The Washington Post granted anonymity to an Israeli official so they could offer this original and incisive metaphor. (cc photo: Johannes Zielcke)
Today the Washington Post (10/1/13) has a piece about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not pleased with the thaw in US/Iran relations.
That’s not surprising. But I was a little surprised that reporters David Nakamura and William Booth allowed this:
Israeli leaders fear that the international community, and the United States in particular, is in danger of being duped by the Iranians. One official compared the Americans to tourists wandering into a Middle East bazaar.
“The Persians have been using these tactics for thousands of years, before America came to be,” said a senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Netanyahu has asked his government to remain silent until he addresses the UN General Assembly meeting this week in New York. “We are worried Obama is looking for a way out.”
Anonymity is, according to the Post‘s own rules, something to be granted to sources very rarely, and for good reason. I’m not sure “Persians are liars” meets those standards. The Post‘s rationale for granting anonymity here is that the government officials were told not to speak before Netanyahu’s address. But it’s hard to imagine how “Don’t trust Iranians” might be considered an especially risky bit of information to share.
Or is the Post now ready afford other government officials the permission to make anonymous ethnic smears? The Post‘s rules state, “Sources who want to take a shot at someone in our columns should do so in their own names.” I guess, in this case, a “shot” wasn’t taken at “someone”–just all Iranians.
Gee …
Anti-Semites have said the same thing about Jews for centuries.
I wonder if the Post would grant anonymity to someone making that claim.
Ummm …
“I’m not sure ‘Persians are liars’ meets this standard” is a great line. I laughed out loud.
Netanyahu is an insane war mongering leader whose connection with the anti-Arab AIPAC should be cause to see the spurious propaganda meant to keep the attention off the peace process with Palestine, in fact to derail it, as Israel goals of the ‘ghetto-ization’ of Palestine are not complete, and Israel need ‘enemies ‘ in the neighborhood to thwart the actualization of a lasting, just political and economic peace with Palestine.
Israel is in war mode. Has been since its inception through the terrorist gangs that initiated their killing and theft, backed by the wealth of world-wide Jewish/Zionist support. That has not changed, only refined to the extent that this war has taken on every conceivable way to wage its war.
And so pleased is Israel to have the United States conduct war on its behalf. Has there ever been a country so duped, so led and so mercenary as the United States? Has there ever been a country controlled by by another, so enslaved by the profiteers of arms, so hopelessly lost to the greed of money making?
Persians have not bombed Syria three times for no reason in the past several months, Persians have not stolen Palestinian land at any time, Persians have not engaged in piracy, Persians have not murdered nine humanitarian workers delivering food and medicine to an illegally embargoed Gaza, Persians have not bombed a defenseless Gaza and killed 1,400 Palestinians including several hundred children, Persians have not assassinated three Iranian nuclear scientists, Persians have not invaded Lebanon and killed 20,000 Palestinian refugees driven from their homes, Persians do not have nuclear weapons, Persians have not forced Bedouins from their ancestral homes, Persians have not required 75 vetoes in the United Nations for illegal international activity, Persians have not kidnapped Palestinians, Persians have not incarcerated Palestinians without trial for years, Persians have not been in violation of United Nations Resolution 242 since 1967, and Persians have not been the greatest threat to world peace in the Middle East. Israel is guilty of all this misconduct and remains a pariah state.
Clearly israel is just trying to change the subject of their continual violations of international law and theft of Palestinian land. It is netyanhu that can’t be trusted as he lied through his teeth on charlie rose and his other media blitz propaganda campaign. Most egregious was portraying iran as wmd mass murderers in syria that can’t be trusted with nuclear (energy). What he didn’t mention was in the earliest days of the campaign to halt alleged syrian chemical use, was their (israel’s) communication intercept in which IRAN lobbied/warned AGAINST chemical use. How selective his rhetoric was in omitting iran’s opposition to wmds. After all, it was the west that supported saddam’s use that killed 1M iranians. And to put that in perspective, that is 1/6 a “holocaust”. We sure don’t see for every cantor, wolofowitz, abramoff, dershowitz, harman, feifth. etc one iranian in our public sphere holding office and steering and interfering with the UNITED STATES political system to champion their cause. It took 40 years to get syria out of lebanon and we need to extricate israel from corrupting, bribing and blackmailing our politicians.
Israeli officials are always open and honest about their 150 or more nuclear weapons, and the Washington Post — like most mainstream media — regularly points out that Israel is a threat to its neighbours.
Oops, I lied — and I’m not even ‘Persian’!!
The Iranians ” on open Mike” have been heard to say “all jews must be driven into the sea which we will turn red with their blood”.Get thir Farsi translations of their government newspapers and news and this kind of stuff is commonplace.Ride down the main road through Tehran ,and take a look at the posters screaming against the jews.(little different than the Hooters bill boards in my town) so a Jewish diplomat says something stupid like “ya can’t trust those damn Persians”.Well slap me and call me Sally.THIS….in unacceptable!!!!!