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	Iranian President”s comments on Israel sparked by Domestic Political Struggle by Nasrin Alavi openDemocracy   Nov 2005   The speech of Iran"s president calling for Israel"s destruction is a sign of domestic weakness not international strength, says Nasrin Alavi.   Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran"s president, has again outdone himself with his vile comments calling for Israel to be “wiped out from the map of the world”.   Ahmadinejad’s speech on 26 October preceded the annual Qods (Jerusalem) rally in Tehran, where (as CNN reported) thousands of Iranians “staged anti-Israel protests across the country…and repeated calls by their ultraconservative president demanding the Jewish state’s destruction.” The Qods rallies have been held since the early days of the 1979 revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini declared that the last Friday of the month of Ramadan would be marked as a day of solidarity with the Palestinian people.   Ahmadinejad and his ilk surely remember those early days when the gathering was called the “million strong march” – when hundreds of thousands of Iranians did indeed willingly turn out. But despite the headlines, the rally this year was a total flop with a low turnout –especially given the harassment and pressures to attend exerted on state employees, civil servants, members of the armed forces, teachers, factory workers and students.   “My word is the same as that of the Iranian nation”, Ahmadinejad now tells the outside world. In reality he is having difficulty speaking even on behalf of the regime"s inner circle. The latest evidence of elite divisions is a purge of Iranian ambassadors in important postings, including key regime figures such as Mohammad-Hossein Adeli in London, Saddeq Kharrazi in Paris, Shamsoddin Kharghani in Berlin and Amir Hossein Zamaninia in Kuala Lumpur.   It is known that these four ambassadors are politically aligned with Ahmadinejad"s defeated opponent in the presidential election, Hashemi Rafsanjani; all have been heavily involved in the nuclear negotiations of the last two years. Several other diplomats, like Muhammad Reza Alborzi at the United Nations, have been recalled to Tehran.   These abrupt dismissals are unprecedented, since traditionally Iran"s foreign-policy apparatus has been impervious to electoral change. The removal from office of such key figures would amount to declaration of war between the Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani camps.   Even in Iran"s majlis, the hardline-dominated parliament, things aren"t going well for the new president. In August, the majlis rejected four of his proposed cabinet ministers; four ministerial posts are still vacant months after his election victory.   Ahmadinejad comes from and is endorsed by the hardline core of the regime that has ultimately controlled power in Iran since the revolution. His ability or otherwise to keep his campaign promises in the next four years will be a critical challenge for Iran"s revolutionary elite. Yet the president"s campaign pledge of social justice and distribution of oil money to the poor seems increasingly unrealistic.   The new parliament has announced plans to reduce subsidies on the sale of imported petrol, bread and cement. With “rising chicken prices during the holy month of Ramadan”, some observers are already reporting the the beginning of the end of Ahmadinejad’s “honeymoon period”.   The power of dissent   The sabre-rattling of fanatics (as ever) is also drowning out Iran"s pro-democracy voices. On 26 October at a gathering of over 1,000 people (including the elected heads of Iran"s largest nationwide student union, Tahkim Vahdat), Mohsen Kadivar made a speech directed at supreme leader Ali Khamenei: “a symbol of freedom is for your opponents and those that criticise you to be safe in this society; otherwise merely talking of social justice is easy...Why are Akbar Ganji, Abdolfattah Soltani and Nasser Zarafshan still in jail?” Kadivar added: “I ask the security officers who are at present amongst us to take my words to the leader...”   Amnesty International has again expressed grave concern about the safety of Akbar Ganji, Iran"s longest-serving imprisoned journalist. According to his wife, he was severely beaten by Iranian security officers who wanted him to apologise in writing for his books and letters, and to undertake not to give interviews in the event of his release from prison. It may be hard for outsiders to believe, but the one-time revolutionary guard Ahmadinejad fears the writings of activists like Akbar Ganji more than any United States threat. Indeed the two opponents are connected in his mind. Ahmadinejad beams triumphantly as he takes questions from the press about Israel and the United States, for he knows that conflict with these powers strengthens his power base as even those Iranians who oppose him are tempted to move to his camp in the face of foreign aggression. He also knows that such conflict gives him a pretext to crush dissenters with more force than before.   The writer and journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi, a former jailmate of Ganji"s, has said that Ganji is “a stubborn south Tehran (working-class) lad that will fight any force or harassment.” Ahmadinejad became president with the backing of the noble south Tehran poor. He has promised them prosperity and jobs. He is more fearful of a confrontation with the great and good lads of south Tehran than any dirty war with the west.   (Nasrin Alavi is the author of “We are Iran: The Persian Blogs”).
	Israel provokes extreme passions by Mario Vargas Llosa OpenDemocracy   Oct 28. 2005   If the Palestinian-Israeli conflict did not exist, or had been resolved, the world would see Israel as one of the notable successes of modern history. Established as a state in 1948, Israel has moved in half a century from the third to the first world. It has become a developed and prosperous nation, integrated immigrants from several countries and cultures (though, in appearance at least, of a single religion), resuscitated a dead language, Hebrew, as its national tongue and equipped itself with atomic weapons and one of the world"s most advanced armies, capable of mobilising about a fifth of the population at short notice.   This success appears even more significant if we note that when the first Zionist immigrants arrived from Europe a century ago, Palestine was a poor province of the Ottoman empire, largely composed of stony deserts. It is true that Israel has enjoyed generous aid from abroad, mainly from the United States, from which it receives about $3bn annually, and from the Jewish diaspora. But this in itself hardly explains its impressive transformation into a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Few countries have succeeded in exploiting their resources, and the opportunities created by globalisation, in the way that Israel has.   Yet it is also true that in recent years, following industrial expansion, especially in the field of new technologies, the egalitarian society dreamed of by the early Zionists and epitomised internationally by the kibbutz movement has been replaced by one that is much more divided and antagonistic. The gulf between rich and poor has grown dramatically, and the idealism of the pioneer founders of Israel has given way to the egoism and materialism common to all modern societies.   Israel is proud of its adherence to legality and liberty, and its respect for the values and principles of democratic culture - something that is conspicuous by its absence in the rest of the Middle East. But these are relative truths, calling for qualification. Israel is a democracy in the full sense of the word for its Jewish citizens. It respects their human rights, guarantees freedom of expression and criticism, and anyone who feels his rights have been infringed can go to courts that are independent and effective.   These bright democratic colours fade considerably, and indeed at times disappear, when we turn to the 1.4 million Israeli Arabs - Muslims and a minority of Christians - who make up 20 per cent of the population. In theory they are full citizens, with the same rights and duties as the Jews. But in practice they are not. They are subject to many dis-advantages and do not enjoy the same opportunities as Jewish citizens. Their access to public services, and even their physical movement, is often limited or prevented, with the argument that these measures are indispensable to the security of Israel.   But Palestinian Israeli citizens live in enviable conditions compared to the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and, until recently, in the Gaza Strip, the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 after the six-day war in which it defeated the forces of Syria, Jordan and Egypt. This victory, of which most Israelis feel proud - defeating an Arab military coalition, recovering for the Jews the whole of their biblical ambit - turned Israel into a colonial country. This has been its nightmare ever since, and has done more than anything else to alienate world public opinion.   From civic and moral points of view, nothing corrupts a nation more than becoming a colonial power. At the time of the 1967 war, General Charles de Gaulle described the Israelis in terms that caused great controversy. He called them an "elite people, self-confident and dominating". I am not sure whether that was true then; but I am sure that Israel has since come much closer to what, when it was uttered, seemed an exaggerated description.   Israel"s relationship with the Palestinians is a shadow that morally darkens its material and social progress. In 38 years of occupation, the Palestinians have seen their lands invaded by hundreds of thousands of settlers who took their land and fenced it - followed by the arrival of the army to ensure their security and keep the victims at bay. In spite of the rivalries between left and right in Israel, they coincide in their support for settlement proliferation and enlargement. This abuse has been the greatest obstacle to any peace agreement. While Israeli governments have paid lip service to peace, in practice they have belied it with a policy that manifestly supports occupation.   There is no doubt that the Palestinians, through political division, terrorism and the inefficiency of their leaders, have been poor defenders of their cause, wasting the opportunities that, in my view, were offered by the Camp David and Taba negotiations in 2000 and 2001. Suicide bomb attacks on buses, restaurants, cafes and discotheques have provoked rage in Israel. But the outrages committed by the Israeli government against the general Palestinian population - collective punishments, demolition of houses, murder of terrorist leaders with inevitable collateral deaths, torture, show trials in which judges sentence the accused to long prison terms - are unjustifiable and indecent in a civilised country.   With the rise to power of Ariel Sharon, all hope of peace seemed buried for a long time. No one had promoted the policy of settlements in the occupied territories or sabotaged attempts at a negotiated solution to the conflict more vigorously than the Likud leader. And here is the puzzle. How is it that the same person who directed the military invasion of Lebanon, and who with his provocative stroll through holy Muslim places helped to unleash the second intifada, has now unilaterally closed the 21 colonial settlements in the Gaza Strip and returned the seized land to the Palestinian people? What lies behind this audacious initiative? Is it a serious attempt to show the world Israel"s desire to put a reasonable end to the conflict - or a tactical concession, to distract international attention while Israel continues its policy of land appropriation in the West Bank?   Copyright: Mario Vargas Llosa 2005
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