody partition.

And don't forget Kurdistan, the semiautonomous republic in northern Iraq that is set to be the third state in Iraq's three-state (dis)solution. The Turks haven't. They're currently massing troops on its border.

Last week in the Forward, Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggested that once the Palestinian divorce is over -- leaving Fatah to rule the West Bank while Hamas controls Gaza -- perhaps at least the Levant will be a better place for Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, President Bush and the European Union said they will recognize the Fatah government of Mahmoud Abbas and will resume dialogue and aid. Hamas, written about by David Remnick last winter after they won a majority of parliament, shouldn't expect any western love.

Global warming: Israel wipe out

Will global warming beat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the job of wiping Israel off the map? Jewish groups long have been concerned about the consequences of global warming, but, according to the Forward, they're now framing that debate around the catastrophe global warming would spell for Israel.

In a series of briefings last week on Capitol Hill and with Jewish organizations, a team of experts from Israel presented data indicating that if action to stop global warming is not taken immediately, moderate regimes in the Middle East might collapse and tensions between Israel and its neighbors might rise due to a decrease in rainfall, loss of water sources and increase in extreme weather phenomena.

Already, according to Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, rainfall is down and summer is getting hotter. (That sounds a lot like Los Angeles.)

The main changes, the Israeli experts predicted, would be a drop in the water supply — already a scarce commodity in the Middle East — and an expected rise in temperature that will make it even more difficult to replenish water sources. According to the information presented this week, if action is not taken, then Israel might be facing a loss of up to 100 millimeters of rain a year — almost 20% of the country’s annual rainfall.

For Israel, water shortages could influence not only its population but also the future of its relations with neighboring countries. Israel is already facing difficulties fulfilling its agreement — as part of its 1994 peace treaty with Jordan — to transfer water to the Hashemite kingdom, and will face great problems when trying to work out water arrangements with Palestinians in a final status agreement. The Jordanian monarchy, which is based on support of the agricultural communities, might be in danger. The same is true for the Palestinian leadership, which might encounter an uprising of extremists who will feed on the poverty and despair caused by the collapse of agriculture due to lack of water.

In Egypt, the expected rise of the Mediterranean Sea level could flood rich areas in the Nile’s Delta and lead to food shortages, which could destabilize the regime.