"Government preparing case against Iran" - Your thoughts?

[Andrushka]

Government preparing case against Iran
May 14, 2008 - 6:15AM

The Australian government is preparing a case against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has confirmed to the Australian newspaper that the government was seeking legal advice on taking Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ.

<snip>

Before the last election the then opposition leader Kevin Rudd promised the Jewish community he would take legal proceedings against Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ

http://news.theage.com.au/national/government-preparing-case-against-iran-20080514-2dxr.html

This didn't seem to make it to DU when the news broke, but it has been bugging me. I really want to like Rudd's government, but this and a couple of other issues this week have me scratching my head!

I know the issue of did he or didn't he (Ahmadinejad) say Israel should be "wiped off the map" had been done to death on DU. From what I have read, that's not what he said. But even if he did, what the hell is this promise to the "Jewish community" and attempting some doomed-from-the-start case to be brought up to the ICJ? I'd expect that sort of stunt from the US pollies, cowering under the pressure of AIPAC. But in Aus?

[Esra Star]

1. I would need to know exactly what he said, when he said it, and

what the context was.
Maybe...just maybe...they will find out that if they have a case to take to that court, they will be honour bound to take Howard and his co-insects as well.
Anyway, this is the first I've heard of this.
My money is on "not a viable case to proceed".

[Andrushka]

2. Nice one

"they will be honour bound to take Howard and his co-insects as well"

Agreed - and perhaps there would be a stronger case against them!

Must admit that this news didn't disturb me as much as the bizarre decision about solar electricity rebates this week, but was surprised that this announcement was made nonetheless.

[Matilda]

3. You may have read the same piece that I did in CounterPunch.

Back in 2006: "Is Iran's President Really a Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying Islamo-fascist who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map"?

It was an opinion piece from Virginia Tilley in South Africa, and contained this analysis of the
now-infamous quote from Ahmadinejad:

"The most infamous quote, "Israel must be wiped off the map", is the most glaringly wrong. In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word "map" or the term "wiped off". According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

What did he mean? In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, "This too shall pass."

http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html


I also have to question why the Australian Parliament found it necessary to celebrate the 60th
Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Do we celebrate the anniversaries of other
nation-states in this way? And I can't help wondering what is to celebrate, with the country in
a permanent state of war, an ugly dividing wall defiling the magnificent vistas of this timeless
land, and those of its citizens who cannot claim Jewish heritage condemned to living as underdogs
without full civil rights in what is also, technically, their homeland. I fell in love with this
country as it was just before the six-day war, and I don't feel like doing anything but weep.