Obligatory Post About Iran's "Hezbollah Radiation Will Destroy Israel" Threat (Plus: Mugniyah Assassination Dramatically Demonstrates Absurdity Of Liberal Foreign Policy Sophistication)
This one's probably not a "we will nuke Israel" threat of the kind usually made by Iranian moderates and elected officials. It's the age-old "Jews are cancer" metaphor that's driving this threat to commit genocide - the part where he may or may not imply slipping a nuke to Iran's terrorist proxy is just a happy coincidence:
"The cancerous growth Israel will soon disappear," Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Muhammad Ali Jafari wrote to Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the FARS news agency reported Monday. In a letter of condolences following last week's assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, Jafari said: "I am convinced that with every passing day Hizbullah's might is increasing and in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth Israel by means of the Hizbullah fighters' radiation [therapy]." In the letter, in which Jafari consoled Nasrallah over the death of the "martyr," he continued: "There's no doubt that the death of this loyal fighter will strengthen the resolve of all revolutionary Muslims and fighters in the struggle against the Zionist regime, particularly the resolve of those who fought by this martyr's side."
Nice to see that Hezbollah and Iran are finally acknowledging some responsibility for Mugniyah. For decades they've had foreign policy elites and journals gullibly repeating their nonsense about how they've got no connections to a man responsible for the murder of thousands:
As Hezbollah’s official funeral of Imad Mughniyah unfolded today—Hezbollah’s leader eulogizied him over a coffin decked in Hezbollah’s flag—it is useful to recall the party’s denial of his very existence over all these many years... [Judith Palmer Harik] wrote this precious paragraph in her book on Hezbollah: "For its part, Hezbollah has consistently denied the existence of any relationship with Mughniyeh, direct or indirect. As a matter of record, from the time of the party’s inception, all Hezbollah officials have emphatically denied ever knowing a person by the name of Imad Mughniyeh." The same author then spends a few embarrassing pages agonizing over this question: "Was Mughniyeh a member of Hezbollah?"
Lebanon expert Michael Young goes on to explain in the comments how Hezbollah selectively grants access - and thus prestige - to US academics. In exchange those academics become Hezbollah propagandists, parroting the most absurd claims as objective facts:
Hezbollah has been very adept at turning contacts with the party into a supposedly valuable favor. Scholars, particularly in the West, who can claim to have a Hezbollah contact are already regarded as “special” for having penetrated a closed society, so that readers are less inclined to judge critically the merits of what the scholars got out of Hezbollah. The same goes for book editors. My friend Mohamad Bazzi, in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, seems to have fallen into this trap. On the CFR site, he told Bernard Gwertzman the following about Mughniyah: "The reports that list him as an active senior leader of Hezbollah at the time of his death are mistaken. He might have had some contact with some people in Hezbollah leadership but he wasn’t giving out orders and he wasn’t in the position to do that." How does Bazzi know this? These are not details that Hezbollah would share with journalists, unless it is to begin a process of disinformation. And how does this square with Hezbollah’s own statements and behavior to the contrary since the assassination?
References:
* Idiots [MR]
* Sorry, But The Upcoming Iranian Elections Won't Change Anything Even If Ahmadinejad Doesn't Gain More Power [MR]
* 'Cancerous Israel to vanish soon' [JPost]
* Imad who? [Martin Kramer]
* Wednesday, August 13, 2003 [Juan Cole]
Previously:
* Juan Cole - Anti-Semite?
* Juan Cole Is A Pathetic Fraud Who Copes With His Crushing Failures By Wallowing In Delusions Of Self-Importance
* Wednesday, August 13, 2003
