Iranian President Ahmadinejad asks: are Jews human beings?

[ECH1969]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "Look, they are destroying homes with the people inside. They are burning fields. Neither children nor adults are safe from them. With laser-guided bombs, they attack shelters of defenseless women and children, leaving them in a pool of their blood."

"They have no boundaries, limits, or taboos when it comes to killing human beings. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they human beings? 'They are like cattle, nay, more misguided.' A bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians. Next to them, all the criminals of the world seem righteous."

"They are a bunch of Zionists. Where have they come from? As you know, the rule of hegemony and the web of colonialism strived to establish a base in the heart of the Middle East. A hundred years ago, they began to devise conspiracies on the basis of a diabolical plan. Bit by bit they arrived, and backed by the devious, deceiving England, they sneaked people in, and placed them in control over the people of Palestine. Sixty years ago, by means of a highly complex plan involving psychology, politics, and propaganda, and by means of weapons, they managed to establish a false regime in the heart of the Middle East.

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP122906

[ulysses]

1. uly asks: is Ahmadinejad a vile fuck?

Why yes, yes he is.

[Zhade]

6. Yep. Think he plays cards with Olmert?

Peas in a pod.

[ulysses]

13. I'm about at the point where I'm weary

of trying to parse who's more or less just. I just feel badly for the kids on both sides of the border.

[k_jerome]

39. so, you agree with him about Israel? just wondering. nt.

[whistle]

8. ...and you base that comment on what facts?

<snip>
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (help·info) (IPA: ), sometimes also transcribed into English as Mahmud, Mahmood, Ahmadinezhad, Ahmadi-Nejad, Ahmadi Nejad (Persian: محمود احمقی نژاد ; born October 28, 1956) is the sixth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. His term began on August 3, 2005.

He was appointed mayor of Tehran on May 3, 2003, and was elected and approved to be the president on June 24, 2005. He is a controversial figure, and has been widely criticised for his outspoken and often provocative foreign policy positions, in particular his stance on Israel, support of Hezbollah groups<1>, and controversial comments he has made about the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist.<2> <2>, He has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map"<3>. He is is a rabid anti-semite who has said that Jews should be wiped out worldwide and encouraged the destruction of the state of Israel. In addition, several of the American hostages during the 1980s Iranian hostage crisis recognized his face as one of those who held them captive.

Politically, Ahmadinejad is a member of the Central Council of the Islamic Society of Engineers, but he has a more powerful base inside the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (Abadgaran). Ahmadinejad is considered one of the main figures in the alliance. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad enjoys full support from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In an speech in 2006 Khamenei said: "This government is the most favorite government of Iran since 100 years ago".<4>. Khamenei's eldest son Mujtaba acted as Ahmadinejad's campaign manager during the 2005 presidential election.
<more>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

[ulysses]

16. is the verity of these comments in question?

edit for the sake of clarity: I meant, is it true that Ahmadinejad said these things?

[DRoseDARs]

2. Asks the guy in charge of a country that executes gays for being... gay nt

:eyes:

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Even as a gay man, I have to say that there is a difference

Unless Iran is using laser guided missiles to utterly destroy presumed gay clubs and everyone who is within -- along with everything else within a city block.

[ulysses]

7. one can condemn Israel's current actions

and Ahmadinejad's statements at the same time.

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. I do not disagree

I was merely pointing out that DRoseDARs was committing a fallacy of false comparison. Executing select individuals, no matter how vile and unjust those executions might be, is no where near the magnitude of obliterating entire city blocks and killing as many of the people therein as possible.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. Iran Sounds Just Like Amsterdam

Iran Executes Two Gay Teens In Public Hanging



http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/2005july/2101.htm



Another incident:



The cops took sheets, ripped them up and blindfolded us, threw us into a van, and took us to a holding cell in Interior Ministry headquarters -- they knew us all by name,” Amir recounts. Iranians live in fear of the Interior Ministry, which has a reputation like that of the former Soviet KGB’s domestic bureau, and whose prisons strike fear in people’s hearts the way the infamous Lubianka once did. Amir says that, “I was the third person to be interrogated. The cops had seized videos taken at the party, in one of which I was reciting a poem. The cops told me to recite it again. ‘What poem?’ I said. They began beating me in the head and face. When I tried to deny I was gay, they took off my shoes and began beating the soles of my feet with cables, the pain was excruciating. I was still blindfolded. They had found dildos in the house where the party was -- they beat me with them, stuffed them in my mouth. When I told them my father was a martyr they beat me up even more, and harder. They took away my card and said they’d tell the local university, where I was studying computers.”

At the same time, Amir continues, “They went to my house, seized my computer, found online homoerotic pictures of guys in it, and showed them to my mother. That’s how mother found out I was gay. Eventually I was tried and fined 100,000 tomens . At the time he fined me, the judge told me that ‘if we send you to a physician who vouches that your rectum has been penetrated in any way, you will be sentenced to death.’”


http://pageoneq.com/news/2005/ga_iranian_beaten_092005.html

[AlamoDemoc]

3. Once again, you have to ask who is translating this.

[AlamoDemoc]

11. Here's Memri report from the Guardian

Brian Whitaker investigates whether the 'independent' media institute that translates the Arabic newspapers is quite what it seems.

Monday August 12, 2002


http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,773258,00.html

[Opusnone]

23. Thanks for asking the question

With the pace the US military is kicking out translators for being gay, it's a wonder we can get any of the ancient languages properly interpreted.
Chalk it up to a busy day of anti Iran propaganda.

God, they are busy.

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. Persian is a completely different language to Arabic, so that's irrelevant

(n/t)

[lostnfound]

42. Thanks for informing about the source. nt

[Behind the Aegis]

20. From your article..

"Nobody, so far as I know, disputes the general accuracy of Memri's translations but there are other reasons to be concerned about its output."

[Zhade]

5. Change it to "the Israeli government", and SOME of his points are true.

But this dehumanization is pretty disgusting.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Why the need to misrepresent Ahmadinejad's words

when what he actually says should be enough to cause offense.

He's not asking "are Jews human beings"? He's asking, "are Israelis"? See? It's still offensive. But it's directed towards citizens of a nation, not followers of a faith.

To infer "Jews" just boils the blood that much more.

You know what? What the world needs now is less blood boiling.

[QuestionAll...]

19. tinderbox words.. Jews or Israelis.

Been a long campaign to make us forget what the two really mean.

[Behind the Aegis]

21. Who is saying the translation is faulty?

[Minstrel Boy]

37. In the article, the only two occurances of "Jews"

are in square brackets, meaning they are interpolations in the text. They do not appear in the original.

[Behind the Aegis]

38. Brackets...

Because the brackets are taking the place of "they." Do you really think he is talking about Israelis? Especially considering he never says Israel?

[Minstrel Boy]

41. Yes, I really do

Because the "they" refers back to those executing the policies of the Israeli government and military.

The crowd responds by chanting "Death to Israel!" not "Death to Jews!"

[FlavaKreemSnak]

24. It is about the people who do those things

Sometimes you can hear Americans say the same thing about Iraqis that behead people and Palestinians that do suicide bombings. The actions are so bad that they say, how can a human being do this?

The problem is that Israel is doing this as like an official action, and America gives the money and weapons, etc to do it, as an official action, and Americans are like required to always be in favor of Israel and everything they do.

But suppose it was other countries, like if France was paying people in Indonesia or somewhere to do it to people in maybe Malaysia, or another close by country, Americans would say the same thing they do about the beheaders in Iraq. They would ask how can human beings do this to other human beings.

I used to have a teacher who would make us do that with news stories about wars etc. He would make us change the names of the countries, and sometimes put America as the one that the things were being done to, and it really did change the feeling about it. Like if another country was destroying homes in America with Americans inside, I can see an American president asking how the people doing that could be human, and people would just say yes, because they would feel outrage. And so people in other countries feel that same kind of outrage when it is them, or happening to people in their neighbor countries that they are friends with.

They would ask why don't the people who live in that country rise up and make their government stop doing it, why does everybody just accept such bad things being done to Americans.

But if you think it is just as bad to do it to people in Lebanon or in Palestine, when it is Israel and America who is doing it you should be careful about saying so in public because you will get called anti-American and anti-Semite!

[papau]

25. True - in this speech it was are Israelis human - but hatred of Jews

is being sold in Iran these days.

True that there is a Jewish MP in the powerless Iranian Parliament - and I'd be interested in finding out if he is a Jew that ever defended Judaism.

But one need only look at the tightly controlled by the government Iranian TV and the number of children's cartoons, drama, documentaries etc. that are based on Holocaust denial and vilifying Jews.

Western TV has even shown a bit of this over the air - so if your curious, getting a snippet should not be hard to do.

Iraq's expulsion and murder of Jews and confiscation of their property in the 60's and 70's was part of a Muslim attack on the civil rights of Jews during that period (funny how no one discusses their right of return or need for compensation for property stolen). In Iran during the last 40 years 90% of Iranian Jews were forced out of Iran. A few dozen still sit in Iranian prisons on trumped up charges of being spies.

Civil rights and Sharia law seem to not mix well - perhaps you recall the torture and murder of a Canadian female journalist, or perhaps you recall the Iranian persecution of those of the Bahia faith.

Heck - even "no love for Israel" Amnesty International has written on the topic.

I am not sure less blood boiling is justified re Iran - but I am tired of war - and if peace requires soft language, I am all for using words that do not make the blood boil.

[TahitiNut]

10. MEMRI??

Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, Tokyo and Jerusalem. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese.

It's interesting they don't translate their research into Arabic. Funny that. :eyes:

[QuestionAll...]

12. asking if Wolf Blitzer did the translation?

always suspect.

[aquart]

14. Ah, "Zionist" used as an insult.

I am, however, enjoying the Persian espousing the Arab cause. (In my innocent and ignorant youth, I once mistakenly called an Iranian man an arab. Will never do so again, no sir.) By "false" regime, does he mean a democracy with women's rights? I can understand his having difficulties with that.

[fairfaxvadem]

15. Yes, these comments will really help the situation..

The guy is certifiable. And while I realize most or all of this is for public consumption in certain parts of the world, and Iran itself, it is such crazy talk, that you can hardly believe people still speak outloud like this.

I surely believe a lot of folks think like this, there are way too many kooks out there, look at our own fringe religious right yakking up the Ratpure, but to say it out loud. Sheesh.

Lock him up. That would be a good start, I think.

And because of nuts like him, a reasonable person hesitates to even criticize Israel, even constructively, because you get accused of thinking like this creep.

[sam sarrha]

17. is Allah Merciful.....???

:shrug:

[Alacrat]

26. If the things he is accused of saying are true

we will all know the very second when and if iran/he gets a nuke. I don't know if he is saying these things, or this is made up by our own propaganda people, if this is really from him, along with the other daily hate quotes he is credited with, I have no doubt he will nuke Israel as quickly as he can. If we all knew without a doubt this is really his mentality, should we strike first? I hate the idea of more war, but could we afford to wait and see? We are expecting our first child in a few weeks, I worry everyday about the world he will live in, or if he will have a world to live in.

[bunyip]

22. Not a bad speech, I must say.

Demonizing and dehumanizing the enemy is a tactic as old as warfare.

Replace "Israeli" with "Palestinian" and "Zionist" with "Nazi" and it is a speech you might hear in the Knesset. Ariel Sharon used to condemn the Palestinians as "two-legged cockroaches".

Politicians everywhere love to appeal to the cruelest instincts of the masses. It's wrong, but it works.

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. did he say Jews or did he say Zionist and /or Israel????

I am trying to find where he asked the rhetorical question you placed in the title. If he did say that please indicate where.

I'm not defending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I just want to get the matter factually accurate.

[Behind the Aegis]

29. He said "Zionists."

However, he rarely says Jews, and almost never says "Israel," but calls it the "Zionist Regime," as he does in this speech.

[WiseButAngrySara]

28. Israel is acting like a beast. That is inhuman. Their actions are

despicable, IMO.

[Erika]

30. Yep. Israel has seen to it aid can't be delivered to Lebanon

They bombed the bridges and roads to see to it.

[Erika]

31. I guess they follow the God of the Old Testament

and give no credence to the love of Christ.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. Wow

Read what you just said and get back to me

[cali]

45. Not that I ever gave any credence

to anything you say- but this is really ludicrous. Hey, what God does America follow? After all, we've killed far more Iraqis and Afghanis than Israel has Palestinians or Lebanese.

[cali]

40. Try this on for size:

"Are Americans human?" "Are Iranians human?" "Are Mexicans human?"

[JackNewtown]

32. He is a nut, but MEMRI is a right-wing propaganda organ

Ahmadinejad's insanity has been well-documented so I don't dispute the veracity of this article but what is next, linking to NewsMax?

[ConsAreLiars]

33. I couldn't find that statement in the article. Are you just spreading BS

or am I just blind? He says "They are a bunch of Zionists." And he makes essentially accurate accusations that they (the "Zionists," not the "Jews" as your deceit alleges) are committing atrocities. They are, of course, and that is not in dispute. But your assertion that he blames "Jews" is puzzling.

(edit: note to self--run spell check before posting)

[eridani]

35. He's this very folksy politician with a common touch and a whackjob base

Remind you of anyone we know?

[Vidar]

36. Let's just bulldoze a house containing Olmert & Ahmadinejad & callit even.

[unhappycamper]

46. Locking.

The thread title does not reflect the linked article, and is flame-bait.