This is nothing new for the UN, which has regularly seen topsy-turvy things like Libya being elected to the UN Human Rights Council. The moral authority of the UN has basically been at zero, since the one nation, one vote structure means that small states with human rights abuses get to dominate the conversation.

But this time, Iran – a country where women are executed for adultery – presuming to speak up for women’s rights was just a step too far for nations like Canada and the USA, who successfully blocked its bid for a seat on the board:

Led by the U.S., several countries helped gather opposition to Iran’s campaign. They were joined by human-rights groups, who pointed to the recent sentence of death by stoning for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery.

Before anyone gets too excited, though, it should be noted that this is just one blip in the UN’s steady march to redefine human rights in a topsy-turvy, Orwellian fashion:

You might think the regime’s habit of murdering women for imaginary crimes would earn it universal condemnation – especially from places such as the United Nations. You would be wrong. In April, Iran was given a seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women, whose goal is “gender equality and the advancement of women.” No one explained how stoning women to death advances gender equality. This is a moral inversion so twisted that it defies satire. If you still harbour any illusion that the UN is truly interested in the rights of women, please abandon it now.

Iran’s ludicrous appointment was a consolation prize for its failure, despite fierce lobbying, to gain a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. That would not have been as bizarre as it sounds, given that its members include the rights-conscious nation of Saudi Arabia. The Human Rights Council is dominated by a bloc of Islamic and African states that refuse to condemn Iran for anything. Instead, the council spends most of its time denouncing Israel and the United States. “It’s tragic,” says Ms. Namazie, who fled Iran in 1980. “It’s like asking apartheid South Africa to sit on the commission for racial equality.”

The UN Human Rights Council has long been a joke. UN Women, the new agency, promises to be much of the same. Same shit, different day.

(Via Lisa Goldman).

The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday expressed concern for the first time that Iran may currently be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead, instead of having stopped several years ago.

Its report appears to contradict an assessment by Washington that Tehran suspended such activities in 2003. It appears to jibe with the concerns of several U.S. allies that Iran may never have suspended such work.

Really now? What tipped them off? Ahmadinejad has been playing nuclear chicken with the United Nations for years. What exactly caused the U.N. to wake up today and tentatively acknowledge blazingly obvious reality, instead of continuing to close its eyes as it has been all along? Why now?

That’s the big question, after all. For the United Nations to even make such a statement, there has to have been a sea change somewhere else behind the scenes that triggered it. If China or Russia is prepared to put more pressure on Iran, this could be indicative of a change in the game, even if the U.N.’s statements are, in and of themselves, essentially worthless. The world will be watching closely, that’s for certain.

A nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election was killed Tuesday when a remote-controlled bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up outside his home.

State media identified the victim as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a professor at Tehran University, which has been at the center of recent protests by student opposition supporters. Before the election, pro-reform Web sites published Ali Mohammadi’s name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who supported Mousavi.

And of course, despite the public call for the assassination of opposition voices by the Iranian leadership, three guesses who they’re blaming for this one. Don’t need three? Got it in one? Yeah, I thought so:

The government blamed the rare assassination on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the U.S.

Cause, like, sure, that makes sense. Then again, when has logic ever been a factor in cases like these?

Montazeri’s death pushed Iranian authorities into a difficult spot. They were obliged to pay respects to one of the patriarchs of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the one-time heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

But officials also worried that Montazeri’s memorials could become new rallying points for opposition demonstrations. The ayatollah broke with Iran’s clerical leadership and became a vehement critic, denouncing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling the postelection crackdown the work of a dictatorship.

Mourners shouted “Death to the Dictator” and other slogans in displays of anger against Iran’s ruling establishment during the procession in Qom, a city of shrines and clerical seminaries about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Tehran, witnesses said.

The Iranian election and subsequent protests were named the top Twitter news event of 2009, with #iranelection the top trending news hashtag.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board censured Iran on Friday, with 25 nations backing a resolution demanding that Tehran immediately freeze construction of its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed Security Council resolutions to stop uranium enrichment.

The trouble is, there’s no backup to the “or else”. And Iran knows it, too:

Iran remained defiant, with its chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring that his country would resist “pressure, resolutions, sanction(s) and threat of military attack.”

Delegate Ali Asghar Soltanieh of Iran shrugged off the vote.

“Neither resolutions of the board of governors nor those of the United Nations Security Council … neither sanctions nor the threat of military attacks can interrupt peaceful nuclear activities in Iran, even a second,” he told the closed-door meeting, in remarks made available to reporters.

Iran can taunt the world and continue to develop nuclear weapons with impunity, in flat defiance of the Security Council or anyone else, because it knows full well that the UN can’t and won’t back up its threats with anything concrete. There’s no action that they can take. They can’t go to war or invade Iran. They can’t attack its nuclear facilities. They can’t even impose sanctions, which would risk alienating the strengthening resistence movement within Iran.

By the time anyone figures out a course of action on Iran, it will likely be too late. If it isn’t already.

Obama added: “Our expectation is that over the next several weeks, we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran. . . . I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door. I hope they do. But what I am pleased about is the extraordinary international unity that we have seen.”

Well, that’s nice. Even if it’s nowhere near accurate.

Better hope that umbrella is big enough to protect you from the ensuing shitstorm, Hillary.

“The leaders of Iran cannot give their children uranium for breakfast,” Peres said, adding that the world financial crisis would hamper Iran’s progress toward nuclear capability. “As the price of oil declines, Iran doesn’t have as much money to invest in uranium, missiles and terrorism,” he said.

Erm. Not sure about the logic of that one, Shimon. Worsening economic conditions usually breeds more hatred and a need for scapegoating, just as peace usually requires prosperity to achieve. But hey, way to keep up that optimism.

Every joke I could make here would be just too easy, so I’ll let it speak for itself.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear ambitions by targeting Tehran’s arms exports, state-owned bank and elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki immediately rejected the council’s demand to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used for making bombs and to general electricity. He maintained Iran’s program was for peaceful purposes.

It’s almost like watching paint dry, seeing the predictable moves play out. This is a game the U.N. has no desire to play, and Ahmadinejad knows it full well. He’s already concluded that there is nothing the world can do to stop him from going nuclear, and that by pressing the U.N.’s buttons like this, he’s only exposing its weaknesses further.

And with the United States tied up in Iraq, Israel facing an existential threat if it attempts to thwart Iran, and the rest of the world casually indifferent, the outcome of this game has been determined months ago. And even the best-case endgame scenario here is pretty damn frightening.

Eurovision Song Contest organizers said Thursday they might ban this year’s Israeli entry, “Push the Button,” because they say it has an inappropriate political message.

The song, to be performed at the contest in Helsinki in May, overwhelmingly won Israel’s competition Wednesday. It’s sung in English, French and Hebrew by the group Teapacks and seemingly refers indirectly to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its hard-line leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition,” said Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest. “We’ll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this case within the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) group.”

The song warns about the dangers of nuclear war, but in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, band members denied that the song is about Iran, calling that “absurd.”

The lyrics of the song refer to “demonic” and “crazy rulers,” and say that “he’s gonna blow us up to … kingdom come.”

Ahmadinejad’s recent anti-Jewish statements have added to fears in Israel that Iran’s nuclear program is intended to produce weapons that could be used against that country.

And apparently the contest organizers support Iran’s ambitions to wipe Israel off the map enough to believe that any song that protests against it – or against nuclear war in general – is “not appropriate”.

Hear that? It’s Israel Double Standard Time, still ticking away.

Israel’s prime minister spent Tuesday trying to put the nuclear genie back into the bottle after a remark in an interview was interpreted as confirming that Israel has nuclear weapons – widely assumed to be true, but never officially admitted by Israel.

Meanwhile, ambiguity has never been the strong suit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today told delegates at an international conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel’s days were numbered.

Ahmadinejad, who has sparked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in World War 2 as a “myth” and calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, launched another verbal attack on the Jewish state.

“Thanks to people’s wishes and God’s will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want,” he said.

“Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out,” he added.

Was Olmert’s statement a deliberate warning in response to Ahmadinejad’s blustering? Or was it an honest mistake? If the latter, then just chalk it up to Olmert’s long list of gaffes. But if the former, it seems nobody has ever bothered to explain Israel Double-Standard Time to Olmert. Either way, he’s likely going to pay the price for this one.

(Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denial conference, by the way? It’s amazingly sparking protests among Iranian students. This is bound to be deeply embarrassing to the Iranian dictator, and he will probably take some sort of steps to quell the dissent. Keep an eye on this one – it could be a big story.)

“We must speak out now, because we’ve got nothing to lose,” said Dr. Wafa Sultan, one of four Middle Eastern women taking part in a panel discussion in Montreal yesterday to argue their position on the West’s response to Islam.

The four were keynote speakers at an Institute of Public Affairs of Montreal conference. They talked before the event about the place of women under the yoke of an increasingly fundamentalist Middle East.

[ . . . ]

Iranian-born Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a former Miss Canada, has been leading an international effort to publicize the plight of an 18-year-old Tehran rape victim sentenced to death under sharia law. Afshin-Jam recalled a peaceful rally held in Iran in which the protesting women were dispersed by extremist, heavily veiled women.

“They feel more powerful,” she said of the veiled women.

Sultan said many Muslim women are not freely choosing to wear the veil, but do so because it’s in their best interest.

Islam has other ways of enforcing a bias against women, Afshin-Jam said: “In Iran, 65 per cent of university students are women but the laws say women are not allowed to be judges.”

And under sharia law, it’s very difficult for a woman’s word to be taken seriously, she said.

In the West, “we cannot afford to lose our cherished freedoms to radicalism,” Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian, told the conference audience later in a Delta Hotel meeting room.

We often wonder where the voices are, speaking out against oppression and injustice. They exist; there are too few of them so far, they tend to get drowned out, and those who speak sadly – in this country where freedom of speech is cherished – often fear legitimately for their personal safety. But more and more, they exist. And we owe it to them to listen to what they have to say. Because the more people speak out, the more courageous the next people will feel… and the next… and the next.

This started off as merely an amusing tidbit but I wonder what’s in store. The blogosphere is one of the last arenas of freedom of speech, and it seems that Iran’s hardline religious leaders have chosen it as their next battleground. So far they’ve only been concentrating on Iran, but the global nature of the Internet makes me wonder how far off we are from seeing attempts by Islamists to control worldwide blogging content. It’s something every blogger ought to be keeping a close watch on.

• Sadaam’s judge doesn’t think he was a dictator. So what was he, then? A democratically-elected leader? A royal monarch? The winner of the first season of Iraqi Idol?
• The new Palestinian “unity” government appears likely to get its funding back from Europe, though the U.S. isn’t on board.
• Amnesty said Hezbollah committed war crimes, in what Charles Johnson over at LGF dubbed a flying pig moment. I’m shocked too. Amnesty gets so much more money and support when it’s directing its wrath at Israel.
• In a big sign of normalcy returning to the country, Israel’s getting its international soccer games back.
• Germany ordained its first rabbis since 1942. See that big middle finger in the air, you neo-Nazi assholes?
• Speaking of Jews and Europe, Pajamas Media is all over this under-reported story about the defamation trial that just begun in France against three Jewish citizens who questioned the French Channel 2 network for its coverage of the Mohammed Al-Dura affair.
• The Pope has pissed off Muslims, it seems, by making some statements that, regardless of their intent, will surely be taken way out of context. This could be a thing.
• Bibi said that Ahmadinejad is “more dangerous than Hitler”. You’d think such a normally-competent debater would’ve heard of Godwin’s Law, no?
• And in other news, Stephen Colbert’s bridge in Hungary looks like it isn’t going to happen, despite his large margin of victory in the online naming poll, due to the tiny problem of his failing to meet one of the qualifications – being dead. Whoops! (By the way, Budapest rocks!)

Okay, I think that about does it for the ten-second catch-up. Or, as the BUZZ puts it, some “temporary relief from ignorance”.

Iran’s hard-line president urged students Tuesday to push for a purge of liberal and secular university teachers, another sign of his determination to strengthen Islamic fundamentalism in the country.

With his call echoing the rhetoric of the nation’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad appears determined to remake Iran by reviving the fundamentalist goals pursued under the republic’s late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran still has strong moderate factions, and since taking office a year ago Ahmadinejad has moved to replace pragmatic veterans in the government and diplomatic corps with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners. His administration also has launched crackdowns on independent journalists, Web sites and bloggers.

Hey Mahmoud, what’s wrong? Can’t stand the blogging competition?

I wonder if this will be any more interesting than Paul Martin’s foray into the blogosphere. By the looks of it, not so far.

On that note, time for bed.

Quebec agency offended by “Outgames”

Not by the existence of the event, a sort of gay and lesbian Olympics, but by the fact that organizers didn’t bother to give the name “Outgames” a French translation.

People unfamiliar with Quebec society might think I am making this up.

I am not.

Nope, not surprised at all. Pauline continues with a rant about the OLF that is pretty much what I would say about them. (Oh wait, I think I did. Yep.)

But what really gets me is this tidbit, linked to by Pauline at the end of her post:

But what IS news, and what brought this to my attention today, was this report:

Iranian Leader Bans Usage of Foreign Words

Way to go, Ahmadinejad, your repressive tactics have finally caught up with those of the Province of Quebec.

It’s refreshing to see that this language nonsense is the only controversy that the OutGames seem to be generating. Just another reason why I love Montreal so much. When I consider the very real problems of the rest of the world, I love how petty ours are in comparison.

By the way, I haven’t actually attended any of the OutGames events just yet, but it will be going on for a couple of weeks so I hope to make it to something-or-other. Downtown has been a lot of fun, though, in the leadup to the event. This is big from a tourism point of view, and it’s nice to see so many businesses getting into the spirit of things and flying rainbow flags or otherwise rolling out the welcome mat.

It’s also nice to see the influx of extremely fit, good-looking men, in town for the event… in particular, the three guys in Finland shirts walking down St-Denis this afternoon. (No, the point of the OutGames isn’t lost on me. But hey, a girl can look, right? No harm in a little eye candy.)

Someone must’ve told him that Hezbollah is getting its ass whopped.

Nor, I fear, will it for a while.

To say that the matzav has heated up would be putting it mildly. Nobody was injured in the Haifa attack, but sadly, in the North, people weren’t so lucky; rocket attacks killed 2 people and injured at least 120. Meanwhile, Israel is attacking Beirut, targeting Hezbollah stronghold areas. Israel may be after Hezbollah, but it’s Lebanon and Israel that are now engaged in what can only be called war.

Even as things escalate with the Palestinians, Hezbollah, and Lebanon, it’s not ending there. Hezbollah’s primary backers, Syria and Iran, are dancing close to the flame as well. Iran is threatening to retaliate if Israel strikes Syria. Meanwhile, Israel claims it has intelligence that Hezbollah is trying to transfer the kidnapped Israeli soldiers to Iran, which, of course, Iran is denying. The chances that Syria and Iran could get dragged into this mess are looking high.

Nor can Israel count on the unqualified backing of the United States. Bush is giving his cautious support even while Condi Rice is urging “restraint” – an all-too-familiar ploy that will end with Israel being falsely painted as the aggressor even by its allies.

Tonight, my friend’s family is doing the only thing they can: bunking down, biting nails, and waiting. Millions of Israelis and their friends and loved ones around the globe are doing the same thing tonight, and, I fear, for far too long to come.

This isn’t a song and dance about how war is never the answer. I’m not urging anyone to sit down and sing kumbaya. Israel needs to defend itself, and everyone here knows I support her actions 100%. But I can’t help the fear, the trepidation, the sense of dread. Unlike Israel’s enemies, who go straight into every war joyously envisioning wiping the “Zionist entity” off the map, Israel has never and will never go into war happily. Every war fought by Israel has been because there was no other choice, and every decision made by the Israeli government primarily considers the safety and security of the Israeli people. All I can do is echo the statements made in editorials and on blogs around the world: Israel will win because there is no other choice.

But I can’t help being afraid.

Does that mean he feels that the world can afford a nuclear attack by Iran on its enemies. How would that affect the delicate world economy, Mr. Caruso?

• Iran chose now to press the nuclear issue, figuring the U.S. can’t do much because of Iraq and the rest of the world couldn’t ever do much about it.
• The U.N. is powerless to stop Iran from going nuclear, and no Security Council sanctions – even if agreed upon by Russia and China – would be strong enough to get Iran to cave.
• U.S. Intelligence estimates that Iran is “very close” to mastering nuclear weapons technology, perhaps as close as a year.
• Unlike with Iraq, the world cannot count on Israel to stop Iran from going nuclear, as it has neither the range nor the capacity to prevent disastrous reprisals for an attack. It would likely come down to the U.S. to take military action, if it were to come to that, and at the moment this seems unlikely given the war in Iraq.

All in all, the analysis paints a very bleak picture in which Iran is marching steadily towards acquiring a nuclear bomb that it may have every intention of using to wipe Israel off the map.

If North Korea was the number-one threat to the world not too long ago, Iran has suddenly jumped up a few positions. However, I don’t believe we’re headed towards World War III tomorrow. There are still steps that can be taken, if the world recognizes the dangers in allowing Teheran to acquire nuclear technology. I only hope that these steps are taken, and that they are effective.

Damian was, of course, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. However, I think the quote is a good one, and it popped into my head when I read about today’s ruling against teaching creationism in schools:

A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

[ . . . ]

The school district was sued by a group of 11 parents who claimed teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology classrooms.

Before you jump down my throat, I’m in no way implying that Holocaust denial is comparable to creationism. What I am saying, however, is that there’s a clear difference between fact and invention – as in the case of Holocaust denial – which I think we all recognize fairly easily. What many people fail to recognize, however, is that we must also make a clear distinction between fact and belief.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Creationism (repackaged as “intelligent design” or whatever you rename it) is a belief. It is based on faith, not evidence, and cannot be proven for the simple reason that it cannot be disproven.

Today’s ruling banned the teaching of creationism because it violates the separation of church and state. I think the real reason it ought to be banned from science curricula is because it isn’t science. After all, there is no constitutional ban on teaching Holocaust denial in history class, and yet I’m sure we would all call for the dismissal of any teacher who tried, simply on the grounds that it’s wrong.

I have no objection to the teaching of creationist theory in a course about religion, humanities, or cultural studies. But high school biology teachers who teach creationism as scientific fact are muddling fact and belief. People are entitled to hold a belief, but when teaching science, they need to stick to facts.

And so, to restate Damian’s point, everyone is entitled to his own beliefs, but not his own facts.

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned Western music from Iran’s radio and TV stations, reviving one of the harshest cultural decrees from the early days of 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Songs such as George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” Eric Clapton’s “Rush” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California” have regularly accompanied Iranian broadcasts, as do tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.

But the official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban Western music.

Cause after all, everyone knows that the saxophone stylings of Kenny G. contain hidden Zionist brainwashing propaganda.

Though we may scoff, cultural restrictions are key components of Ahmadinejad’s renewed fanatical war on the West and against any kind of freedom or reform for his people. One only wonders how far he can push before the forces for change in Iran push back.

I’m sure that threat has Ahmadinejad shaking in his boots.

The real question is whether Ahmadinejad is calculating and shrewd, or if he’s merely off his rocker.

Most of the time, rhetoric and provocation like this is done on purpose by despots looking to pick a fight for political gain, deflect attention away from their oppressive policies, or quell dissent at home, to name a few reasons. It’s entirely possible that Ahmadinejad is doing this in order to provoke the West to the point where someone takes action, and all hell breaks loose. Strange as this may sound, this would actually be the preferable of the two options. If Ahmadinejad is crazy like a fox, as opposed to merely crazy, then he probably wouldn’t actually unleash nuclear weapons on Israel – he’d just talk about it in order to stir up hatred. As I’ve said repeatedly, the very last thing that most of the dictators of the Arab world want is for Israel to disappear off the map. Because without Israel as the single unifying factor, they would simply attack each other (well, more so than they already do).

However, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s entirely possible that Ahmadinejad is just as crazy as he seems. His fanatical hatred of Israel might not be calculated, but real. In which case, the world has real cause to worry, because he might not care if Iran is wiped off the map as long as he can take Israel down with him. This is where the prospect of a nuclear Iran becomes very, very scary.

So which is it? Column A? Column B? A little of both? I don’t really think we have the option of waiting around to find out. But then, who’s left in the world to actually do anything to stop Ahmadinejad, before it’s too late?

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spewings are ironically worrisome precisely because he seems to believe them. Unlike many Arab leaders who frequently call for Israel’s destruction when in truth it’s the last thing they actually want, Ahmadinejad actually seems crazy enough to put pragmatic or political concerns aside in favour of his virulent hatred.

Ahmadinejad knows that nobody in the world will stop him from going nuclear. He knows he can say the most hateful things possible and all the world will do is shake their heads and scold. And he knows that if he ever unleashes nuclear weapons at Israel, the Israelis would – and probably could – retaliate by wiping out Tehran.

The problem is, he may actually hate Israel so much that he doesn’t care.

If suicide bombers are so dangerous because they have no regard for their own life, then Ahmadinejad is the king of all suicide bombers; unpredictable and possibly likely to sacrifice his entire country to satisfy his blood lust. And it may well be too late to do anything to stop him from acquiring nuclear power.

Ahmadinejad has engaged the rest of the world in the ultimate game of chicken, and the rest of the world swerved first. The only question now is, can the Iranian forces for moderation and change respond quickly enough to rein him in? I’d like to think so, but it’s not looking good.

Initial indications are that the crash was due to engine trouble. But with Iran’s military, who really knows? I’m not about to start inventing conspiracy theories, but it does serve us well to remember that all news being released from Iran is heavily censored.

Iran has begun processing a new batch of uranium despite Western pressure on it to halt sensitive atomic work, possibly harming attempts to defuse a standoff over its nuclear aims, a diplomat said on Wednesday.

[ . . . ]

Western countries suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic program, which Tehran vehemently denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity.

Yeah, right. And hell is just a sauna.

Somehow I don’t think Iran is planning to wipe Israel off the map using mere electricity.

“The only logical solution to solve the Palestinian issue is to hold free elections with the participation of Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories and a recognition of the nation’s legitimacy,” he said after a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

When Iran uses the term “occupied territories” it usually means not only the West Bank and Gaza but the whole of Israel, whose right to exist Iran does not recognize.

Ahmadinejad appeared to be calling for full democratic representation for Palestinian refugees and migrs anywhere.

This is just another variation of the “one-state solution” that people seeking Israel’s destruction call for. Their idea is to turn the Jews into a minority among voters, thus ensuring that a Palestinian government is elected in Israel that will create an Islamic state in the place of Israel and relegate the Jews to second-class citizenship.

But of course, “democracy for all” sounds so much more palatable. And this will surely give the EU, Russia, and other countries the “out” they’re looking for to avoid pressing for action against Iran.

Same sentiment, different words. But watch the reaction.

European Union leaders and Russia joined the United States and Canada in condemning the comments attributed to Ahmadinejad and Iranian envoys in capitals across Europe, including Russia, were summoned to explain the remarks.

“Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community,” EU leaders said in a statement issued at a one-day summit outside London.

“Such comments will cause concern about Iran’s role in the region, and its future intentions,” they said.

Does that mean that Russia will stop selling uranium to Iran? Or that the EU will stop legitimatizing Hamas and stop funding the Palestinian Authority’s terrorism slush fund?

No? Well, until then, this condemnation is nothing but empty rhetoric.

“Israel must be wiped off the map,” Ahmadinejad told a conference called “The World without Zionism,” attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”

[ . . . ]

“The Islamic world will not let its historic enemy live in its heartland,” he said.

Ahmadinejad, who took office in August, said Israel would be destroyed by a new wave of Palestinian attacks.

“Surely the new wave of (attacks) in Palestine … will erase this stigma from the Islamic world,” he said.

Tehran denies accusations it trains and arms Palestinian militant groups, saying it only offers moral support.

“Moral” support. Sure. What exactly is “moral” about advocating the murder and slaughter of over 6 million Jews? Maybe we ought to ask Hitler about that one.

What I wonder is what exactly people thought would be going on at a conference entitled “The World Without Zionism”? Chants of Kumbaya around the campfire?

Damian figures that Iran’s nuclear ambitions have a specific purpose. I wonder if Iran would call launching nukes at Tel Aviv “moral support” as well?

The question is, who is left to stop the nuclear ambitions of one of the most dangerous theocratic thuggeries in the Mideast? Not the UN, which has never had the ability to do anything. Not the EU, which will hold an emergency session to see if they broke an agreement that was impossible to enforce in the first place. Not the US or, which after Iran have no political capital left to do anything even if they wanted to. Even Israel, which everyone is secretly hoping will play bad guy and repeat Osarik and then get chewed out by the world, can’t take that kind of risk to its security this time around.

North Korea’s already nuclear; it’s too late there. Iran is steadily marching toward that point of no return… and there’s nobody left to stop them. I fear that future generations of humanity will be paying the price for our spineless world for a long time.

The United States and Israel represent the real nuclear threat to the world, not Iran, Tehran’s chief envoy to the United Nations said on Friday after an abortive conference on controlling nuclear weapons.

Now we can watch the United Nations do what it does best: pander to Iran and condemn the US and Israel.

Sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland, reading this stuff.

Israeli President Moshe Katsav shook hands and chatted briefly Friday with the leaders of Israel’s arch-enemies, Syria and Iran, during the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the president’s office said.

Katsav’s spokeswoman, Hagit Cohen, said it was too early to say whether the handshakes would yield diplomatic fruits, but called the exchanges historic. “There is no doubt that this is a precedent, it was a historic moment and unique opportunity,” Cohen said.

Is this an encouraging sign of a future thaw? Positive news on a Friday afternoon is always welcome, and colour me crazy but I’m tempted to view this in an optimistic light, despite my better judgment. A baby step, to be sure, but a step nonetheless.

I can’t help but wonder what reaction will be like in Syria and Iran at the news.

Update: Well, I didn’t have to wonder long. Khatami is denying the handshakes took place, claiming it’s – what else? – a fabrication of the “Zionist media”. Can’t say that surprises me too much. (Via Meryl Yourish).

With Russia trying to re-establish a toehold in the Mideast, and Iran trying to develop the kinds of weapons that will reduce Israel to a radioactive pile of rubble, all I can do is wonder whether there’s anything the US – or the rest of the world – can do to stop them.

“We are able to say that we have strength such that no country can attack us because they do not have precise information about our military capabilities due to our ability to implement flexible strategies,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Shamkhani as saying Tuesday.

“We can claim that we have rapidly produced equipment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent,” he said, without elaborating.

Elaboration isn’t really necessary. We get the point. And none of us is fooled by the “deterrent” nonsense either.

The real question is, who will do anything to prevent Iran from going nuclear? The US is posturing but it’s doubtful if they will be able to get the support to mount a military intervention. The rest of the world probably either doesn’t care, or supports Iran’s ambitions. As for Israel – who has more motivation than anyone – a repeat of Osarik is unlikely if it puts Israelis at serious risk.

This is not good news.

An incensed Iranian motorist doused his car in petrol and set it ablaze with a match after picking up a parking ticket, media reported Wednesday.

The ISNA student news agency posted photographs of the charred shell of the car on its Web site and quoted witnesses describing the driver’s frantic but fruitless pleas to the parking attendant not to issue a ticket.

“Extremely angry, he took a jerrycan of petrol out of the boot and set fire to his car,” ISNA quoted a witness in poor south Tehran as saying.

I’m not too sure what he’d hoped to accomplish with that one. I wonder if he still has to pay the ticket?

Six online journalists and webloggers have been arrested in Iran recently in a crackdown on dissent on the internet.

“People charged for having illegal internet sites… will be put on trial soon,” said a judiciary spokesman.

The trials would be “open” and charges included “acting against national security, disturbing the public mind and insulting sanctities”.

Web journals flourish in Iran where the youthful, reform-hungry population has gone online for news and entertainment.

The popularity of the internet has grown as hardline judges closed about 100 printed publications since 2000.

These six will probably be held up as examples and handed some frightening sentence… all for the crime of speaking freely against the repressions of the government.

But of course, everyone knows that it’s Israel that is the real problem in the Middle East…

(Via Damian Penny, who astutely describes this as “thoughtcrime”).

Iran began processing uranium more than a week ago to prepare it for enrichment — a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons — in defiance of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, a diplomat said Wednesday.

But Iran’s president said Tehran would not give in to foreign pressure aimed at stopping what he said was a peaceful nuclear energy program, but which Washington says is a covert scheme aimed at building bombs.

A spokeswoman for the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the uranium processing was being closely monitored by the IAEA.

So what will the nice folks at the U.N. do with all the information they’re gleaning through this observation?

If Tehran fails to heed the demands, the board said it would consider possible “further steps” when it meets next month. Diplomats on the board said this included possibly referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which can impose sanctions.

In other words, nothing.

Something tells me that the IDF has training underway for a repeat of the Osarik strike…

Just another typical day.

Way to go!

The UN nuclear agency will next year host a conference, including Israel and Arab states, to discuss steps to make the Middle East into a zone free of nuclear weapons, the head of the U.N. watchdog said Sunday.

As Israel is the only Middle Eastern country believed to have nuclear weapons, the talks would effectively boil down to what the Israeli government would require to abandon the nuclear option. Israel has never confirmed nor denied having the nuclear bomb.

At a time when the world should be raising the alarm about Iran’s nuclear program – which actually poses a great threat to the entire world – the UN has chosen to revert to type and once again focus its energies on the traditional scapegoat, Israel.

I can’t wait.

The son of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi is “totally unhappy” about the way Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew has responded to his call for a government commitment to get to the bottom of his mother’s murder case.

Stephan Hachemi had been calling on Pettigrew to impose diplomatic sanctions against Iran for failing to find the person responsible for his mother’s murder.

“The Iranian ambassador has nothing to do in Canada right now,” Hachemi told a news conference Tuesday. “He should be expelled. The embassy should be closed.”

It’s understandable that the son of a murdered woman is grieving and lashing out. And the government seems to be paying attention.

But what really bothers me about this whole affair is not so much that Canadians are angry about the lack of justice in this case, but that nobody is nearly angry enough about the lack of justice in every other case in Iran. Canada spends years appeasing a brutal dictatorship that has suppressed virtually every human right we take for granted. Those Iranians don’t count. But when an Iranian who happens to have Canadian citizenship is the victim, she counts. We shrug off thousands of unexplained murders, but when Zahra Kazemi is the victim, suddenly everyone is expecting the kind of fair and transparent justice system that lives up to Canadian standards.

It’s not unusual for countries to react much more strongly when their own citizens are victimized. But the hypocrisy gets to me. Iran is not a democracy. It’s not a very nice place to live, especially if you happen to be, say, female, or non-Muslim. And it’s in danger of acquiring nuclear weapons, in which case it might be too late to curb the threat.

And while Canadians continue to issue a “tsk tsk” about the Zahra Kazemi case, we are simultaneously following the Europeans, not the Americans, in softpedalling this new nuclear threat and refusing to take a hard line. This is but one of a long list of the things that the Canadian government just doesn’t get.

Israel gets it, however:

Iran’s ability for nuclear armament should not worry just us but the entire free world and moderate Arabic countries as well, according to Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen Moshe Ya’alon.

And of course, if and when Israel takes matters into its own hands, and the United Nations issues a routine condemnation of Israel for having the courage to do so, Canada will likely be right there on the General Assembly floor, loudly… abstaining.

The trial ended abruptly last Sunday after three court sessions. Only for one day, on Saturday, were foreign diplomats were allowed into the courtroom.

By Sunday, however, all foreign observers were barred from the trial, prompting Canada to recall the ambassador to Iran for a second time.

Kazemi’s family has long suspected that the wrong man was on trial.

Ebadi has said there was no strong evidence against Ahmadi. She believes those responsible for Kazemi’s death have been set free.

She says the Iranian court wouldn’t allow her to present witnesses that would prove another prison official was behind Kazemi’s death.

It frequently surprised me, when following the trial and the Canadian reaction, how many people assumed that the Iranian justice system would be like the Canadian one. They assumed for some reason that the same transparent justice that murder victims expect here would be carried out in a theocratic dictatorship. Which is especially surprising, considering how much Canada loves to engage in moral relativism. I guess we shouldn’t impose our standards on other countries… except when it’s convenient. Or something.

Whether or not the right person was on trial, and whatever the truth was, we’ll probably never know. Anyone expecting true justice one way or the other was either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid.

Firstly, a hearty MAZEL TOV to Allison on the birth of her new baby girl, Tamar! If she’s anything like her mom, we’ll be reading her byline in about 20 years or so.

Unfortunately, not all the news from Israel is that good. While I was in Israel, lots was happening there… and now that I’m home, time to catch up on it. The IJC ruled that the security fence is illegal – no surprises there. Meryl is essential reading, and Lynn has an increasingly popular view on the subject. Now that the UN General Assembly is preparing to do what it does best and issue yet another resolution against Israel, what can I really say on the subject other than it’s no worse than everyone expected. I used to wonder why Israel didn’t put more effort into winning the media war, but now I’m starting to come around to the view that none of that effort would make the slightest bit of difference. The world is determined to villainize Israel, and in the meantime the Israeli government should concentrate on defending its citizens. Especially if the fence helps prevent more incidents like this one. Whatever I could say on the subject, I know that, as usual, Imshin already said it better.

But, hey, the UN still acknowledges that Israel is the best place to live in the Mideast. Even despite all those GA resolutions.

It’s looking more and more like civil war in Gaza. But I have to agree with the Jerusalem Post commentary that this is not good news for Israel. Arafat is a murderer, a terrorist, and a corrupt leader who has inflicted most of the hurt he has caused on his own people. But he’s also incredibly attached to power, and extremely savvy at holding onto it. Speculation that he may be brought down is, I believe, no more than wishful thinking. Besides, anyone who could conceivably replace Arafat would probably only be worse. Chaos will just lead to more bloodshed, which is bad news all around.

The assassination of an Israeli judge is leading to shock and questions. Was it terrorism? Related to criminal or civil matters? Something else entirely? The police investigation will reveal more, and in the meantime, the papers are engaging in plenty of speculation.

The French seem to never tire of creating pointless headlines. Jacques Chirac has told Ariel Sharon that he is unwelcome in France, due to remarks Sharon made encouraging French Jews to make Aliyah to Israel to escape antisemitism. Way to go, Jacques, that’ll really convince people you’re committed to wiping out antisemitism, barring the Israeli Prime Minister and all. Right. To Mr. Sharon: I hear Eilat is much nicer than Paris this time of year anyway.

The violence in Iraq continues to claim more lives on a daily basis. Suicide bombings are becoming so common that they’re hardly even getting reactions anymore. Here’s a thought: maybe if the Americans built a fence…

On the home front, Paul hits the nail on the head on the CRTC decision to allow Al-Jazeera to broadcast, albeit with special restrictions. The CJC may see this as a good compromise. But I think it’s just further evidence that the CRTC needs to be dissolved. How is it okay, in a supposedly free society, for our government to decide that we’re allowed to watch Al-Jazeera but not HBO?

Canada has taken a small step away from our usual foreign policy of holding up a maple leaf and shouting “please like us”. We have chosen to express our displeasure with Iran in the Zahra Kazemi murder trial by… recalling our ambassador. Yeah, that’ll show those bastards. Burnside agrees. We should really take a few lessons from Israel on how to deal with threats from countries like Iran.

Those are some of the highlights and low points. Lots more happened, of course, but I’m through playing catch-up. Onwards and forwards.

But it wasn’t a mistake. And neither is Iran’s uncooperative attitude with UN weapons inspectors. Taken together, you gotta wonder whether there’s something else going on here, and we’re just ignoring all the signs. I don’t know, but I don’t like it one bit.

Iran is not fully cooperating with U.N. inspectors and must come clean about the full extent of its nuclear program within months, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday.

Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran’s cooperation has been “less than satisfactory” and warned that the process of clarifying unresolved issues — particularly over Iran’s uranium enrichment activities — could not be allowed to drag on for ever.

I’m sure I’m not the only one hit with a sense of deja vu. Though if I were the type to gamble, I’d bet that the situation in Iran will never come to what has transpired in Iraq. The two are vastly different, and while Bush had grouped them under his “Axis of Evil” umbrella, it’s still like comparing apples to oranges.

However, ElBaradei would also do well to remember that his weapons inspections teams lost all credibility when they failed in Iraq. Countries like Iran might feel more comfortable flouting them now, knowing that the U.N. will not do anything beyond shaking a fist at a country’s failure to cooperate.

And of course, the worst-case scenario is that Iran is far ahead of anyone’s expectations in terms of development of nuclear weaponry. That would truly be catastrophic, because if the U.N. allows this lack of cooperation to drag for months, then a militant Islamist regime would have acquired nuclear capability, and does anyone have any doubts as to who the first victims would be?

Far more likely, of course, is that Iran is simply flouting the process to prove a point. In any case, the U.N. and most of the world demonstrated pretty clearly that they won’t do anything to countries who flout the inspections. That leaves us in a dangerous place. Iraq’s WMDs were nowhere to be found, so the United States ended up looking foolish. But remember the story of the boy who cried wolf: what happens when there really is a threat?

The death of photo journalist Zahra Kazemi from a blow to the head while in police custody in Iran is suspicious, to say the least. I’d go further and say that it’s totally unacceptable. And the Canadian government, although slow to react, came around to that position by recalling our ambassador and demanding a full investigation.

But in classic Mideast fashion, Iran pointed its finger back at Canada for the death of Iranian Kayvan Tabesh, who was killed in Vancouver:

A foreign ministry spokesman said that the death of an Iranian near Vancouver could not be compared to the beating death of an Iranian-Canadian journalist in Iran.

Ministry spokesman said the young man was killed while apparently “attacking people with a machete,” and that his death should not be compared to that of Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in hospital from a blow to the head she received in police custody.

Earlier Thursday, Iran accused Canadian police of killing the Iranian, throwing new fuel on the diplomatic row between the two countries.

This is an old tactic – misdirection – that is usually accomplished in the Middle East by redirecting attention on Israel. I’m still waiting for that to happen in this case. But in the meantime, Canada seems to be catching on that you simply can’t win by playing nice with these people. A woman was killed by a brutal regime while in custody. She was beaten and tortured and god knows what else. And instead of answering for this, the Iranian government is playing games.

But no, we can’t possibly react in any way that might anger the Iranians. Cause we’re Canadian and we certainly wouldn’t want to take a stand or a controversial position. That would be un-Canadian of us. We might not even be able to sew our flags on our backpacks when visiting Iran! Perish the thought!

Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for “unlawful actions” after using a website to arrange dates, officials say. A militia commander said 68 men and women were arrested in the capital Tehran, according to a report by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna). The Basij militia also detained the operators of the dating website, Irna said.

(via Kathryn at The Corner).

Iran insists it is following international regulations and that all its facilities are open to inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog agency. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday it has been aware for several years of Iran’s plans to mine and process uranium.

[ . . . ]

Washington says those two facilities are part of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.

A disconcerting thought.