A Zionist on Iranian Television
Defending Israel and the Jews on Ahmadinejad's favorite channel.
I knew it was coming.
“The Zionists have all the money.”
So said Ghayth Armanazi, the Syrian former head of the Arab League, sharing a panel with former British ambassador to the United States Peter Jay, Workers International activist Tony Saunois, and me. Hosted by conservative British radio personality Nick Ferrari, the debate was on Press TV in London for broadcast in the month of December and the topic was the future of the world under Obama. Press TV is the Iranian English-language television station in London. Many American and British colleagues were astounded that I, a “Zionist neocon,” had agreed to be on the panel, but my inclination is that Ahmadinejad’s station needs to hear my kind of voice. If the Battersea-based broadcaster is gracious enough to invite me, deliver me to and from in a beautiful limousine with a driver infinitely more courteous than your average London minicab operator, ply me with gorgeous food — and I am still alive — and provide a mostly friendly audience and production crew, I am game for the challenge.
Getting back to Armanazi’s observation: this had arisen from a question about the new Obama administration’s attitude towards the “Israel-Palestine” situation. He wanted to make it abundantly clear to the mostly youthful, Muslim audience that the Jews control everything and that Obama got to this place with Zionist money! What an irony: As I explained with barely contained apoplexy, immensely rich “Zionists” (sic) like George Soros were the kind of Jews who wanted Bush out of office by any means possible. I reminded Mr. Armanazi and the nearly 100% Muslim audience that 77% of American Jews are reported to have voted for Obama and that traditionally 87% of American Jews support the Democratic Party.
This did not help. The audience and panel were worried sick about another dangerous “Zionist,” (sic again) Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff-designate. My contribution to this heated assertion was to remind the assembled panel and crowd that “Zionist cohorts” (sic) are not about to take over the world. There was a murmur in the crowd whenever Emanuel’s name was mentioned — almost a groan — reflecting the apprehension already afoot in the British and Arab media about “son of Irgun fighter” Emanuel. (It should be noted that Frank Furedi, who appeared on a BBC Any Questions? panel with me in August, is also the son of a Zionist warrior but happens to be the founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain.)
The very upper-crust Peter Jay made an assertion that one hears at every fashionable London dinner party: the Palestinians have been living in one giant concentration camp for decades and their land was taken from them sixty years ago. His contempt for me and for the Zionist cause was barely containable when I ventured to counter this calumny. (In this month of December, MPACUK, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, is using this latest mantra in a vicious piece: how dare the Jews still bang on about the Holocaust when they have created one of their own making in Palestine?)
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Carol Gould is the Philadelphia-born author of Don’t Tread on Me: Anti-Americanism Abroad, Spitfire Girls, and A Room at Camp Pickett, a play about her mother’s experiences as a WAC in World War II; she has just completed films about black GIs and GI babies. Carol has been a panelist on BBC's Any Questions?, hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby, and is a commentator on Sky News, Press TV, the BBC World Service, and Five Live.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
22 Comments
1. DoubleTapper:All we did was try to clean up the mess we made in 2005 when we left Hamas in charge of Gaza.
Jan 2, 2009 - 1:43 am 2. mike:And yet some people have the ignorance to do this!
How can we let this pass?
DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on
Guns Politics Defense from Israel
i’m christian and i was allowed to immigrate to israel (thanks to my arab wife). not that it will make one shred of difference to anyone regurgitating the propaganda.
Jan 2, 2009 - 2:27 am 3. DD:It is understandable that the Iranian and Syrian panel members are ignorant of the facts. But Peter Gay has no excuse. You should have attacked him on his ignorance of the facts and put him in his place.
Jan 2, 2009 - 5:38 am 4. Lisa:The Church of England anyone? Hello. All of Europe was until very recently nothing but countries for Christians… specifically Catholics for hundreds of years.
No. Israel is not the only country created by people based on one religion. What an ignorant statetment.
Jan 2, 2009 - 7:37 am 5. Michael:You say: The panel’s Peter Jay reflected a major proportion of British public opinion
Jay reflects the opinions of the Guardian-reading classes. I doubt that 1% of the British ever read that newspaper. Most Brits dismiss his opinions, the Guardians, and those of the BBC as a load of rubbish.
Jan 2, 2009 - 7:38 am 6. Carol Gould:Michael,
Yes, I see your point. I think the media here -including Sky and the anguished Julian Mannion of ITN — create the impression that all of Britain wants Israel to sink into the sea.
One other general observation: Ahmadinejad gave the ‘Alternative Christmas message’ on Channel Four Television, creating a huge uproar, but he also appeared on Larry King for an hour. For all intents and purposes Larry is a proud Jew and I suspect a Zionist. Interesting pairing.
Jan 2, 2009 - 8:05 am 7. Laura:I think a psychiatrist would have a field day with Mahmoud A.
Having lived in Israel for 6 years, I can attest to the fact that 1,000,000 Russians (mainly non-Jews) now live there and have complete freedom to worship as non-Jews, as do the thousands of foreign workers, diplomats, tourists. Every magazine and newspapers lists synagogues, churches and mosques with the times of services. I wouls love to get a hold of a Saudi paper that does the same.
Jan 2, 2009 - 8:34 am 8. Don:Mr Jay’s commentary from the “Press TV” program are breathtaking, how one so rich in educational and worldly experience could be simultaneously so willfully ignorant. Obviously his experience with us was skewed by racial/religious/cultural biases, I guess that’s his loss and the loss (by his ignorant attitude) of the UK (having such a compromised representative individual representing Her Majesty’s Government). I guess the old Monty Python sketches about inbred upper class “twits” had some truth to it
Jan 2, 2009 - 8:59 am 9. LennyB:I don’t think it’s willful ignorance, necessarily. It is simply a matter of where one’s priorities lie.
Those of us who are more angst-ridden about the whys and moral equivalence of the rights and wrongs humans do to one another throughout history — those folks are simply predisposed to decide who is right and who is wrong, and make judgments accordingly. Jay’s thought process clearly goes no further than that, and he’s simply choosing a side. Some say Israel is a war criminal, some say Palestinians are war criminals. No doubt both sides have a legitimate beef of one sort or another.
Others of us understand that the real evil in this world is not the collection of bad actors who do wrong, as that is merely a question of perspective; rather, it is when a weaker party who believing themselves righteously wronged cannot accept defeat, and worse, cannot acknowledge the ultimately futility of their efforts to seek redress. They therefore willfully place themselves in a perpetual cycle of non-civilization — witness continued feeble efforts to retaliate against a vastly militarily superior foe by targeting civilians, the hopeless joke of the “intifada”, etc. etc. Such that life cannot move on. That, my friends, is uncivilized — and unfortunately requires uncivilized methods to deal with. Hamas and their ilk have a legitimate beef (seen from their perspective) about land. But their inability to accept the balance of power in concert with their own military impotence requires that they be eradicated. The group of persons I mentioned above can never be made to understand this and would freely apply the term “holocaust” as it befits their opinions on who is “right” vs. “wrong”. But the latter rightly recognize that civilization (by very definition) occasionally requires brutal methods by the strong applied to the weak to ensure that civilization can actually exist. And in this case, the sooner the better in my opinion.
If the world cannot realize that the very existence of a group like Hamas (that vows destruction of Israel but can never attain this goal) runs counter to civilization, then it is the world that will eventually become uncivilized.
Jan 2, 2009 - 10:03 am 10. John from Toronto:Let’s see: The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Organization of the Islamic Congress (more than 50 nations that self-identify as Muslim). Can you imagine a Congress of the Christian Congress, or a Congress of the Jewish Congress. Oh yeah, there is one country that self-identifies as Jewish, and for many in the world that is one too many.
The world is upside down and our leaders just don’t get it.
Jan 2, 2009 - 12:16 pm 11. mishu:How do you keep a straight face when listening to that rubbish?
Jan 2, 2009 - 12:31 pm 12. The Angel Gabriel:I can solve peace in Israel and Palestine for all time. Today is 1/2/09. Let’s announce that america will explode all of its aging nuetron bombs scheduled for decommission directly over the Temple Mount and what the heck Calvary hill just to be fair on 1/02/10.
We of course will provide funding to relocate all in the blast radius to other lands before the big boom. The goal will be to ensure nothing can live in the Holy Land except the Angels thus protecting it form the corrupting influence of a humanity damned to Hell eventually any ways.
You may say this is nuts but I say it is the only thing that will stop the bloodshed over that land.
Jan 2, 2009 - 7:49 pm 13. David Jackson:What is the name and date of the program ? I’d like to see it.
Jan 3, 2009 - 10:27 am 14. albie:LennyB, as much as I wish what you wrote wasn’t true, I’m certain it is. It seems that the farther removed Western Civilization gets from its origins, the more it forgets what must have been not just obvious, but a building block of civilization.
Jan 3, 2009 - 12:17 pm 15. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater:Look at what it took for Germany and Japan to live with their defeats. Compare Germany post WWI, where they were not decisively and mercilessly destroyed, thus allowing the “stabbed in the back” fiction to fester, and post WWII, where there was absolutely no doubt as to the victors and the submitting vanquished.
“compassionate” warfare is ultimately far more cruel and costly than total war. If you let your enemy think they have a chance, you prolong the war. Ironically, merciless and unyielding total war is more merciful. Not only that, but in those purulent Arab cultures they take mercy as a sign of weakness, and Israel attempting to be civilized is just seen as a lack of commitment.
I hope Israel will kill and kill and kill until the last HAMAS fighter is feeding worms.
Jan 3, 2009 - 1:39 pm 16. Stosh2:RE: …Israel is the only nation on earth created by a people seeking a state based on one religion…
Pakistan preceeded Israel as a modern state specifically created by a people based on one religion.
Wikipedia: “It (Pakistan) was a part of British Raj from 1858 to 1947, when the Pakistan Movement for a state for Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League resulted in the independence and creation of the state of Pakistan…”
Israel declared independence in May of 1948.
Jan 3, 2009 - 2:30 pm 17. Jack:Muslims are barbarians and anti-civilization. It is too bad, and it sucks, but there it is, nevertheless.
Jan 3, 2009 - 2:44 pm 18. peter mcdougald:the barbarity of the Muslim and Islam is apparent and the source of their hatred is obvious. what is truly frightening are the useful idiots in the MSM and elsewhere in the west. these too must be stopped, the west needs laws which require balanced reporting from MSM outlets or they lose their license to indoctinate with propaganda.
Jan 3, 2009 - 10:16 pm 19. m:“Israel is the only nation on earth created by a people seeking a state based on one religion”
No. Look at Saudi Arabia, all citizens MUST be Muslim – no other religion is allowed. So what if it isn’t official? There are many countries in our world today that are just like Saudi Arabia. Israel, on the other hand, has Muslims, Christians, and civilians of many other religions.
Jan 4, 2009 - 3:03 pm 20. m:7: I agree with you. I’ve been to Israel many times and every time I come there I am amazed at what a beautiful and modern country it is. Honestly, it’s no wonder so many people around the world hate Israel, the way Israel looks in the media is nothing like it is in real life. It’s sad how Israel is always shown as violent when it is really protecting itself from the enemies that are all around. Israel must protect itself every day, I don’t think that’s something that the West understands :/
Jan 4, 2009 - 3:12 pm 21. Religion of Pieces:Israel doesn’t burst into the homes and churches of Israeli Christians (or even Muslims) and kill them because they aren’t toting the state religion. Israel promotes freedom and prosperity and its people are reputed to be kind and warm-hearted by just about everyone I know who has ever visited the country.
Which sharia-law based Arab nation does the same; tolerating other religions and encouraging freedom?
Answer: None.
Jan 4, 2009 - 4:32 pm 22. moishe:i don’t know about the zionists have all the money thing but has anyone stopped to think about all the arab oil money . they could create a utopia in the palestinian state if they really wanted to just from the daily interest generated from all their wealth
Jan 5, 2009 - 2:16 pm