This is a tweet later deleted by former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, who implicitly acknowledges what everyone and their brother (and sister) knows: Israel has nukes. Though he deleted the tweet after either the military censor or someone else directed him to do so, it raises alarm bells about the stakes in this battle between the Israeli putschists and the pro-democracy movement.
He tweeted:
Though it might sound like fiction to us, in discussions Israelis have held with western sources, the latter fear that if regime change succeeds, Israel will become a messianic dicatorship in the heart of the Middle East, which will have nukes, and whose fanatics seek confrontaton with Islam around the Temple Mount. Such western sources are frightened…
Those Western sources would be absolutely correct in fearing this possibility. And it is not theoretical. It is very real. And if you don’t believe that Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich et al. would use any weapon at their disposal to defeat their Muslim enemies, you’d be a fool.
As I just wrote here: this is not a game or an exercise for them. It is life or death. They believe they have the power to bring the messiah, and that Islam is all that stands in their way. If a nuclear weapon would do the trick, they’d use it. But let’s say they have an ounce of common sense and wouldn’t use a nuclear weapon. Does anyone in their right mind think they wouldn’t use every possible weapon short of that to hasten the Messiah? And think for a moment about the mayhem that follows from that.
I appeal to the Biden administration: there is still time to stop this madness. If you don’t, then you will have to clean up the mess later and it will be 100 times worse than it is now. You may be washing away the blood of tens, if not hundreds of thousands from the streets of the Middle East for years to come.
Richard, would you object to Iran, “a messianic dicatorship (sic) in the heart of the Middle East”, having nukes?
@ Chad:
If Israel wants nukes why should any other country be denied them? Why does Israel deserve them, but not others? Because its interests are sacrosanct? Because its motives are pure and rational while others are irrational? Now, if Israel would disarm and declare the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, I’d be the first to demand all other states stop their own nuclear weapons research, including Iran.
But the Iranian regime is not messianic and not dictatorial. The Grand Ayatollah has extraordinary powers. But even he has limits on his power. His current ones are no more than the ones awarded to Netanyahu and his clique should they impose their anti-democratic coup.
Iran is a democracy, albeit a flawed one. In fact, Israel has almost as many flaws as Iran does. But it is a democracy. As for “messianic,” I have never heard an Iranian leader talk about needing to destroy the holy places of another religion in order to bring its version of the messiah.
[comment deleted: comments must be substantive and offer an argument related directly to the post. Yours doesn’t. It’s snark and snark isn’t welcome.]
Richard said:
“But the Iranian regime is not messianice (sic) and not dictatorial. It is a democracy..”
Sorry Richard , but according to the Economist, Israel is a ‘flawed democracy’ and Iran is authoritarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
Even UNESCO relies on the Economist, and other think tanks report the same findings with regards to Israeli democracy and Iranian authoritarianism.
https://www.unesco.org/en/world-media-trends/global-democracy-index
Richard, where is your proof that Iran is a democracy and not an authoritarian religious dictatorship?
As far as Messianic dictatorships goes, the Iranian constitution states that Islam is the official state religion, and the doctrine followed is that of Ja’afari (Twelver) Shiism.
“Shia Muslims in Iran and across the world believe that Imam Mahdi (AS) is alive, living among the people, and expecting the permission of God to reappear and make the whole world replete with justice and ends oppression.”
https://iranpress.com/content/74842/imam-mahdi-(as)-what-iran-known-for
More broadly speaking, “In the Islamic context, Messianism is emblemized by the eschatological figure of the Mahdi who, it is believed, will rise to restore the purity of the faith and to create an ideal religio- political system under a just social and legal order, a world free from oppression in which the Islamic Revelation will be the norm for all nations.”
https://www.al-islam.org/mahdi-quran-according-shiite-quran-commentators-toussi-n-vasram/chapter-1-mahdi-islam
In short, your claims that the Iranian regime is not messianic and not dictatorial are demonstrably false.
Happy Passover to all.
@ Chad: I’m going to respond to your 2nd comment in this thread this time. But you get a single comment per thread. Any comments beyond the first will be deleted and subject you to being moderated or banned.
Second, your prior comment was off topic. Comment only on the subject of the post. Any comment that diverges, as yours did is off topic.
A prior commenter raised the same argument as you regarding the Iran-Israel comparison. In fact, used virtually the same links. I HATE repeating myself.
The Economist is s right wing pro-capital media outlet. I do not credit it as a reliable source on political issues like this. The same holds true for Wikipedia on subjects concerning Israel: any concerning Israel are flooded with pro-Israel editors who shape the debate. Further, saying Iran is “authoritarian” ignores the democratic aspects of Iranian politics, and follows a general anti-Iran slant common to much of the media and sources like Wikipedia.
Also note, neither Iran nor Israel are democracies in the sense that Western democracies are. Any argument that Israel compares favorably to them is false. They are both flawed. In fact, both are deeply flawed. Each in a different way.
Iran has elections as Israel does. It has a legislature just as Israel does. It legislates just as Israel does. It has a president who performs the same function as Israel’s prime minister. It has elected local officials such as mayors, just as Israel does.
As for your further claims about Iranian messianism. You are confusing the Iranian state with Shia Islam. Of course, Islam informs the Iranian state. But unlike Israeli messianists, Iran’s state policy is not the same as its religious doctrine regarding messianism. The State does not act according to Shia messianist theology. It doesn’t destroy or seek to destroy religious shrines of other religions. IT does not seek to replace such shrines with Shia shrines. Nor does it suggest that doing so will bring a messianic era. Neither the State nor Iranian religious figures seek to incite religious holy war against other religions in order to bring about any messianic vision, as Israeli settlers, their rabbis, and their political representatives (Ben Gvir and Smotrich, among others) do.
Only someone who dabbles in these subjects as you do, would not grasp the nuance I outlined above. Your knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep (OK, 2 inches deepl). Your anti-Iran Islamophobia bias is showing.
Do the religious zealots in this administration also believe in the coming of the messiah? I thought it was just the Neturai Karta who thought that (listen to video below).
https://politics.ie/data/video/160/160480-f8d772dc1e8e249b161ad55be88548d4.mp4
@ roc: All Orthodox Jews believe in the coming of the Messiah.
Richard said:
“Iran has elections as Israel does. It has a legislature just as Israel does”
“Where Iranian elections are concerned, all of the candidates are carefully chosen by the all-powerful but unelected Guardian Council, a 12-member group of conservatives that wields immense power and influence among the hierarchy of the regime. Six of the council are experts on Islamic law, each having been selected by the Supreme Leader, while the other six are specialists in various aspects of judicial law, and are selected by the Supreme Judicial Council.
Not only does the Guardian Council supervise elections, it also approves laws passed by parliament, and through its duties as an overseer, frequently blocks any laws by reformers aimed at bringing more democracy to Iran. For the 2013 election, the Guardian Council had chosen eight presidential candidates out of a list of 686 hopefuls.
In Iran, no candidate can run without being endorsed by them and at the end of this procedure, if there are any candidates that Supreme Leader Khamenei feels won’t toe the line, they will be swiftly removed fr
https://english.alarabiya.net/perspective/features/2017/05/25/ANALYSIS-Welcome-to-Iran-s-elected-dictatorship
“On Friday, the eve of the 44th anniversary of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, celebratory fireworks lit up Tehran’s night sky. Within minutes, the show was interrupted with cries of “freedom” “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei,” Iran’s supreme leader, ringing from apartment windows.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2023/02/12/1156322493/fireworks-and-death-to-the-dictator-iranians-assess-the-revolution-44-years-on
I think it fair to say that they the Iranian people know better than Richard whether their government is a dictatorship or not.
@ Jay Goldblatt: When a commenter has posted their single permitted comment in a thread, do NOT engage in tag-team commenting. In other words, you MAY NOT continue the same theme advanced with the same argument by the original commenter, as you’ve done here. It’s commentum ad nauseam. It forces me to repeat myself in responding to you. Which I HATE. If you do this I will moderate or ban you. Also, the original comment was off topic, as is yours. If you post off-topic repeatedly that too is grounds for moderation. And if you are already moderated then the next step is banning. Consider yourself warned.
Again, as I wrote in my earlier response, Iran is a flawed democracy as is Israel. And if we want to talk about banning candidates, Israel does this routinely to Palestinian candidates, and in every election cycle. The fact that the Supreme Court overrules the decision does not negate the violation of democratic principles involved in the disqualification process. Not to mention, that the new coup rules would eliminate the Court rights to disqualify Palestinian candidates. Further, one intended new plank in the coup platform is to disqualify all “anti-Zionist” political candidates. Which would eliminate all Palestinian candidates and deny a huge minority of Israelis of ALL representation.
Do not quote Saudi Arabian media outlets in commenting on Iranian politics. They are biased and inadmissible. BTW, I wouldn’t trust Iranian media commenting on Saudi politics.
600,000 Israelis know that their government is a dictatorship-in-waiting as well. Not to mention that an unspecified number of anonymous protestors shouting slogans opposing the regime is anecdotal evidence at best. And certainly not representative of the views of all or most Iranians. Again, is the regime flawed? Yes. Is it any more flawed than the coup government in Israel? Probably not.