Lying on Iran

Izeth Hussain

Newspapers in Sri Lanka and practically every other country in the world can now be expected to carry every day news items, articles etc stating that Iran had threatened to wipe out Israel from the map. It is intended to make people believe that Iran has a genocidal program against Israel. That’s a lie. What happened was that some years ago the Iranian President made a statement that Israel would be wiped off the map. There could have been a mistranslation leading to the impression that he was threatening mass genocide against the Israeli people. A clarification was therefore issued by the Iranian authorities, to the effect that all that was meant was that in the course of time Israel would cease to exist as the racist and expansionist state that it now is. In other words the Zionist state would cease to exist, not that the Israeli people will be wiped out.

The clarification, surely, was hardly necessary. Can anyone in his right mind really believe that the Iranian President seriously entertained the idea of committing genocide against the Israeli people? If nuclear weapons are used for that purpose, Iran itself will be quickly wiped out by the US. Alternatively, can anyone really believe that Iran, even if it is accompanied by all the other Islamic nations in the world, will be able to accomplish that purpose through conventional war? Anyway the clarification was made, and of course it has been steadfastly ignored by Israel, the West, and the world’s media.

Alternative explanations are available for what looks like Western gullibility over Israel’s lies. One is that power tends to idiotize, and absolute power idiotizes absolutely. Many Westerners have idiotized themselves through their Islamophobia. The other explanation is that the pretense about Iran’s genocidal intent can serve as a seemingly valid casus belli, even as justifying a nuclear bomb attack on Iran. It is a prospect that keeps Israel hopping about and yelping delightedly. We must bear in mind that Americans in powerful positions had seriously thought of bombing the native boys of Vietnam and Pakistan right back into the Stone Age.

It is known that distortions of the truth, half truths, downright lies, are now used far more extensively than ever before in campaigns of misinformation. It is a downright lie that Iran has a genocidal programme against Israel. Sri Lanka on the other hand has been subjected to a campaign of distortions and half truths which can be even more lethal than downright lies as they could be more difficult to expose. The Darusman Report and the Channel 4 video may merit serious consideration but only as material advancing the case for the prosecution, in which case we can be wary about distortions and half truths. But the Darusman Report has been given the imprimatur of the UN through diabolical maneuvering of which Sri Lanka is the victim.

Izeth Hussain