Daniel Lubetzky

Andrew Sullivan’s blog documents the atrocities perpetrated by the ruling regime in its efforts to suppress protests after it stole the election. 

He shares the following:

This list was being passed around among the resistance in Iran today:
1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn’t qualify as a fair supreme leader
2. Remove Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully
3. Put Ayatollah Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi ( "constitution" ) is set up
4. Recognize Mousavi as the official president
5. A goverment by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution
6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs ands or buts, right away
7. Call off any secret organization such as "gasht ershad"

And compiles dozens of videos such as this:

This is the beginning of the end of this regime.

When President Obama was elected, many Israelis fretted that he would side with Palestinians, while the majority of Palestinians were elated.

When Obama selected Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, Palestinians were devastated and paralyzed in fear, while Israelis celebrated Rahm’s service in the Israeli Defense Forces.

And so on, with every appointment or every announcement by the Obama Administration, Middle Easterners have interpreted the signals as a game of ping-pong – a score for this side or the other.

If Obama is to score a historic agreement among Israel and Palestine, and between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World, his task first and foremost is to do to the Middle East what he did to the American landscape – i.e., to Obamize the Middle East.

Obama was elected because he rejected false paradigms of division and helped people celebrate their human commonalities.

And so in the Middle East, Obama’s philosophy has been to show that if we work together, it will not be for the benefit of one side at the expense of the other, but humanity’s benefit and that of both sides.

Obama’s transformation is moving at a faster pace than anyone anticipated.

This week, moderates in Lebanon rejected the charismatic but divisive policies of Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah, instead reaffirming a parliamentary majority for the pro-Western government. 

Obama may be in for yet another influential game-changer, after his poignant speech in Cairo, if next week Iranians elected a reformer to dethrone Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President.  Yes, the Iranian President may not be the Supreme Leader of Iran.  But he certainly wielded enormous (negative) global influence and a rebuke of his vision will be refreshing and encouraging to the world order.

Now hopefully Israelis and Palestinians will also press their governments to stop dillydallying and once and for all deliver a realistic agreement for a two state solution.

Barack Obama’s election, and his speech today to the Muslim world, may be looked back upon in future years as a turning point for human progress and global understanding.  Far more revolutionary than the historical first of the heritage he represents is the ideological depth of his commitment to shared humanity.

I LOVE THIS MAN!

The philosophy is very much aligned with OneVoice, and some of the language and definitions properly redefine terms like violent extremism that were misused and abused in the last Administration and that did not even exist or make sense when OV was forged.

Over the last few weeks I have been receiving emails from all sorts of organizations trying to inspire fear about the Obama Administration’s policies towards Israel.  From Obama’s efforts to drive towards a two-state solution, to Jordanian King Abdullah’s effort to expand the Arab Peace Initiative to encompass all 57 Muslim nations, it is disturbing to see those threatened by these overtures try to manipulate them to look bad for Israel. How can peace with its neighbors and acceptance and normalization of relations with the Arab and Muslim world be against Israel’s interests? Nobody is trying to sell out Israel’s interests.  And the best way to confirm this is to read Obama’s words, rather than the interpretations and manipulations by others.  So here below is the transcript of the press conference with President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Transcript of press conference with President Obama and PM Netanyahu

May. 18, 2009
SPEAKERS: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

PRIME MINISTER BINYAMIN NETANYAHU

[*] OBAMA: All right, everybody. Just tell me when everybody’s set up.
Great. Well, listen, I — I, first of all, want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for making this visit. I think we had a (sic) extraordinarily productive series of conversations, not only between the two of us, but also at the staff and agency levels.

Obviously, this reflects the extraordinary relationship, the special relationship between the United States and Israel. It is a stalwart ally of the United States. We have historical ties, emotional ties. As the only true democracy in the Middle East, it is a source of admiration and inspiration for the American people.

I have said from the outset that when it comes to my policies towards Israel and the Middle East, that Israel’s security is paramount, and I repeated that to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

It is in US national security interests to assure that Israel’s security as a (sic) independent Jewish state is maintained.

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His face is so calm
Full of love and tranquility
How blessed we are
to have warm shelter and peace for him.

How hard and how painful
for the millions upon millions
who lack peace, or water or heat,
who may not have bread or milk to give their children.

How hard and how painful
for the parents who’d lose a baby to a missile
or the babies who’d lose a parent to a bomb
and the nations who’d lose their innocence along the way.

That juxtaposition gives me anxiety:
the peaceful nap of our little baby
against the horrors and hatred brewing around our world,
whether a few blocks up, or 7,000 miles away.

For my baby’s peace cannot be guaranteed
his Spring cannot be counted upon
so long as babies anywhere else in our globe
are suffering, being targeted or killed.

It is for our baby here
that peace must be waged there.

Whether you are an Israeli who supports the IDF’s defense of Israeli civilians and faults Hamas not just for raining 10,000 missiles at Israel over the last 8 years but also for also for booby-trapping civilian homes and forcefully setting rocket launchers in homes of Palestinians who beg them to leave…

…or whether you are a Palestinian who feels the Israeli army indiscriminately attacked and ended up killing 1,000 innocent Palestinians and who feels the source of the conflict is the continuing occupation of Palestine and subjugation of Palestinian people,

…or whether you are an Israeli, Palestinian or international citizen who recognizes the only way out of this conflict is to once and for all achieve a peaceful agreement between two proud peoples and two proud States – Israel and Palestine – to live in peace and respecting the rights of freedom, security, dignity and respect of both sides…

…the words and attitudes of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish at this moment of devastating loss -where 3 of his daughters were killed by an Israeli mortar attack on their home – should resonate with you.  Let his tragic loss be the end of it, the signal to all Palestinians and Israelis to stand up and say, enough, let’s ensure that this tragedy does not repeat itself again, let’s ensure that we lead our political representatives to achieve a historic compromise, to ensure that nobody sells either side with delusional visions of vanquishing the other side and achieving an absolutist victory over the other, to ensure that outside forces do not use Israelis and Palestinians as pawns in their geopolitical games, to ensure that we build a better future for all the children of the region.

Dr. Izzeldin is a respected medical doctor from Gaza who for years has practiced at the Soroka Hospital in Israel.  He worked with OneVoice out of Gaza for a period, and he always exemplified devotion to peace and humanitarianism.  

[Addendum: Even Prime Minister Olmert shared publicly that he saw this report and he cried at learning of Izzeldin's loss.]

Nazila Fathi reported in the New York Times that Iran recently executed a man it claimed was a "spy" and has arrested another one also for "spying." 

This second man, Hossein Derakhshan, is among the most famous Persian bloggers.  Hossein is jailed & threatened with the same fate of execution by the Iranian government.

His crime? Trying to humanize Iranians and Israelis towards each other.

A couple years ago, he apparently defied a ban on travel by Iranians to Israel in order to explode stereotypes about Iranians to Israelis, and to report from his blog about ordinary Israelis to Iranians.  As a Canadian-Iranian, presumably he figured he could get away with it – and visited twice, then dared to return to Iran.

According to Abraham Rabinovich who wrote for IHT:

The object of his visit, Derakhshan said, was to show his countrymen Israel’s human face and to detoxify relations between the two peoples after Ahmadinejad called for Israel’s elimination.

"I want to humanize Israel for Iranians and tell them it’s not what the Islamic propaganda machine is saying – that Israelis are thirsty for Muslim blood," he said. "And I want to show Israel that the average Iranian isn’t even thinking about doing harm to Israel. I want them to see Iranians who don’t look like Ahmadinejad."

The Iranian regime accused him of spying, as it conveniently does of any humanist who threatens the Iranian regime.

I felt a lot of anxiety when I first read about this story.  After all, if Hossein indeed took such risks for the sake of humanity (and particularly for the sake of Iranians and Israelis who are turned against each other by divisive politicians), shouldn’t we all (regardless of religion or political orientation) demand his release and stand behind him?

I read Hossein’s blog and was struck at how much it pandered to Ahmadinejad.  It has a weirdly pro-Ayatollah and pro-Ahmadinejad slant lately.

His last post, on October 6th, for example, states:

Ahmadinejad’s brilliant strategy of dismissing Israel and smiling to the U.S. has divided the the U.S. in all levels and that’s a big achievement comparing to Khatami’s weak anf failed U.S. strategy that led to Iran being part of the ‘axis of evil’. Now the same Bush administration has officially opened the diplomatic line. Please get over Ahmadinejad’s scruffy look, prayers, and plain language and see these achievements.

So I am a bit perplexed, with four possible explanations for this:

a) He knew he was visiting Teheran and wanted to ingratiate himself with the Iranian rulers before his arrival;

b) These posts were written under duress by him, or totally fabricated;

c) He is a complex individual who really admires Ahmadinejad and is certainly recognized as an Iranian nationalist, even if he also is a humanist;

d) Nothing is as it seems and there is something else going on.

Initially I thought it my duty (and that of anyone who believes in freedom and justice) to try to bring attention to Hossein’s plight.  To contact every Muslim, Arab as well as Western and non-aligned politician, dignitary, academic, and business leader who has any possible sway over the Iranian government and urge them to release him.  To reach out to Obama to ask him to ask the Iranian rulers for an act of good faith.  To prod the Canadian government to seek the release of their citizen.  To encourage human rights and peace groups to get behind a campaign which could not only achieve freedom for Hossain but also use his story to inspire others to disavow blind hatred of the other.

Does anyone have any thoughts or information?

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Read the entire article pasted below or in this link about Hezbollah’s Boy Scouts – to appreciate the challenge before society: the institutionalized hatred and seriousness of the threat posed by Hezbollah, its backers, and other movements with such nihilistic visions.  It is chilling.  We have no alternative but to counteract this in a smart and tenacious way.

To defeat absolutism and terrorism, force is only a partial answer.  Far more important than force is a better ideology that can trump and expose dark movements as unworthy of the young people they prey upon.   It is not easy, but it can be done.

Like we are doing through OneVoice for millions of Israelis and Palestinians to reframe the conflict and understand the enemy is not each other but violent extremism and militant absolutism that denies the rights of both peoples to a State and Freedom and Security, we need to also build a countervailing movement and philosophy that moves the Mideast (and other regions) away from the us-vs-them hatreds and into the post-Obama world of globally shared human values.

If we are to tackle the challenges that the 21^st century will present to humanity – from climate change to nuclear proliferation, from resource scarcity to nihilism and militant absolutism – we need to ensure that new generations worldwide share this recognition that they have to work together – realizing their shared humanity. 

More on this soon – but in the meantime read this article…

Generation Faithful

Hezbollah Seeks to Marshal the Piety of the Young

New York Times, November 21, 2008, By ROBERT F. WORTH

RIYAQ, Lebanon — On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.

They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.

“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”

This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.

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After all of Sean Hannity’s admonitions about how an Obama Administration would cave into the Iranian regime, guess who is scared of Obama?! The Iranian "revolutionary" leaders – who apparently recognize that Obama’s nuanced approach and integrationist vision is a threat to their divisive vision.

Facing Obama, Iran Suddenly Hedges on Talks

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post
Thursday, November 13, 2008; A01

TEHRAN, Nov. 12 — Since 2006, Iran’s leaders have called for direct, unconditional talks with the United States to resolve international concerns over their nuclear program. But as an American administration open to such negotiations prepares to take power, Iran’s political and military leaders are sounding suddenly wary of President-elect Barack Obama.

"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

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As reported earlier in The Real Axis, a major threat that is not sufficiently explored or countered is the alliance between drug gangs, terrorists, and the authoritarian regime of Hugo Chavez.  Now Colombia has uncovered a Hezbollah-linked drug ring that was trafficking drugs and laundering cash.

Hezbollah-led drug stashes seized in Colombia

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