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Irans popular choice not favoured in west

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IRAN’S POPULAR CHOICE NOT FAVOURED IN WEST

By Iqbal Jassat

Chairman: Media Review Network

Has Ahmadinejad’s re-election by an overwhelming majority of Iran’s 40-odd million voters jeopardized the Islamic Revolution?

 This seems to be the assessment of sectors of the western media intent on sowing confusion and doubt on the legitimacy of the recent presidential elections. For instance, Bill Schneider, CNN’s senior political analyst didn’t even stop there. He went as far as questioning the legitimacy of the entire Iranian government!

It appears that the collective shameful conduct by the European Union and the United States to reject Hamas’ legitimacy following its victory at the 2006 polls in the Occupied Territories is likely to be repeated in Iran.

A superficial media focus on Iran without any substantial insight into it’s history, culture and religious philosophy will not only distort and detract from the complexities of its political makeup; more particularly it will result in faulty analysis.

Shallow reports on the election results and a sense of déjà vu with40of tyres and garbage being burnt on Teheran’s streets by followers of the “reformist” candidate would have the world believe that an electoral fraud of gigantic proportion has been committed by Ahmadinejad to “steal” victory.

 Failure to probe Mir Hussein Mousavi’s “reformist” credentials is an important indicator of the wishful ideologues of change from outside desiring to see the back of Israel’s nemesis: Ahmadinejad.

 Having met Mousavi during his tenure as Prime Minister in the eighties, I am aware that his revolutionary credentials are solid and intact. His so-called “reformist” agenda thus does not imply that under his watch, Iran would abandon its nuclear programme or establish ties with Israel. It’s more to do with internal dynamics related to the economy rather than a reversal of the huge gains made following the ouster of the US-backed Shah during Iran’s Islamic Revolution thirty years ago.

 In the politics of language, terms such as “reformer” give rise to romantic notions of change for a state regularly demonised as “medieval” or “conservative”. In Iran’s case especially since it is targeted by the Zionist regime as posing an “existential” threat and against the backdrop of hostility generated against it by former president George Bush as an “axis of evil” it is clear that people’s imagination in the west may run riot.

 Iran’s democratic credentials have been tested many times over during the last three decades. Presidential and parliamentary elections are regularly held with huge turnouts and the expected disgruntlement of supporters of losing candidates. What is disconcerting this time around is the fact that pro-Mousavi supporters have embarked on a rampage and in doing so as acts of dissatisfaction with the electoral result have ignored Mousavi’s call for calm.

 President Ahmadinejad has an inspiring corruption-free record in his first term and before when he was an effective mayor of Teheran. In addition, his modest lifestyle has endeared him to the ordinary people who in large numbers have given him an additional four years to build on his first term.

 Iran’s traditional antagonists in the west cannot be so dumb as not to realize that the more they seek to undermine Ahmadinejad, they unfortunately sabotage Mousavi’s reputation by unfairly casting him as their favoured puppet.

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Israeli hawks desire no peace

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ISRAELI HAWKS DESIRE NO PEACE

 Iqbal Jassat

 Israel is in the throes of an intense debate about its identity and future. Failure by the Olmert regime to dislodge Hamas from the Gaza and itself being replaced by rightwing zealots under Benjamin Netanyahu are recent symptoms of deep-seated malaise in the body politic of the Zionist regime.

New emerging trends reveal that all is not kosher in the Jewish state. Craving for recognition and acceptance from its former foes in the so-called “moderate” Arab world, yet ironically, Israel seems hell bent on continuing to commit major blunders in conflict with its desire to “normalize” ties.

 Two such flaws have evidently become global talking points: the refusal by Netanyahu to endorse a “two-state” solution and stubbornly continuing expansionist settlements.

 These have not only earned Israel a public rebuke from Barack Obama when he addressed a global audience from Cairo in a landmark speech to reach out to the Muslim world, they have potentially placed the Zionist state on a collision course with America.

 Latest reports indicate that the European Union is seriously considering using its trade clout with Israel to bolster US pressure. An option it has is to crack down on fruit, vegetables, olive oil and other produce grown by Jewish settlers on stolen Palestinian land. It is well known, though usually ignored, that such products are entering the EU at low import tariffs reserved for output labeled as coming from what is described as Israel “proper”.

 As the row begins to grow between Israel and its erstwhile allies in Europe and America, the discredited legacy of the Bush administration still haunts the current narrative. Reuters reports that in Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hit back hard at comments by a senior Israeli negotiator who said Obama’s predecessor, George Bush, had privately agreed to the expansion of settlements. 

 Israeli dilemma flows from a calculated determination to alert the world to the so-called existential threat it believes Iran poses, while refusing to accept that preserving the occupation dooms its existence.

 MJ Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum observes that the two options available to Israel are to either grant the Occupied Palestinians the ballot or to deny the vote. Both scenarios entail the end of the Zionist enterprise.

A third alternative being advocated by neoconservatives and some leading right-wing Israelis is known as the “three-state solution” or the “Jordanian option”. It seems to have been pulled out of Verwoerd’s files on “Bantustans: A Grand Scheme to render Blacks Invisible”. Not surprisingly, the Heritage Foundation, arguably Washington’s most prominent conservative think tank, hosted a conference devoted to alternatives to the two-state solution.

 According to Daniel Luban the Heritage event, which was sponsored by right-wing US casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, came two weeks after right-of-center Israeli parties hosted a similar conference in Jerusalem. Senator Sam Brownback, a prominent Kansas Republican who ran for president in 2008, was the keynote speaker.   

 This scheme involves that Palestinians be made citizens of Jordan, allowing Israel to keep the occupied land but not the people. Despite sounding Verwoerdian or in the words of George Washington University’s Marc Lynch a “zombie idea”, the sudden flood of36and discussions suggests that variations on the three-state approach are becoming more, not less, popular on the US right, according to Luban.

 Obama’s speech delivered in Cairo, a day after the Heritage conference, contained an affirmation of the two-state solution and firm resolve not to accept the settlements. In addition, his offer to talk to the Islamic Republic of Iran – without any pre-conditions – signals yet another rebuttal of the Israeli government’s insistence that Iran is an “existential threat”.

 Deep internal divisions alongside growing despair within America’s powerful pro-Israeli lobbies are characteristic of the ideological bankruptcy of the apartheid state. Its refusal to accept that the change of guard at the White House is desirous of remaining in step with a world tired of carrying colonial baggage, will lead to isolation.

 Iqbal Jassat

Chairman: Media Review Network

www.mediareviewnet.com

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Is anyone speechless?

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IS ANYONE SPEECHLESS?

By Iqbal Jassat

 Hopeful but not audacious enough!

This seems to sum up US President Barack Obama’s much vaunted speech to the Muslim world.

 Comments and analysis from the Arab street as reflected on the screens of al-Jazeera, CNN and BBC suggest that while Obama’s message is generally welcome, skepticism abounds.

 This is mainly due to a bitter price paid by many in the Muslim world by trusting American governments more than necessary. The other is as a result of knowing that actions speak louder than words – and that as yet Obama’s speech contained no more than articulate sounds.

 What is intriguing though, is that while global anticipation of ground-breaking decisions to “mend Muslim fences” heightened expectations; it’s the re-affirmation of neoconservative rationale that seemed at odds with his “re-imagination”.

As much as he sounded like a Sunday school preacher or to be closer to his global Muslim audience, like an Imam, Obama retained a military quality.

From women’s rights to democracy; from human rights to economic development and from decrying regime change to practicing it, his range covered the entire gambit of life on earth in idealistic rhetoric.

Yet it was incomplete!

Despite galloping through a lengthy oration in a historic setting within Islam’s oldest citadel, the custodian of the free world’s most powerful state must have pondered long and hard about his moment of détente with the Muslim world.

In his circuitous route, from 9/11 to rockets and back to Afghanistan, the first Afro-American president of the United States crafted his talk with a degree of circumspect. Mindful that pro-Israeli lobbies back home would be hard at work analyzing every syllable, Obama invoked the Jewish Holocaust.

After softening feelings in Israel, he donned the mantle of a philosopher by confirming an oft-repeated claim by Muslims across the world: “The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable”. This cold brutal fact alongside his equally harsh admonishment of Israel’s need to acknowledge Palestinian suffering and Palestine’s “right to exist”, is the closest any US president has ventured to unsettle Zionist colonialism.

Robert Fisk attests to this. “Not for a generation has Israel had to take this kind of criticism from a US President. It sounded like the end of the Zionist dream”.

Yet the fact is that for the Muslim world, Obama did not go far enough. Palestinians languishing in refugee camps or in the Occupied Territories are distinctly aware that despite his harsh criticism of settlements, their quest for freedom is consistently squashed by American-sponsored weapons.

They are aware that the defunct Abbas-led Palestinian Authority is legitimized by American support. They know too that the movement of their choice, Hamas,  is marginalized and subject to clandestine regime-change operations at the behest of America

 Peace and prosperity while papering over injustices whether in Palestine, Iraq or elsewhere cannot be attained. Neither can words alone heal the wounds of centuries.

Iqbal Jassat

Chairman: Media Review Network

www.mediareviewnet.com

 

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