Reflections

The demonization of President Ahmadinejad

Zafar Bangash

Shawwal 20, 14282007-11-01

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Since Israel is the new temple and zionism the new religion of the West, any mention of eliminating zionism or the zionist regime inPalestine is immediately branded as anti-Semitism and a threat to world peace. This is especially true of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, whose speech on October 26, 2005, has been so widely misquoted that promoting the lies has effectively become official policy in many Western countries. Even the United Nations Security Council was duped into issuing a statement condemning Iran for calling for Israel’s “destruction”.

Let us be clear: there is nothing sacred about Israel, or any other state for that matter. Several states have disappeared in recent decades. Both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have disappeared from the map. What used to be Czechoslovakia has been split into two independent states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As for Israel, it is an illegal entity that was planted in the heartland of Islam by force and is a dagger in the heart of the Muslim world. Its existence negates the fundamental rights of the Palestinians, whose land has been usurped through terror, leaving them to be scattered far and wide. Israel is a colonial settler entity; it has no legitimacy in law. The claim that God “promised” Palestine to the Jewish people is infantile. True, the Prophets David and Solomon (as) ruled Palestine for 73 years more than 3,000 years ago, but that gives modern Jews no more right to claim Palestine than Muslims could claim Spain on the basis that they ruled it for 750 years a mere 500 years ago.

All this, however, is academic and distinct from what President Ahmadinejad actually said. His statement is deliberately misquoted to advance American and zionist plans to target Iran. What exactly did he say in the speech delivered at the Conference on World without Zionism two years ago? Quoting the late Imam Khomeini, President Ahmadinejad said that, like the Soviet Union and the apartheid regime of South Africa, “the Quds occupying regime will also disappear from the page of time.” Western propaganda machines have misquoted this endlessly and, together with allegations that Iran is making nuclear weapons (a charge equally vigorously denied), the lie has been endlessly repeated. There is no dearth of barking dogs doing Israel’s bidding, but what should one make of otherwise respectable journalists repeating the same nonsense without questioning it. There can be only two conclusions drawn from this: they have either been intimidated by the zionists or they are just too lazy to check the accuracy of information being fed to them. Neither speaks well for journalistic integrity.

Two other factors should have alerted these journalists to the scandalous propaganda being deployed against Iran and its president. First, there is a precedent: throughout the year 2002, there was vicious propaganda deliberately fed by American neo-conservatives about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. This lie was challenged by many leading figures in the US, and later exposed completely by the US’s own weapons’ inspection team, but it was too late; the propaganda had served its purpose with the invasion of Iraq. Second, two leading US academics—Professor Juan Cole and Professor Virginia Tilley, the latter herself Jewish—have debunked the allegation against President Ahmadinejad. This appears to have escaped the attention of most journalists, who continue to peddlezionist propaganda that plays straight into the hands of the neo-conservative cabal that now rules America and is determined to attack Iran. America’s belligerence owes nothing to either President Ahmadinejad’s misquoted speech, or to Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme; its real reason is Tehran’s independence and its refusal to accede to American and zionist demands.

In the US, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a zionist lobby group that virtually rules America, attacks anyone who dares to challenge the deliberate lies peddled by the pro-Israel cabal. The lobby, and other zionists in positions of influence, among them Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, launch vitriolic attacks against people who want the truth to come out. In Canada, this role is performed by Irwin Cotler, a member of parliament and a former justice minister. Cotler has endlessly repeated the lie that President Ahmadinejad has called for the “destruction of Israel” and that he wants it “wiped off from the map.” Cotler’s hysterical claims are accepted by lazy or cowardly journalists, who would question or reject such nonsense if it related to any other country or entity. But clearly Israel is sacred; besides, who wants to take on the zionist attack dogs?

If the issue were confined to propaganda alone, it might be tolerable. But it is part of a policy of demonization of Iran that echoes the propaganda used against Iraq before the US invaded it in March 2003. With both US President George Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney intensifying their hostile rhetoric against Iran in recent weeks, many commentators have suggested that it is a prelude to an attack on Iran. Although the US is in no position to take on another misguided adventure, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, its rulers are not guided by logic; they are ruthless murderers and will stop at nothing to advance their own agendas. This is what the Islamic Republic must guard against, taking every possible precaution to safeguard its interests.

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