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8 Responses to “Benny Morris: Nuke Iran”

1. Saint Michael Traveler says:

   July 21, 2008 at 5:28 AM

   Richard Silverstein,
   I thank you for your article. It is refreshing to see sanity outside of the world image created by Benny Morris.

   My take on Iran “What would you do if you were the president of Iran? What does Iran Want?”
   http://straveler-myamerica.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-would-you-do-if-you-were-president.html

   Reply
2. Donald says:

   July 21, 2008 at 9:18 AM

   Benny Morris is the strangest human being alive. I can’t think of another example of a warmonger who has exposed the war crimes of his own country, admitted that they were wrong (in the sense that it’s wrong to kill innocent people or rape women) while simultaneously wishing that the ethnic cleansing had been more thorough. So it’s not surprising that he wrote this. He’s a moral nutcase.

   What’s really despicable (but not surprising) is that the NYT carried this on their op ed page. Imagine them carrying a piece by some crazed lefty (I’ve read one or two) in favor of military strikes against Israel until they offer the Palestinians a fair and just solution. Why not let any crazy lunatic have their say?

   Reply
3. stop_crazy_zionists says:

   July 21, 2008 at 7:53 PM

   Morris is a fine example of how you become your enemy if you fixate upon them and don’t move on – he is a modern nazi – a zio-nazi … and now he finds it within himself and within his radical movement to actively seek to commit mass-killings of people in the name of their own protection. Did not Pinchet also claim “terrorism” at every turn as he committed vicious murders and fascistic progroms against his own people for their “protection?” Morris’s rant – and the baffling decision by NY Times to run it – bespeaks of a terrible sickness plaguing the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Truth has clearly been trampled and reasonable voices intimidated into silence or ignored as the steamroller (or IDF bulldozer) of “pre-emptive” warmaking ideology thunders ahead with their grand plan – and what is right be damned, what is justice be damned, what is best for particular nations (such as the U.S.) be damned, the lives of thousands (or even millions) be damned, all in the name of the grotesque lust for power by the Likkudnik/American neocon conspiracy and their helpers.

   Reply
   • Richard Silverstein says:

     July 21, 2008 at 11:54 PM

     @stop_crazy_zionists: There is enough to object to in Morris’ essay w/o dragging in extraneous, irrelevant sloganeering like calling him a “zion-nazi.” I don’t mind attacking Morris–have at him. Just avoid the grandstanding please.

     Reply
4. Shammai Leibowitz says:

   July 22, 2008 at 12:04 AM

   The only silver lining in Morris’s piece is that it reveals to fair-minded citizens of the world the insane delusions and barbaric assumptions of the Israeli warmongers.

   I realize that Israeli media would like us to hate and despise anything the has to do with these evil Persians, but, in fact we have a lot of common ground. From a linguistic perspective alone, Persian has enriched the Hebrew language tremendously. Consider these Hebrew words which origniate from Persian:

   ushpizin (the famous Sukkah guests) and ishpez (to hospitalize) – come from the Persian word meaning guest. Through the Greek it entered the English creating the words hospital, hospis, and hotel.

   etrog – comes form the Persian word meaning green-yellowish.

   boostan – a garden – comes from the combination of the Persian words “bo” – nice smell, and “stan” – place.

   balagan – the untranslatable Hebrew slang word (closest would be “a mess”) – comes from the Persian bala-khana – the attic (lit. high room).

   sarbal – overalls – is usually used in connection with sarbal tisa, air force pilots’ overalls – comes from the Persian word “sharval” meaning pants.

   So, we have a real balagan here. Just imagine, the Israeli pilots who would be sent to bomb Iran would be wearing their sarbalim – an Iranian/Persian word…what a crazy world.

   (This is just a partial list; we owe many other words to the Iranians).

   Reply
5. Saint Michael Traveler says:

   July 22, 2008 at 10:02 AM

   Persians and Israeli Poeple H Faces

   The following article is a good starting point for Persians and people of Israel start to talk together; war is not a sane solution.

   ”
   The looming Iran-Israel confrontation has a seemingly deterministic quality to it. Listening to the politicians, one gets a sense that powers beyond our control are pulling us toward a 21st-century disaster. Yet a great deal of the force propelling us into confrontation is fueled by ignorance and dehumanization. Israel is demonized as “Little Satan,” while Iranians are portrayed as irrational Muslim extremists.

   Indeed, mutual ignorance of our respective societies plays into the hands of the hard-line leaders who are calling for blood and destruction. They manipulate and distort; above all, they do everything to prevent us from recognizing that the enemy has a face.”

   Please read the total article:

   These enemies have faces
   By Trita Parsi and Roi Ben-Yehuda
   http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1003236.html

   Reply
6. Shlomo Glickstein says:

   July 22, 2008 at 9:56 PM

   no you only have to listen to or read Arab Muslim leaders who state and have stated clearly that there advantage is that they value and honor martyrdom in the pursuit of “resistance operations” and “strking the enemy” “killing the zionists”….

   Iran has indeed over and over used bellicose language about wiping Israel off the map… you try and even state that it has not even “implied so”… lol!!! and then try the old moral equivocation -
   “sure Iran hates Israel JUST AS Israel hates Iran”…

   No Israel has not advocated wiping Iran off the map only preventing it from getting nukes to threaten to do as such to Israel…
   It always amazes me the lenghts to which people like you will bend over backwards in moral equivocations and shadings to make a point.. it’s not enough to simply disagree with Morris and state that he has in your opinion go over the top – no it is imperative to tar and feather and demonstrate that he’s simply a lunatic

   Ironically this lunatic has written the most extensive cited history of the 48 war which the far left always cites.. so to then paint him as a genocidal out of his mind nut one has to ask – well why is he stating how imperative it is for Israel to wipe out Iran’s potentical nucleur capabilities? Perhaps there is a reason….

   Reply
7. Richard Silverstein says:

   July 22, 2008 at 11:51 PM

   @Shlomo Glickstein:
   

   Iran has indeed over and over used bellicose language about wiping Israel off the map

   You’ve been reading too much MEMRI. That translation from Persian was faulty. First, “Iran” has not said this. An Iranian president, losing power by the minute, has stated that he wished Israel would disappear. He did not say Iran would wipe Israel off the map.

   it is imperative to tar and feather and demonstrate that he’s simply a lunatic

   If you think what I wrote was strong you should read the hundreds of comments at the NYT site. They were equally if not more vehement.

   I acknowledged in my post that Morris has written important works documenting Israel’s crimes against its Arab inhabitants in 1948. But I note that he was forced to simply admit what was in the archives. However, Morris now wishes that Israel had compouned its crimes by being even more systematic about its expulsion of the Arab population. In effect, he has documented war crimes and now says there should have been more of them. But at least this is an academic field in which he has some expertise.

   He has no academic expertise regarding Iran. He doesn’t cite any experts or archival material or any source to justify his lunatic ranting. If this were the only piece he’d ever published he’d be laughed out of academia. Lucky for him, he has built some credibilty because of his previous work in a field about which he knows something.

   Reply