France slams call to destroy Israel

[question everything]

France slams call to destroy Israel
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 3, 2006

Days after calling Iran a "stabilizing" force in the Middle East, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy issued a statement harshly criticizing Iran's call on Thursday to destroy Israel.

"I totally condemn these words," Douste-Blazy said on France-Inter radio, in response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement Thursday that the solution to the current Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel.

"Peace and security in Lebanon and its borders has to be preserved by the Lebanese government and people. Deployment of foreign forces is not acceptable in any shape unless it is just, based on UN rules and preserves the unity and territorial integrity of Lebanon," he said. The words are "absolutely unacceptable on anyone's part, especially from a head of state," Douste-Blazy said.

(snip)


This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525799132&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[redqueen]

1. France's responses to the ongoing tragedy have been impressive.

Wonder when idiot boy will stop with the hands-off crap that has helped oh so much so far.

[liberalmuse]

2. Good!

We need some sanity from world leaders. I'm disgusted, dismayed and disheartened with Israel's campaign, but draw the line at calls for destroying an entire country (Which would be the opposite of what Israel is now carrying out in Lebanon right now, I guess.)

[Xipe Totec]

3. Nothing less would be acceptable

Good for France!

Shame on Ahmadinejad.

[IndianaGreen]

4. What's the difference with Israel's threat to destroy Lebanon?

reported here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2433678

We are on the verge of crossing a line beyond which it won't be possible to stop this war. We should all be alarmed about what Bush's failure to call for an immediate ceasefire will lead us to.

[adriennui]

5. israel never threatened to destroy lebanon

no one would mourn the loss of hezbollah (including the lebanese).

[IndianaGreen]

6. Go to the LBN link I provided. It is from IDF

The threat is real!

[leveymg]

10. Consider this statement today: "Israel Will Devastate Lebanon"

ECH1969 (1000+ posts) Thu Aug-03-06 03:15 PM
Original message
'Israel Will Devastate Lebanon If Tel Aviv Attacked'
Israel will retaliate harshly against an attack on Tel Aviv and will destroy the entire infrastructure in Lebanon, according to a highly-positioned IDF officer quoted by Channel One's Mabat news program.

The IDF has restricted bombing attacks in Lebanon to the enforcing a land and sea embargo on Lebanon and to hitting Hizbullah terrorist homes, offices and weapons centers. In the bombings on Beirut, only about one per cent of the Lebanon capital's area has been attacked.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=109110

[Hoping4Change]

15. Your right Israel never threatened Lebanon, they just went into Lebanon

and destroyed it with no warning.

[saigon68]

18. They are itching to do this to Beirut

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. I'll repeat what I indicated in another thread - "neutralize" Israel

.
.
.

Israel is the USA's nuclear toehold in the Middle East

I think that is what the Iranians are getting at, not wiping out the whole population

Just demilitarize it like we did after WW2 to Japan and Germany . .

Just like the USA, Israel has some mean bastards running the country, - it ain't the whole population that wants to destroy Lebanon

And newspapers have a habit of making a "grand" story out of something a wee bit more simple, and enjoying taking words, phrases, sentences and so on out of context . .

geee - what a surprise

(sigh)

[SutaUvaca]

11. Indeed

my co-worker's Iranian boyfriend has explained to us that the word that gets translated as "Destroy" for the USA audiences is more accurately rendered as "neutralized" in most other parts of the world.

[enigma000]

13. The guys running the Israeli government just were elected

last May. The Kadima-Labor coalition government's military actions so far seem to be quite popular.

[IndianaGreen]

14. The answer is to put the brakes on this bloody insanity

The West has failed miserably, as has the UN, in getting the new axis of war (US, UK, Israel) to agree to a ceasefire.

We are about to have a runaway bloodbath that won't be stopped!

[ckramer]

8. Why the French care?

[Lautremont]

9. French global citizens, like rest of us.

Have stake in world events. That why French care.

[Zhade]

12. Og agree, but think French food too rich for stomach.

:silly:

[Vidar]

16. Vive la France!

[BooScout]

17. France understands right from wrong........

They also understand diplomacy. No one is right in threatening to 'destroy' or 'devastate'( and both sides have said as mcu)......such threats are unacceptable.

Considering it is France that is expected to lead and bear the burden of much of a proposed international force in Lebanon if and when a ceasefire is negotiated, it's comforting to know that someone with some calm and common sense might be on the frontlines of keeping the peace.

[Ghost Dog]

19. France, like most countries, is trying to calm the waters.

Quite diplomatically and correctly.

However, please allow me to point out that, according to this Ha'aretz source (headline: "Ahmadinejad's call to destroy Israel draws French condemnation"), quoting Associated Press, it is only SPIN which refers to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement Thursday as saying that "the solution to the current Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel."

In fact, the actual quote in the Ha'aretz/Associated Press article reads thus:

"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site.

Now, I ask you: Is calling for the "elimination" of this and other "Zionist" regimes in Israel really so different from calling for the "elimination" (maybe a strong word, maybe bad translation - say, the "defeat") of this and other "proto-fascist" regimes in the United States of America for example? And does either formulation necessarily imply "anti-Americanism" or "anti-Israelism" or indeed a desire to see either country "wiped off the map"?

(--> Off the political map, perhaps. In the name of all that is peace-loving and intelligent, surely. Cultural and geographical maps are, of course, something entirely different - this, without entering into discussion of Israel's status in the "Occupied Territories.")

Does not the USA itself, quite frequently, request and indeed promote "regime change" within foreign countries (and mostly in the name of its own "National Interest"), while leaving the same countries more-or-less where they were on both cultural and geographical maps?