Initially, I wanted to devote this post to the Seminar held by the Center for Peace and Environment in Assalouye in the Southern Pars region in Iran . Assalouye is one of the major petrochemical and gas refinery centers of the world, centered in southern Iran. Along with a long list of scholars and experts we delivered a series of speeches on the environmental challenges of the petrochemical industies. Although these complexes have taken great strides in areas related to wastewater treatment, EIA, environmental management and hazardous waste management, there are still major air pollution issues due to the open flares in the region. We spent the morning in Assalouye and came back with a 1.5 hour flight to Tehran.
HOWEVER after the massacre in Gaza I cannot help mentioning the tragedy , where Israel has dropped 100 tons of bombs only yesterday. This has led to the killing of more than 280 people to this moment, mostly civilians in less than two days. Palestine has not seen such aerial bombardments and terrible crimes since 1967 and it is interesting to know that no Israeli has been killed by any Palestinian during the past 6 months. Gaza has been under seige now for more than 6 months only because they have not recognized the legitimacy of Israel. The Leader of the Revolution has serously condemned the killings in his message today(Sunday) and announced tomorow as a day of mourning. It is quite shameful that in such circumstances human rights activist and supporters of peace remain silent. It is also shameful that double standards rule when it comes to the death and killing of Palestinian civilians. Israel seems to have the right to kill people to secure its security .
In any case, Israelis will be confronted with the unity of the Palestinian people , their heroic resistance and their readiness for martyrdom. In addition the awakening of the Islamic ummah is underway.... Leaders of the Arab world are mostly silent, there is little support, Egyptian leaders seem to have compromised the security of Gaza for their selfish concerns.
10 comments:
It is interesting that you are blaming Israel for these counter attacks.
Let me ask you a question. If Iraqis were to fire rockets on a daily base toward one of your border towns for a month would you applaud them?
Hamas won the Palestinian 2006 election by promising these poor people security and prosperity. Instead since their victory all they have done is financing suicide bombers and rocket throwing. Israel is not blameless in this Arab/ Jew conflict either but the blame for this latest carnage is on Hamas.
As for Iran leaders and Arab leaders if they are so worried about injustice done to Palestinians they may want to first get rid of the injustice done in their own country before they become “Kaseh Dagh tar az Aash”.
you WOULD say this "Black Chador", it's not surprising that you would!!!! but then again, will you analyze the situation the same way if your country USA (under warmongers like Bush, not under Obama) had decided to say:
we have had enough of these Mexicans crossing the border so much, we are going to close off all our southern border, build up a wall between USA/Mexico, deprive them of food, medicine, basic essentials like heating oil and electricity, even stop their fishermen from earning a living through use of the Gulf of Mexico, we are also gonna make a deal with Guatemala and Belize, offering them huge sums of money in exchange for asking them to also besiege this nuisance of a nation, and close their borders with Mexico as well, ... and then when the youth of Mexico got hungry, frustrated, desperate, and felt like his or her life didn't MEAN anything to anybody in the world, saw the entire world silent against this humanitarian crisis, saw his/her parents and grandparents die from lack of access to medical care or for want of basic food, causing this young Mexican to take up weapons and promise to RESIST this injustice the only way that he/she can, by throwing rockets into American border towns, ... then your president Bush launched a massive air strike in retaliation, killing more than 200 innocent civilians in one day, and claimed it was the Mexicans' fault for NOT bowing their heads to us in submission!!!! it was their fault that we are bombing them 3 day on a row, dropping tens of thousands of tons worth of BOMB on them b/c they did not put down their arms while we were (and are) still imposing this siege on them, therefore we are going to kill as many of them as possible to teach them a lesson, and once the world pressure REALLY mounts on us forcing us to finally break down that APARTHEID wall, at least by then, a whole lot of these angry youths (whom we call "thugs" and think of as Frankenstein) which we have ourselves created through our inhumane treatment of them and their parents, a lot them will have been gotten rid of, and by then we can maybe trust a TRUE PEACE between USA-Mexico within their legitimate and UN-recognized borders! ...
would you attribute such a scenario to the likes of Bush or to the likes of Obama?
I am hopeful about the world b/c Obama is coming, and this kind of mentality is dying with the awakening of Obamanation!
I hope this means ALL of them!!!!
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4BS1EP20081229?virtualBrandChannel=10112
Dr. Ebtekar, you Reformists have to make sure that your hardliner rivals like Ahmadinejad himself, his supporter Jannati, his friend PoorMohammadi and especially that editor of Jomhoori Esslami newspaper (whatever his name is) DO actually register for this "war" they love so much!!!! let's NOT let them get away with PRETENDING to have hearts that bleed for Palestinians, lets have them stand up for their beliefs if they think the answer is found in a WAR!!!!!!
this is the time that TRUE followers of Imam Ali are distinguished from FAKE people of Kufeh!!!
if you advocate war, then go ahead, register for your chance at martyrdom, besmellah! you should volunteer to fight and become shaheed just like those 72 friends of Imam Hossein did in Karbala, God Bless! ...
but if you advocate smart diplomacy like Imam Hassan or Imam Ali at this point, then get to it, diplomacy is the perfect ART that belongs to Iranians (honar nazde Iranian ast o bass), people who invented the game of CHESS!!!
either way, be TRUE to your cause! DO NOT PRETEND!
God is All-Knowing!!!
Alaho Akbar!
A very good article by Ray Takeyh:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801273.html
I admire Dr. Takeyh and of course one of the reasons I'm so hopeful about this new Obama World is that the voices of scholars, experts, researchers and rational thinkers like Ray Takeyh and Vali Nasr and ... WILL get to be heard in his administration, as opposed to the voices of fundamentalist graduates of Liberty University and other followers of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and John Hagee!!!! BUT, ...
Sir, I think your assumptions about the mentality and goals and motivations of Iranian leadership might be a tad bit divorced from a genuinely DEEP understanding of their ideology. I know you are a colleague of Dr. Vali Nasr and have written articles in collaboration with him, so I'm sure you are an expert in understanding Islam, especially Shiite Islam, but perhaps even a deeper, less political but more philosophical study of their world-view could give you a tiny bit more accurate of a picture for "What Iran Wants" if you actually ask your friend to arrange a meeting for the two of you with his father the great Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr who is an expert in that philosophy.
If we are looking at IRI and its decision making processes purely from the point of view of POLITICAL and STRATEGIC thinking, yes your analysis would get an A+, but Sir, the difference between a SECULAR and a RELIGIOUS or as you put it THEOCRATIC ruling system is that RELIGION and the Moral Convictions that it brings to its practitioners (which I'm sure you'd agree the Iranian leadership circle, most of them at least, are the TRUE pious devout followers of it) DO actually play an ENORMOUS role in how they set their agendas, domestic OR foreign.
So, to simply say "Iranians are after expanding their political influence and power in the region, and the Gulf region is more important to them than the Middle East, or that they want to keep Hezbollah as their powerful ally but will reign in Hamas in order to make deals with the West ..." (paraphrasing you here, I hope you didn't mind) assumes PURELY strategic thinking on their part, assumes a mindset of a secular ruling system, assumes a natural, rather HUMAN sense of "selfishness" which in people who aspire (in their hearts of heart) to ascend to a GODLY state of "selflessness" just does not hold!
Now, I'm far from the level of innocence and naiveté to suggest that people like Mr. Rafsanjani and other billionaires in that system can be considered as being in the same league with those "selfless" men of God who aspire to attaining the genuine levels of SPIRITUALITY, but it is important to look at each individual in the decision-making circles of IRI from a more personal, more intimate, more human angle, and see if there might be higher ideals, higher convictions, higher levels of MORALITY at play in their hearts for making the decisions they make or standing FIRM in their PRINCIPLES as they do.
Sir, I hope you might consult with Dr. Hossein Nasr and find out what he might know of the HEART of people like his old student Dr. Haddad-Adel who is now related to Iran's Supreme Leader by marriage. I say this, because some of these men were old students of my late uncle who was in the same league with Dr. Hossein Nasr as far as his level of scholarship on Islamic Studies as well as Iranology, and I have a feeling that if my uncle was alive today, he might have a slightly different analysis of what these men want for Iran than you have stated here in this wonderful article.
Thank You for such an in-depth analysis though, I'm glad President Obama has people like you to listen to. Best Regards,
Hey, I just noticed this nice bouquet of roses sitting ever so peculiarly next to Mr. Ahmadinejad in his Christmas address to Britain!
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184614595/bctid5777729001
Can it mean something?!!! ... or is cigar sometimes just a cigar?!!! ...
Stephen Colbert might extend his arm, open and close his palm, and say: "decipher please?!!!!" ... and as a die-hard member of the ColbertNation, loving him as I do, I'd like to take a shot at answering him, using a MasterCard add:
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Jesus Christ = Obama
"one of the children of the messenger of Islam" = a "Seyyed" High Priest (valiye faghih)
"that joyful, shining and wonderful age" = PRICELESS!
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:-)
Wouldn't that be LOVERLY???!!!! ;-)
let's all watch this top notch, most wonderful, BEST actress in the history of mankind, my beloved, my eternal beloved, amazing Audrey Hepburn as she sings this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEcX9gNVg1U&feature=related
and let's all pray that Jesus son of Mary, or at least one of his children, Obama son of Ann Dunham can bring EVERLASTING PEACE to the people of Palestine and ALL the followers of those "Abrahamic Faiths", making it LOVERLY for one and all!
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! ;-)
Dear Dr. Ebtekar, I was wondering why you had not posted that note from me to Dr. Haddad, but then I saw in my draft version that I had forgotten to put the link to his speech first before responding to some of the points he was making! Is that why you didn't post it or is it because you wanna say to me: "email him yourself, why do you put your response to Dr. Haddad on my website???"
I did send my message to him through the website of the news website which had posted his speech (www.fardanews.com), but I want to also tell you that when I try to put links to these different IRI men's speeches and remarks here on your page, and give my "Western" (Citizen of the World) perspective with regards to these different points of view coming out of Iran, it is b/c I want your readers to get a better sense of Iranian regime's mentality!
I am spending all this time and energy, dedicating so much passion to a cause I believe in, which is that "Dialogue Among Civilizations" of Mr. Khatami, I try to play the devil's advocate from both sides as much as I can, trying to be fair to both sides of the "CONVERSATION", putting myself in the other side's shoes (b/c I can, I am a product of such an amalgam of cultures myself!!!), giving both sides the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, b/c I want there to be as much UNDERSTANDING between Iran and the West as possible in these crucial times for Iran's history, and since you are a well-known prominent Iranian politician, known by your counterparts in the West as someone with access to IRI decision-making circles, I assume you might have IMPORTANT readers who can use some "conversation" here with Iran! that's why I'm doing this!!!
anyway, that note I wrote to Dr. Haddad Adel was in response to one of his speeches about Islamic culture and philosophy, and he had said something in it about the West being in need of such depth and spirituality in their culture, which prompted me to put on my Western hat and respond with an "I beg to differ!" ... now, that link has disappeared from the Farda site, and I don't have it in my draft, but I still have my own response, which I hope you will post now, please?!
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Sir, I admire you and greatly appreciate what you and your colleagues have intended to do for Iran and Iranian PEOPLE'S cultural revival, our embracing of OUR entire history and cultural heritage, as opposed to rejecting the last 1400 years of it, only boasting about our Pre-Islamic civilization which is what the Shah had started to do with his soulless style of celebrations in that 2500 year anniversary of the Persian Civilization.
BUT Sir, I am surprised by the less than fair or less than accurate portrayal of the West in your speech, and how you feel the need to contrast our Islamic cultural contributions to humanity with that of the West's, by claiming that the Western Civilization is empty of spirituality!!!!!!!!
Sir, I must say, I am glad that you inaugurated a new university in Tehran a few months ago, which as I read about it in the news, it is dedicated to Western Studies, because it appears that you YOURSELF need to do much more study of Western Civilization and truly find out a lot more about the enormous influence that our own poets and philosophers have had on the fathers of Romanticism which led to RENAISSANCE and the age of Enlightenment in Europe, and consequently, the undisputed impact that this Western ENLIGHTENMENT has had on HUMANITY'S progress and evolution over the past 400-300 years!
Just as you cannot dispute the influence of ancient Greek philosophy and thought (of Aristotle and Plato and Socrates and ...) on OUR great thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age, such as OUR Ghazzali and Avecina and Razi, Attar, Khayyam, Khawarazmi, Mowlana, Nizami, Hafez, ..., the West also cannot dispute the influence of our philosophers and thinkers on their Goethe and Schiller and Hugo and Keats and Dante and Descartes and Kant and ...!
Goethe wrote his West-östlicher Divan inspired by OUR Hafez, and then a couple of centuries later, Dr. Mohammad Iqbal (of India or today's Pakistan) reciprocated this exchange of THOUGHT and cultural heritage with Goethe, in his Payam-i-Mashriq or "Message from the East"!
I hope you will be more careful with your anti-West rhetoric and will speak with a better-informed language in your future statements about the West!
Of course I 100% agree with what you are saying about the other Muslim nations who have forgotten or chose to abandon their own IDENTITY, due to their "gharbzadegi" (westernstruck, westoxification, occidentosis as explained by our Jalaal aal-e Ahmad) i.e., over-fascination with the West, having forgotten who they were, and what OUR Islamic culture and civilization has had to offer to HUMANITY, but to call the modern Western world a society empty of spirituality and cultural depth, is quite unfair to the literary, artistic, and cultural communities in all of Europe and North America, who are trying to do for their cultural heritage what you and your Iranian colleagues are doing for OURS!
Thank You Sir, for all that IRI has been able to accomplish for the past 30 years in trying to awaken that sense of IDENTITY in our people!
Down with Westoxification for the East!
Long Live Self Awareness for ALL!
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thank you!
Why should Israel care how many Palestinians live or die when the Arab leaders are silently cheering on the attacks on Hamas? Israel is looking to destroy Hamas as a military entity so it can push for peace on it's own terms and eliminate the threat to Israeli's from Gaza. Hamas did not shy away from killing Israelis when it chose to. It should not expect Israel to show any mercy now. This message to Hamas and Hizbollah was long overdue. Israel cannot be expected to live with thousands of rockets aimed at it from just across the border.
I just read this article and wondering,
Don't these Basij students have a better thing to do than attacking Dr. Ebadi's house?
Shouldn’t they be in Gaza Helping Suicide bomber by becoming suicide bombers?
All these Basij students doing is sitting in Tehran and yelling "Death to Israel" I think they should be “men” and go to Gaza and help their Hamas brothers. Just registering and signing a piece of paper saying they want to become a suicide bomber won’t help their Hamas brothers.
http://www.iran-world.com/article.php?id=33966
Hey Anna,
You made this remark:
"you WOULD say this "Black Chador", it's not surprising that you would!!!!'
First of all what would give you the inside information that I would say that?
Second, why don't you find out what "Your Obama" says about this Gaza situation? His opinion is just like mine.
To make it clear to you and others, before 2006 I was all for helping Palestinians but when they voted for an Extreme group such as Hamas, then I figured they love their lives they way it is. I figured they rather kill Israelis than live a peaceful life by coexisting with Israel. You may want to find out what Hamas "Mission Statement" is before you "The Reformist" cast your vote for Hamas. But again you may share their “Mission Statement” and want the state of Israel and all the Jews wipe of the face of the world. If so please let us know or your plans of how you would accomplish that goal.
Anna, since I am not interviewing for a job with IRI I can look at this situation with open mind.
Dear Jooybaar, thank you for defending the Western culture and art in your comment to Iran's Dr. Haddad!
Here's one of those leaders in the artistic community of Britain, the GIANT of 20th Century Drama, a Nobel Laureate in Literature AND an anti-Israel, anti-WAR JEWISH admirer of Jimmy Carter (that most conscientious contemporary American president so far), The GREAT Harold Pinter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY2Z27Y-HJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXwdCZoQ7S8
and here's a TRUE student in the literary consciousness of our ONE human community (West or East alike), the GREAT American actor John Lithgow:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01022009/watch2.html
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01022009/watch3.html
Don't let any ONE culture claim monopoly on the common contribution of INDIVIDUALS to Social Consciousness and Humanity!
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