JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

On Abdullah’s mind

By Uriel Heilman · May 18, 2009

How does Roger Cohen know what Saudi King Abdullah is thinking?

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News Alert: NTY Op-Ed page discovers Iran isn’t dreamland

By JTA Staff · April 21, 2009

What can foreign prisoners expect in Iran?

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Stop at the fold

By Uriel Heilman · April 13, 2009

Roger Cohen imagines a U.S.-Iran peace deal but warns that Israel could get in the way.

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Cohen misses the point—again

By Uriel Heilman · March 2, 2009

Roger Cohen responds to critics of his Iran column last week, and slams Israel—again.

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Naive on Iran

By Uriel Heilman · February 23, 2009

Israel endures yet another condemnation from Iran—this time, from Roger Cohen.

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Iran’s underground

By Uriel Heilman · October 27, 2008

Western intelligence experts believe that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so deep underground that it would be difficult for Israel to wipe them out, or even significantly damage them, with a quick airstrike, Newsweek reports.

0 Comments | Share This | Iran, Israel

CSIS on Iran

By Ron Kampeas · October 8, 2008

The always sober Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies delivers a comprehensive, smart and scary report on Iran, its nuclear potential, what to do about it and what it means for Israel.

Some of its conclusions:

Iran’s nuclear program is continuing to improve and is becoming steadily more threatening. Because of Iran’s deceptive behavior, policy makers must plan to deal with a possible Iranian force with unknown characteristics, delivery systems, basing, and timelines.

Iran’s development of missiles and other potential delivery systems is ongoing and producing steadily more capable systems. Recent missile developments have shown Iran’s may be actively working to equip missiles with nuclear warheads and to improve the range-payload capabilities of its missile program. These developments given new impetus to the development of missile and air defenses by Iran’s neighbors, Europe, and the U.S.

Although there are many possible military scenarios for dealing with Iran, there are major uncertainties regarding Iranian defensive doctrine, location of HVT’s, non-state actors, covert operations, and alliances. The international community can wait for diplomacy for the time being, but it cannot ignored the need to develop effective military option, including defense and deterrence. 

It’s a 178-page pdf, so be warned.

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Mahmoud’s rantings

By Uriel Heilman · October 3, 2008

If you thought what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had to say about Zionists at the U.N. General Assembly was bad, you should hear what the Iranian president told Iranians:

The Zionists are crooks. A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, have taken over the power centers of the world. According to our estimates, the main cadre of the Zionists consists of 2,000 individuals at most, and they have another 8,000 activists. In addition, they have several informants, who spy and provide them with intelligence information.

“But because of their control of power centers in the U.S. and Europe, and their control of the financial centers and the news and propaganda agencies, they spread propaganda as if they were the entire world, as if all the peoples supported them, and as if they were the majority ruling the world.

More of Ahmadinejad’s rantings against Israel and the Zionists were translated by MEMRI, and the video can be seen here.

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More Mahmoud, Part 2

By Ben Harris · September 26, 2008

The saga continues ... Iran’s president, meeting last night with an inter-religious group that included a rabbi, was met with protests outside the Manhattan hotel where the encounter took place.

Earlier in the day, Ahmadinejad met with some media bigwigs for breakfast, as recounted by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. The Chicago Tribune has a slightly fuller account. The New York Times also has a lengthy interview with the Iranian leader.

And in case you missed the anti-Semitic rant he delivered Tuesday at the United Nations, Eye on the UN has produced this nice little highlight reel of the speech’s greatest hits, including an embrace by the General Assembly president, who is also a Catholic priest. Apparently, Israel’s new U.N. ambassador is none too happy.

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More Mahmoud

By Uriel Heilman · September 24, 2008

Iran’s president had his big day at the United Nations yesterday, giving a speech slamming Zionists and replete with classic anti-Semitic motifs: The Zionists are murderers, deceitful and dominate global finance despite their “minuscule” number, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Then he went on CNN to talk with Larry King about how the Zionists start wars, have no religion, and are “uninvited guests” (he starts talking about Israel at minute 13:40).

As with many other American media personalities who have sat down with Ahmadinejad over the years, King was outmaneuvered by Iran’s president (and his shrill translator) when it came to Israel’s right to exist and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Where King, and others, have failed to challenge Ahmadinejad is on his assertion that, if the Holocaust is true, Jews should get a state in Germany, not Palestine (for more on that, Israeli artist Ronen Eidelman has a project proposing the establishment of a Jewish state in Weimar, Germany). King should have pointed out that, as a devout Muslim, Ahmadinejad ought to know from the Bible (considered a holy book by Islam) that the Jews are indigenous to the holy land, and not a European people – to say nothing of the fact that half of Israel’s Jews are immigrants or children of immigrants from the Middle East, that Jews continually lived in Palestine/Israel since the last Jewish state there 2,000 years ago and that Israel is a democratic nation of all its citizens and not just its Jews (Israeli Arabs have the vote, too).

And when Ahmadinejad was talking about Palestinian suffering, King could have pressed him about the Arab attacks against Israelis that perpetuate the conflict – and Palestinian suffering. The point is not to get into a pissing contest about whose suffering is worse – the Israelis’ or the Palestinians’ – but to understand the context for the suffering of the Palestinian side and its root causes: the refusal of powerful Palestinians to give up their war against Israel.

JTA’s Ron Kampeas notes that CNN’s Christiane Amanpour made her own bungle of an analysis of Ahmadinejad’s speech, which she characterized as Ahmadinejad “trying to actually pull back from some of that very fiery rhetoric that he’s directed towards Israel.”

For Ahmadinejad’s interviews with NPR and the L.A. Times, read yesterday’s post.

4 Comments | Share This | Anti-Zionism, Iran