Who will cry with Me: " We are all Zionists to erase from the world map " as we cried out: " We are all German Jews ? This would have had to shout our grandparents when Hitler proclaimed that he would "wipe the Jews the map of Europe .
I discovered the Iranian president on a television screen in the Russian waiting room of the Moscow airport. He seemed calm and determined. The death of millions of Israelis seemed to be obvious.
Passengers of all nationalities who followed his speech with me were astounded. I was too. And surprised. Not that I believed the newly elected Iranian full of love for humanity, but I did not think he would take the risk of being shunned by other nations in publicly calling for the destruction of a legitimate state, recognized by all.
I was wrong. He risked nothing and he knew it. It has oil and, soon, the atomic bomb. He also knew that the leaders of democratic countries would not dare, now, after the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and engage with the economic difficulties, causing a major political crisis in the world.
Certainly, the protests have been unanimous, but without result. No country has recalled its ambassador Tehran, even if only for consultation.
The Muslim world that Ahmadinejad clearly aspires to represent the political arena, as is in hiding Osama bin Laden, has not responded either. And yet, many Arab leaders were also targeted by the Iranian leader's speech.
No, no, no Muslim religious authority, no politician disassociated himself from the call to murder. Except ... the Palestinian Authority. And it is a great sign of hope.
Where are we with the duty to remember that we are hot ears for sixty years? What have we
learned from the cowardice of our parents in the 1930s? A politician had promised them hell. They thought that by shaking his hand in Munich, they gain paradise. In the absence of heaven, they left us a legacy of cemeteries.
Political scientists, commentators of all stripes will certainly apologize to the speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They will discuss her inexperience, internal difficulties, the necessary response to international pressure, to "provocations " American ... Maybe.
But for dozens of Iranian Jews, representing one of the oldest Jewish communities the world, who were abducted by the secret police and who remain unaccounted for, these excuses do not change. Since they do not mitigate the pain of the Israeli and Palestinian mothers whose children die in the new wave of violence that the remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked.
must "wipe out the stigma of Zionism from the face of the earth of Islam," says the Iranian president. Do not we feel, we who are not Israeli, nor perhaps even pro-Israeli and most non-Jews, just Zionists, these days?
Friends, politicians from left and right, intellectuals, simple citizens of a country that I love you, admirable men and women I meet regularly at our many events for the defense of human rights, against racism, for peace, come and cry together against this new epidemic that threatens us. Epidemic more dangerous than bird flu, more tenacious as hurricanes and tsunamis: the epidemic of hate.
by Marek Halter
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Marek Halter is a writer.
Source: The World
Article published in the 02/11/2005
I discovered the Iranian president on a television screen in the Russian waiting room of the Moscow airport. He seemed calm and determined. The death of millions of Israelis seemed to be obvious.
Passengers of all nationalities who followed his speech with me were astounded. I was too. And surprised. Not that I believed the newly elected Iranian full of love for humanity, but I did not think he would take the risk of being shunned by other nations in publicly calling for the destruction of a legitimate state, recognized by all.
I was wrong. He risked nothing and he knew it. It has oil and, soon, the atomic bomb. He also knew that the leaders of democratic countries would not dare, now, after the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and engage with the economic difficulties, causing a major political crisis in the world.
Certainly, the protests have been unanimous, but without result. No country has recalled its ambassador Tehran, even if only for consultation.
The Muslim world that Ahmadinejad clearly aspires to represent the political arena, as is in hiding Osama bin Laden, has not responded either. And yet, many Arab leaders were also targeted by the Iranian leader's speech.
No, no, no Muslim religious authority, no politician disassociated himself from the call to murder. Except ... the Palestinian Authority. And it is a great sign of hope.
Where are we with the duty to remember that we are hot ears for sixty years? What have we
learned from the cowardice of our parents in the 1930s? A politician had promised them hell. They thought that by shaking his hand in Munich, they gain paradise. In the absence of heaven, they left us a legacy of cemeteries.
Political scientists, commentators of all stripes will certainly apologize to the speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They will discuss her inexperience, internal difficulties, the necessary response to international pressure, to "provocations " American ... Maybe.
But for dozens of Iranian Jews, representing one of the oldest Jewish communities the world, who were abducted by the secret police and who remain unaccounted for, these excuses do not change. Since they do not mitigate the pain of the Israeli and Palestinian mothers whose children die in the new wave of violence that the remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked.
must "wipe out the stigma of Zionism from the face of the earth of Islam," says the Iranian president. Do not we feel, we who are not Israeli, nor perhaps even pro-Israeli and most non-Jews, just Zionists, these days?
Friends, politicians from left and right, intellectuals, simple citizens of a country that I love you, admirable men and women I meet regularly at our many events for the defense of human rights, against racism, for peace, come and cry together against this new epidemic that threatens us. Epidemic more dangerous than bird flu, more tenacious as hurricanes and tsunamis: the epidemic of hate.
by Marek Halter
---------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
Marek Halter is a writer.
Source: The World
Article published in the 02/11/2005
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