Comments on: Laura Rozen’s Iran MoJo Convo: Will Bush or Olmert Drop the Big One?

By: Rostam

Rostam — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:51:39 +0000

The alternative to an Israeli attack on Iran By Shlomo Ben-Ami and Trita Parsi

By: Shirin

Shirin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:53:52 +0000

Clearly dismantling the state of Israel and dispersing the Jewish population throughout the world will not ’solve’ the situation, instead it prolongs injustices on both sides of the conflict.

Surely the most positive solution we can hope for at the moment, is for the American administration (hopefully Obama?) to withdraw their un-mitigating support for Israel, in which case, Israel will have no option but to negotiate with its neighbours and enemies and this would, I pray, lead to a situation where lasting peace is a definite possibility.

Launching a military attack upon Iran - whether it be from America or Israel (and to be honest, in Iranian minds, there really isn’t much to differentiate between these two states, being bombed by one is the same as being bombed by the other) will obviously, only serve to inflame Iranian determination to exert its hegemony and put Israel more at risk than at any time during its short history.

By: ellen

ellen — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:21:02 +0000

In the latest (July 7) New Yorker, Seymour Hersh discusses a secret “Presidential finding” on Iran:
‘“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said’.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

By: rykart

rykart — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:18:33 +0000

What is the harm in letting the comment stand, without editing, Richard? What is the harm in allowing people to read a comparison made again and again and again by observers of the Israel-Palestine tragedy—journalists, human rights workers, authors and intellectuals, a great many of them, Jewish? Will people turn to stone if an apt comparison is made? What are you so petrified of?

By: rykart

rykart — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:41:41 +0000

Naturally, A.N. is not at all out of his/her mind but appreciates the obvious: The Israelis will never stop brutalizing the Palestinians so long as they have the ability to do so. There is absolutely no reason to hope that, should the miracle occur and the Palestinians be granted a state in the whole of the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, the israelis will stop attacking and murdering them. They are not going to stop, just because the land has gone from “Occupied Palestinian Territory” to “The Official State of Palestine.” It’s not going to change anything, particularly as it goes without saying, this new state will be denied the means to defend itself with a modern standing army and fully modern air defenses. America and Israel will never permit that and without it, there is no state.

The solution is a sad, protracted and bloody one. The Palestinians can only earn their freedom and self-determination the way the long-suffering people’s of Indochina won theirs—[this comment has been edited due to violation of comment rules--a further violation will cause the commenter to be banned].

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:07:47 +0000

@A.N.:

May I respectfully say that even if this is meant in “jest” (!) you’re out of your cotton-pickin’ mind.

By: A.N.

A.N. — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:21:35 +0000

I think that not only should we not attack Iran, we should ally with Iran to drive Israel out of the middle East. A true progressive cannot support the colonial entity of Israel, and Jews could be easily relocated to other countries. While a Jewish state may have fit in during the times of nationalism, in our post national era, it is just a provocation to the Muslim world. The disappearance of Israel would facilitate diplomatic relations with Iran, decrease the price of oil, and help faciliate diplomatic relations with al Qaeda. Better jaw jaw than war war

By: fiddler

fiddler — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:12:23 +0000

Grrrr. In my first comment, it shoud read “Words enclosed in “em” tags…”. I used angle brackets, and it promptly was interpreted as an actual tag. Sorry.

By: fiddler

fiddler — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:09:08 +0000

Possible fix: I just tried out a local copy of the page, and it seems the culprit for the formatting error is the “float: right;” line in the “.post blockquote em” definition in the css stylesheet. When I erase it, all is fine, on my browser anyway.

By: fiddler

fiddler — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:58:01 +0000

Something went wrong with formatting of the Danny Postel quote. Words enclosed in tags appear only later in the text, e.g. “John Bolton has floated the do suggestion…”, where the “do” belongs in the previous sentence. (In this case the error is accidentally accurate, as “do” means “toilet” in Norwegian. :-))
I’m using Firefox.