Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is largely misunderstood. He is fundamentally a Socialist. The reports that he is a holocaust denier are probably untrue. They have been variously translated by Iran media, the BBC and CNN. The BBC claims he is a holocaust denier, but another translation is that Israel uses the holocaust as a false pretext for Zionism and the existence of the sate of Israel. This is very different. Interestingly, Hamas have a similar standpoint. They say ferequently that they have nothing against Jews per se. They are opposed to Zionism and the expansion of Israel. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to be quite devout and bases a lot of his policies on Islamic beliefs. If anything, he is regarded as too liberal. He doesn't insist on the Hijab and has allowed women more freedom than was the case before he was elected.

You seem to base most of your arguments on the basis you 'know' a few Iranians or jews or whatever, which seemingly shapes your thinking, well done you. By the way I see you managed to deflect the discussion back to your favourite pet hate.

No. It is not just that I know some Iranians. And yes, I do think that Israel is the cause of almost all the problems in the ME. They also make no attempt to get along with their neighbours or even the Pelestinians in the West Bank. they take a tough line at every turn. Their settlement building is a good example.

Haystack, you're totally transparent, a very weak debating opponent and repetitive to the point of boredom. You and fred make a very good pair, you don't live togther by any chance do you? Incidentally, why not go to israel, live there for a while, experience for yourself what it is like to live in a country under threat of extinction. Alternatively, live in gaza and experience the same. Or if you feel so strongly, do something to support hamas instead of sitting on your fat arse pontificating all day long about something you have so little understanding. Sweet dreams

Israel being under threat of extinction is a self induced state. They have taken land that belongs to another group of people. Israel may try and say that there is no such people as Palestinians and that they had no right to live there, but more than a million refugees indicates otherwise. I have no sympathy at all for Israel. What do they expect to have happened. Hamas are not furing rockets at Israel and have not been doing it for some time now. This has not changed Israel's policies one bit. They might as well start firing again.

and the iranian gov't is just a bunch of old cuddlies who have been wrongly vilified by all and sundry ..... as for those torture victims? ..... well, they're just the result of a small criminal turf war between cousins of the krays and the richardsons to do with controlling sales of icecream ..... the iranian police are trying their damnedest to track them down and bring them all to justice

i wonder why one of the world's largest and oldest concentrations of jewish culture and life has now effectively disappeared from iran

i wonder why the lawyer who defended the leader of the iranian opposition felt obliged to flee the country in the middle of the night .... i wonder what has happened to his wife and family whom he left behind (which doesn't reflect well on him, it must be said)

Cynic,

How many Political prisoners are being tortured in "Israel" at the present time?

How many ex-Israelis who fled from Israel have been murdered by Mossad?

How many criminals has the the Israeli government contained over recent years?

You used the term blinkered, I would suggest purchase of a mirror.

I do not support what seems to be the entrenched view of some of the present Iranian political hierarchy and would dislike the thought of having a daughter subjected to what I would consider a primitive gender attitude by some Iranians, but would suggest that the same "cultural attitude" is present in Western Culture. Hence the need for "Women Libs." in Western countries.

The "attitude" to women in our culture, while not as extreme is present, but because it is our "culture" it is not recognised by many.

As far as the lawyer fleeing the country, I doubt that you would hang around for too long.

Haystack you often refer to the fact that Israel stole land belonging to Palestine, historical fact does not support this rather tenuous argument. Quite a long read (I don't even expect Cynic to try) but interesting:

Where did the name Palestine come from?


The name Palestine refers to a region of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the sea to the Jordan valley and from the southern Negev desert to the Galilee lake region in the north. The word itself derives from "Plesheth", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". Plesheth, (root palash) was a general term meaning rolling or migratory. This referred to the Philistine's invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea. The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs.

The Philistines reached the southern coast of Israel in several waves. One group arrived in the pre-patriarchal period and settled south of Beersheba in Gerar where they came into conflict with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. Another group, coming from Crete after being repulsed from an attempted invasion of Egypt by Rameses III in 1194 BCE, seized the southern coastal area, where they founded five settlements (Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gat). In the Persian and Greek periods, foreign settlers - chiefly from the Mediterranean islands - overran the Philistine districts.

From the fifth century BC, following the historian Herodotus, Greeks called the eastern coast of the Mediterranean "the Philistine Syria" using the Greek language form of the name. In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.

This remained the situation until the end of the fourth century, when in the wake of a general imperial reorganization Palestine became three Palestines: First, Second, and Third. This configuration is believed to have persisted into the seventh century, the time of the Persian and Muslim conquests.

The Christian Crusaders employed the word Palestine to refer to the general region of the "three Palestines." After the fall of the crusader kingdom, Palestine was no longer an official designation. The name, however, continued to be used informally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan River. The Ottoman Turks, who were non-Arabs but religious Muslims, ruled the area for 400 years (1517-1917). Under Ottoman rule, the Palestine region was attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. The name Palestine was revived after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine.

The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Roman "Palaestina". Quoting Golda Meir:

The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity. [In an article by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1995]

Haystack, incidentally, if I met or phoned you and threatened your life, by saying with utter conviction 'I'm going to kill you Greg', would you be in a self-induced state?

fred - if i ask a question about dining at the Waterside, to answer by asking (commenting even) about dining at the Fat Duck is a total irrelevance, even though they are within easy walking distance of each other

as suggested before - please go on a sabbatical for 1-3 years ..... i think you would the asylum near st remy where van gogh spent time most agreeable

Cynic,

Arles is a beautiful little town and I may be visiting again in the next few months.

But please, don't spoil it by going there.

Arles is many times larger than St Remy and has very significant roman ruins, including an amphitheatre where they threw christians to the lions among other jolly pastimes

visit the small van gogh museum there ..... when i was there last, it was linked to an exhibition of frances bacon, who was equally nuts in his own way

the huge market in Arles is of course wonderful, if you are into that sort of thing ..... stroll down through the public gardens to get to it

then allow your minder to drive you gently back to the asylum

.

It doesn't matter if you call them Palestinians. The fact is that there have been over a million refugees dispossesed by Israel.

The impression that Iran is anti-semetic is false. Iran is anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. Iran has the biggest Jewish population after Israel and Tehran has 20 active synagogues. Jews are not discriminated against in Iran. There is a also Jewish MP in Iran. It seems likely that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in fact originally Jewish. After he was born the family changed its name in the 1950s when they converted to Islam. Prior to that the family had a Jewish name.

Err... looks like the Jews in Iran have been having a wonderful time, perhaps you'd like to convert and live there?

Under the Phalevi Dynasty, established in 1925, the country was secularized and oriented toward the West. This greatly benefited the Jews, who were emancipated and played an important role in the economy and in cultural life. On the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 80,000 Jews lived in Iran. In the wake of the upheaval, tens of thousands of Jews, especially the wealthy, left the country, leaving behind vast amounts of property.

The Council of the Jewish Community, which was established after World War II, is the representative body of the community. The Jews also have a representative in parliament who is obligated by law to support Iranian foreign policy and its Anti-Zionist position.

Despite the official distinction between "Jews," "Zionists," and "Israel," the most common accusation the Jews encounter is that of maintaining contacts with Zionists. The Jewish community does enjoy a measure of religious freedom but is faced with constant suspicion of cooperating with the Zionist state and with "imperialistic America" both such activities are punishable by death. Jews who apply for a passport to travel abroad must do so in a special bureau and are immediately put under surveillance. The government does not generally allow all members of a family to travel abroad at the same time to prevent Jewish emigration. Again, the Jews live under the status of dhimmi, with the restrictions im posed on religious minorities. Jewish leaders fear government reprisals if they draw attention to official mistreatment of their community.

Iran's official government-controlled media often issues anti-Semitic propaganda. A prime example is the government's publishing of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Czarist forgery, in 1994 and 1999. Jews also suffer varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and public accommodations.

The Islamization of the country has brought about strict control over Jewish educational institutions. Before the revolution, there were some 20 Jewish schools functioning throughout the country. In recent years, most of these have been closed down. In the remaining schools, Jewish principals have been replaced by Muslims. In Tehran there are still three schools in which Jewish pupils constitute a majority. The curriculum is Islamic, and Persian is forbidden as the language of instruction for Jewish studies. Special Hebrew lessons are conducted on Fridays by the Orthodox Otzar ha-Torah organization, which is responsible for Jewish religious education. Saturday is no longer officially recognized as the Jewish sabbath, and Jewish pupils are compelled to attend school on that day. There are three synagogues in Tehran, but since 1994, there has been no rabbi in Iran, and the bet din does not function.

Following the overthrow of the shah and the declaration of an Islamic state in 1979, Iran severed relations with Israel. The country has subsequently supported many of the Islamic terrorist organizations that target Jews and Israelis, particularly the Lebanon-based, Hezbollah. Nevertheless, Iran's Jewish community is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel.

On the eve of Passover in 1999, 13 Jews from Shiraz and Isfahan in southern Iran were arrested and accused of spying for Israel and the United States. In September 2000, an Iranian appeals court upheld a decision to imprison ten of the thirteen Jews accused of spying for Israel. In the appeals court, ten of the accused were found guilty of cooperating with Israel and were given prison terms ranging from two to nine years. Three of the accused were found innocent in the first trial.5 In March 2001, one of the imprisoned Jews was released, a second was freed in January 2002, the remaining eight were set free in late October 2002. The last five apparently were released on furlough for an indefinite period, leaving them vulnerable to future arrest. Three others were reportedly pardoned by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate.

Today, Iran's Jewish population is the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel. Reports vary as to the condition and treatment of the small, tight-knit community, and the population of Iranian Jews can only be estimated due to the communitys isolation from world Jewry.

LOL

That particular piece that you have posted originates from the American-Israeli Cooperative and is hardly unbiased. Compared to the treatment of Arabs in Israel, the Jews live in paradise in Iran.

Indeed the source is correct, but what you fail to mention is that the document is factually correct (like you I have checked using multipe sources) and disproves your own sweeping comments in a previous post. Instead you question the bias of the document and make yet another opined comment. If the Jews are living in paradise in Iran, surely you would wish to go there yourself as a Jew; after all you know a few Iranians and I'm sure you would get on just fine.

The Iranians that I know are all Jewish Iranians. Their families fled when the revolution came expecting problems. They wish they hadn't left as they abandoned businesses there. I had a Jewish Iranian girfriend many years ago and she used to come and go to Iran regularly. Her family had stayed in Iran and had no problems living there.

There is no real history of anti-semetism in the ME. It has been a European thing. This is why the Arabs are not interested in the Holocaust. They regard it as a red herring, especially as it is not the Jews they hate, but Zionists.

Cynic,

When I visited Arles and Saint-Ry, one of my "minders" had recently written a biography of V Gogh and his psychiatric problems. (Widely accepted interpretation.)

I think my minder, who was into distorted individuals, at that time may have been interested in meeting you.

Hope the weather is better there than here.

.