Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews'

[rabs]

Source: The Atlantic




A couple of weeks ago, while I was on vacation, my cell phone rang; it was Jorge Bolanos, the head of the Cuban Interest Section (we of course don't have diplomatic relations with Cuba) in Washington. "I have a message for you from Fidel," he said. This made me sit up straight. "He has read your Atlantic article about Iran and Israel. He invites you to Havana on Sunday to discuss the article." I am always eager, of course, to interact with readers of The Atlantic, so I called a friend at the Council on Foreign Relations, Julia Sweig, who is a preeminent expert on Cuba and Latin America: "Road trip," I said.

I quickly departed the People's Republic of Martha's Vineyard for Fidel's more tropical socialist island paradise. Despite the self-defeating American ban on travel to Cuba, both Julia and I, as journalists and researchers, qualified for a State Department exemption. The charter flight from Miami was bursting with Cuban-Americans carrying flat-screen televisions and computers for their technologically-bereft families. Fifty minutes after take-off, we arrived at the mostly-empty Jose Marti International Airport. Fidel's people met us on the tarmac (despite giving up his formal role as commandante en jefe after falling ill several years ago, Fidel still has many people). We were soon deposited at a "protocol house" in a government compound whose architecture reminded me of the gated communities of Boca Raton. The only other guest in this vast enclosure was the president of Guinea-Bissau.

I was aware that Castro had become preoccupied with the threat of a military confrontation in the Middle East between Iran and the U.S. (and Israel, the country he calls its Middle East "gendarme"). Since emerging from his medically induced, four-year purdah early this summer (various gastrointestinal maladies had combined to nearly kill him), the 84-year-old Castro has spoken mainly about the catastrophic threat of what he sees as an inevitable war.

~~~~~~~~~~ snip ~~~~~~~~

Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.




Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-to-ahmadinejad-stop-slandering-the-jews/62566/

---

Eye-opening first of two-part series by Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic.

[Xipe Totec]

1. That's a jaw dropper

:wow:

[rabs]

3. This paragraph caught my attention:

After this first meeting, I asked Julia to explain the meaning of Castro's invitation to me, and of his message to Ahmadinejad. "Fidel is at an early stage of reinventing himself as a senior statesman, not as head of state, on the domestic stage, but primarily on the international stage, which has always been a priority for him," she said. "Matters of war, peace and international security are a central focus: Nuclear proliferation climate change, these are the major issues for him, and he's really just getting started, using any potential media platform to communicate his views. He has time on his hands now that he didn't expect to have. And he's revisiting history, and revisiting his own history."

--------------------

Fidel gave an interview recently to a Mexican newspaper in which he said that he had been practically dead from the illness he suffered. He said that when he "resucitated," he had woken up to find himself in a "world of locos" threatening nuclear holocaust.


edit typo

[roguevalley]

22. he had a near death experience and it changes you. I know

go, fidel!

[elleng]

2. Bravo, Fidel!

[Frank Booth]

4. Nice headline, but anything by this piece of shit "reporter" should come with a big disclaimer.

Most people appear to have forgotten that Jeffrey Goldberg was just as instrumental in pushing the lies justifying war against Iraq as Judith Miller.

I remember being shaken when reading these articles about Iraq's "massive WMD capabilities":

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/02/10/030210fa_fact

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/03/25/020325fa_FACT1

Turns out, they were all bullshit, as Goldberg relied on sources that nearly every other reporter deemed too uncredible to even bother talking to.

http://harpers.org/archive/2006/06/sb-goldbergs-war-1151687978

For whatever reason, while Judith Miller was rightfully castigated, Jeffrey Goldberg has managed to land job after job at respected media institutions. He is presently engaged in a campaign of pushing for attacks against Iran.

[EFerrari]

13. I thought that I should remember that name.

So, that makes this article and the promised series a little more interesting.

[Submariner]

5. Che would be proud

Go Fidel.

[applegrove]

10. Yes.

[proteus_lives]

29. Then he would ask:

"Yo Fidel, why you'd let me die in Bolivia?"

[Drale]

6. Thats never going to happen

because hes trying to pull off a Hilter blame everyone else for your peoples problems then do what ever the fuck you want (didnt bush do this to?)

[Leftist Agitator]

18. What the are you talking about?

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

19. I reread that slowly to see if I could understand it, to no avail. Hmmm.

Sounds reel sirius.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. I wonder if a hilter is the opposite of a pointer.

And, if so, what the hell it actually means.

[lonestarnot]

7. So they're both running for office on the pugliCON ticket?

[nyy1998]

8. Excellent read

Very interesting comments from Fidel....

[roxiejules]

9. Stunning...

He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.

[Vehl]

11. Not surprising...socialists never liked religious fundies

Any friendship Fidel might have had in the past with some fundie regimes was probably due to their shared enemies...but one has to remember that socialists were some of the first to call for a Jewish state.

[flamingdem]

14. oil opec palestinians hugo money embargo cuban-five alan-gross

what's goin' on Fidel? It's intriguing.

[proteus_lives]

16. And the first to betray it.

[Alamuti Lotus]

12. ...that coming from one of the strongest supporters of Palestinian revolutionaries for decades

[proteus_lives]

15. Someone has started thinking about what the history books will say about him.

Not just the ones handed out by the Cuban government.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. You don't think his status in history as a great human being, as well as a great leader

on the world stage is already more than secure?

I think you are in a very small minority, and not necessarily one that will decide the postition to which mainstream history books will adere.

[proteus_lives]

25. Great leader? Iffy.

Great human being? :rofl:

Sorry comrade but dictators don't get to be great human beings.

[Joe Chi Minh]

26. Don't worry. Europeans are very familiar with the "off the scale" right-wing luncacy

of US politics, so your attempt at ridicule is kind of touching.

Do you think the youth of this world love dictatorships? Why is it then that Che Guevara's moosh seems to have been on their sweat-shirts since the year dot? Wake up to yourself, dummy!

[proteus_lives]

28. Che?

The symbol of half-wit college students everywhere? :rofl:

I always wonder if they truly understand they're worshiping a stalinist thug. It's funny anyway because capitalists have made such a profit off of his image. You can get Che plushies you know.

"Do you think the youth of this world love dictatorships?"

Not them, you maybe but they're just ignorant, most of them grow out of it.

[Judi Lynn]

17. The fact the former President called this guy is intriguing. Looks as if Goldberg

will do a good job getting his story read here.

Why should he simply all his comments to AP or the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and whoever else works in Cuba? We've already seen their products, know what they're going to say from years ago.

(They have made subtle changes in their style, however, and often refer to Cuban immigrants as "immigrants" now instead of "refugees" and "defectors." Guess that's progress.)

Thank you for posting this story. It's a first, by all means.

Recommending.

[Frank Booth]

20. Don't believe for a second you'll get the truth from Goldberg.

He is quite possibly the most untrustworthy "respected journalist" around:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/sb-goldbergs-war-1151687978

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/08/hbc-90007505

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/12/goldberg/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/13/past

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/20/goldberg

[Jim Sagle]

21. Amazing, and gratifying.

[Tutankhamun]

23. This is why Goldberg is still a hot commodity in journalistic circles.

He may have been a tool of the RW Iraq war hawks, on par even with the despised pariah, Judith Miller, but look who he can get a sit-down with. Journalism is at least as much about access as truth.