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Thursday, October 14, 2010

[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]

There's a school of thought, if I may so dignify it, that holds that there's nothing racist or fundamentally objectionable about anti-Zionism because opposing Zionism just means being opposed to a political system. The collapse of the Soviet Union is often proferred in this context as an example of one political system being replaced by another. "So what's the problem?" they say, "After Zionism is defeated all the people currently resident in what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories will be able to live together in peace and equality".

Happily, some anti-Zionists are more honest. One of them is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran. The BBC reports part of a speech he made in south Lebanon today as follows:

To thunderous applause he denounced the "Zionist regime" of Israel and said Israel would "disappear".

"The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin."

That seems pretty clear but no doubt the good Jews over at +972 - and those of like mind outside Israel - will find a way to parse it into meaning something completely different: that it really only refers to the settlers on the West Bank, that it won't apply to good Jews or that it's actually a complex joke based on a 12th century Persian poem and that the BBC's translators are all working for Mossad.

2 Comments

Thanks for turning me on to +972 magazine, a site I had not heard of before. So that's where Lisa Goldman is these days -- she's always worth reading.

+972 is about your speed, enjoy!

Lisa's around...maybe busy gnashing her teeth over various right wingers ruining her kaffeeklatsches with her Arab friends.

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