Good for the gander

…a clear and present danger to international peace and security. Its ambitions to become the dominant power in the region, its heavy-handed interference in the domestic affairs of its neighbors, its lavish support for terrorist groups, and its massive arms build-up all underscore the nature of the threat.

…in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and UN Security Council resolutions.

…economic sanctions have been presented as a possible means to influence the regime and persuade it that there will be a painful price for flouting the will of the international community. With the implementation of sanctions and the threat of further ones…sanctions may have more direct impact than skeptics believed.

Despite…destabilizing influence in the international arena, investors from around the world continue to supply vast sums of money that not only prop up the regime, but also serve to embolden it…

No, of course it’s not Israel that the AJC was writing of in its new pamphlet, The Ca$e for Targeted Sanctions. Needless to say, the cuddly peacelovers at the American Jewish Committee aver, ‘No nation should relish the idea of military confrontation…The object, it should be stressed, is not to target the Iranian people, but its government’s policies.’

That would be the same American Jewish Committee that wasted no time yesterday in issuing a statement that ‘condemns the decision of UNISON, Britain's largest trade union, to advocate for a total boycott of Israel’.

"With the UNISON action, the union representing more than one million workers in public services in the United Kingdom has now joined with the journalists and academics unions in a shameful hate campaign against the Jewish state."

The UNISON resolution makes no mention of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, yet calls for the removal of Israel's security fence, pejoratively referred to as the "Apartheid wall".

…"UNISON has aligned itself with these murderous, anti-democratic and viciously anti-Semitic forces."

Later this week the UNISON conference may consider a further resolution calling for divestment from pension funds "which may have investments in Israel or in key companies trading with Israel."

Both motions are anti-Semitic, attempting to put Israel beyond the pale, just as prior anti-Semitic movements targeted individual Jews and Jewish communities.

Just in case anyone has missed some of the action, ‘Iran’s nuclear weapons program is particularly worrisome’. Israel’s nuclear arsenal threatens nobody. ‘Experts believe that the regime is developing ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear weapons…and could wield its nuclear deterrent as political blackmail throughout the Middle East’. Some ‘experts’ believe that, some Israeli experts for example, but not the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, for example. And it goes without saying that Israel’s actual nuclear arsenal blackmails nobody. ‘In light of these scenarios, the international community has turned to economic penalties to demonstrate to Iran’s policymakers that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable.’ But a nuclear armed Israel is not only acceptable, but desirable.

And economic penalties for ‘a clear and present danger’, ‘ambitions to become the dominant power in the region’, ‘heavy-handed interference’, ‘lavish support for terrorist groups’, ‘massive arms build-up’, ‘violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and UN Security Council resolutions’? Well they’re ok if the target is Iran, whose deadliest, most implacable enemies make those claims about it. But not if the target is Israel, which has demonstrated that it meets every one of the criteria the AJC cites to justify economic sanctions against it’s regional rival. Except one. Israel has not violated the NPT. That’s because Israel isn’t even party to the NPT, for obvious reasons.

Once again, we have an example of Israel’s shrillest defenders, ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ In their haste to accuse others of anti-Semitism, they display their own anti-Semitism, in the terms of the very ‘Working definition’ they helped draft. Apparently this proclivity for foot shooting has a long pedigree. On Tuesday, the AJC took umbrage when the UN Human Rights Council designated Israel ‘a permanent and separate agenda item’.

“No words can adequately describe how disappointing has been the performance of the UN Human Rights Council since its inception more than a year ago,” said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris…adding that this development is particularly painful for AJC, whose leaders were directly involved in helping to draft the human rights provisions in the UN Charter more than 60 years ago.

I suppose they should have taken more care to frame human rights provisions explicitly to exclude violations by Israel.

'A Limited Time Offer to Iran'

More nuclear hypocrisy

In today’s NY Times, op ed contributors George Perkovich, ‘director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’, and Pierre Goldschmidt, ‘former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency’, opine.

The vital security objective all along has been to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons fuel. ..Thus, Iran’s interlocutors should clarify now that the positive incentives the world wishes to negotiate with Iran will be withdrawn if it does not immediately accede to the binding Security Council demand for suspension.

It’s embarrassing for me even to have to make obvious points like this, but clearly the editors over at the NY Times need reminding.

· So far, Iran’s reward for ratifying and complying with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty has been baseless accusations and sabre rattling from the US.

· The US is the one country that has actually used nuclear weapons. It has used them on exclusively civilian targets. Not once, but twice.

· The US has articulated an intention to crush any country it perceives as threatening its military ‘full spectrum dominance’.

· The US is itself in violation of its NNPT commitments to reduce its arsenal and has not suffered so much as a harsh word as punishment.

· The US has withdrawn from or violated other significant treaties intended (or at least purported to intend) to reduce threats from WMD.

· Iran borders on a rogue nuclear armed state, Pakistan, that has not signed the NNPT.

· Another non NNPT and nuclear armed state, Israel, is also explicitly threatening attacks on Iran.

· Yet a third non NNPT and nuclear armed state, India, has recently entered into favourable nuclear cooperation arrangements with the US.

· North Korea has enjoyed a significant reduction in threats from the US since it became clear that it was close to testing its own nuclear weapons.

With so many obvious benefits accruing to the world’s nuclear outlaws and so few to compliance with treaty commitments, it’d take a lot of carrots to convince me to go along with the US’s completely unreasonable demands, if I was Iran.

That said, fission is a dead end. All the ordinary people in the world need to band together and get the nuclear bullies to disarm and safely dispose of their nuclear toys immediately and cooperate on developing the cold fusion and other sustainable energy technologies that can provide our energy without exacerbating global warming…

Meanwhile, back at the UN…

Danny Gillerman, ‘Israel's ambassador to the United Nations urged the Security Council to take tough measures against "demented" Iran for its nuclear program in the wake of North Korea's declared atomic test.’

Waxing poetic, Yahoo reports, ‘"The international community should learn the lessons of what occurred in North Korea," [he] told army radio. "North Korea was only the preview. Iran will be the feature film, which, if no one takes serious action, will be projected throughout the whole world."’

Furthermore, as if their ambassador to the IAEA hadn’t just said that nuclear proliferation wasn’t an issue, ‘Israeli leaders called for the North Korean test to serve as a wake up call to the international community on the risks of nuclear proliferation and prompt a zero-tolerance policy with Tehran.’

Ignoring Juan Cole’s critique of the translation of Ahmadinejad’s one remark (not ‘repeated threats’ for crying out loud!), Yahoo concludes, ‘Israel considers Iran its arch-enemy for President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's repeated threats to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" and for his comments questioning the Holocaust.’

Well Ahmadinejad may or may not have said anything about wiping Israel off the map, but I for one hope to live to see a map free of sectarian ethnocracies like Israel and hierocracies like Iran.

You learn something new every day

It never occurred to me that a state that is not party to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty could manage to get a seat on the IAEA. The Israeli ‘Ambassador’ to the IAEA, Israel Michaeli, in his profound wisdom, is reported to have opined, "The fundamental goal in the Middle East, as in other regions, is obtaining regional peace, security and stability, not arms control per se." This is doubtless why Israel is threatening Iran. Nothing to do with concerns about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons development at all. What’s most likely to secure regional peace, security, and stability is undoubtedly a continuing military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and utterly destroying neighbouring countries. Oh, and two or three hundred nukes, of course.

Needless to say, the IAEA did not resolve that Israel’s nuclear program was a threat.