TERRORISM

I must say............

 I have never seen such a civilized discourse between two individuals when they disagree on certain issues.

Sadegh and Dr. K sure set a good example to follow.

Thanks so much Dr.

Thanks so much Dr. Kazemzadeh, or if I may, Masoud jan, for yet another extensive reply. Greatly appreciated. Btw, if you haven't already I suggest you read Oxford's Avi Shlaim, with whom you are undoubtedly familiar, in the Guardian. Excellent stuff.

//www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-i...

There is also this one by Princeton's Richard Falk, who is now United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories...

//www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/underst...

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

Sadegh jaan

Sadegh jaan,

I do not disagree with many of the things you wrote.  What you wrote is shared by large numbers of decent progressives.

My main disagreement are:

1. I disagree with is your designation of Oslo as fraud from the beginning. Had that been the case why Likud would so vehemently object, so much so that in their rallies, protestors carried posters of Rabin with Nazi and Palestinian insignia. And it was a right-wing Jewish extremist, Yigal Amir who assassinated Rabin. In the aftermath of Rabin’s assassination, there was groundswell of support for Peres and making serious efforts at peace with Palestinians. The fundamentalist regime ruling Iran was soooooooo afraid of peace between Palestinians and Israelis that it pushed Islamic Jihad and Hamas to go hellbent on suicide missions and killing as many Israelis as they could. PIJ and Hamas killed about 120 or so people and that narrowly gave the election to Netanyahu.

2. Arafat had a lot of flaws. Yes he was terribly corrupt. But to support Hamas instead of Arafat is like supporting Jean-Marie Le Pen against Jacques Chirac.

3. The opinion poll among Palestinians before the current war began, showed that President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah ahead of Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank. Foreign Policy magazine writes: "Polls taken before the Israeli offensive showed Abbas and Fatah leading by a healthy margin in both the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas had hoped that a new round of elections, or the threat of them, could force Hamas to take a more accommodating outlook towards reconciliation talks."

//www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4611

4. In my opinion, BOTH Palestinians and Israelis have lost soooooooooo many opportunities for peace. I think Palestinians should have accepted the UN 1947-48 partition plan, or the Camp David accord, or the 2000 offer from Ehud Barak. The League of Arab States is now offering a complete peace based on the 1967 borders. In my opinion, we should hope that instead of killing each other, the leadership of both Israel and Palestinians should sit down and reach a compromise. By helping Hamas, the fundamentalist regime is harming the national interests of Iran, and prolonging war and bloodshed for the Palestinian people.

My 2 cents,

Masoud

Dear Dr. Kazemzadeh

Dear Dr. Kazemzadeh,

thanks again for your exhaustive reply. And thanks for your offer of reading some of my thesis. I will definitely take you up on your gracious offer, of course providing you have the time.

But in my view in your latest reply you have got several things wrong – particularly regarding you rosy interpretation of Oslo. Furthermore, you characterization of Hamas is more caricature than anything else, the work of Khaled Hroub and many other serious scholars completely debunks your framing them as unyielding fundamentalists – the picture in fact proves to be far more nuanced.

As you know they have offered truces to the Israelis (which would hold for unstipulated periods of time i.e. de facto recognition), and even accepted the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations. Sure there will always be maximalists but we need to represent the views of the majority not the fringe, Amongst both Palestinians and Israelis it appears that a severe bout of apathy has set in and is amongst the most significant factors stalling the realization of the much feted two-state solution promised to both peoples, whose leaders have rarely failed to disappoint. The prime source of such disappointment: the abject failure of the Oslo Accords, which were flawed from the very outset, and yet at the time of their announcement couldn’t receive enough praise. Why were the Oslo Accords doomed to fail?: they never mentioned statehood or independence. They did not define boundaries or the fate of Jerusalem, and they did absolutely nothing to arrest the 'settlement enterprise'. Rabin famously stated that the Palestinians can claim to have a “state” if they want, when he knew full well that all it amounted to was a bunch of discontiguous cantons, cut across from every which way by Israeli settler roads. And this is exactly why the late Edward Said and now even more sober analysis such as that of Robert Malley and Hussein Agha decry Oslo as a total fraud - agreed to by an increasingly irrelevant and corrupt Arafat and an Israeli leadership to quell the largely non-violent and grassroots activities taking place in the West Bank in the course of the first Intifada. In fact, the rate of settlement construction continued to increase in the aftermath of Oslo and precipitously so under the supposedly ‘dovish’ Prime Minister, and present Minister of Defense Ehud Barak; even by comparison with the notoriously hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Apathy but also the Bush administration’s pre-occupation with Afghanistan, Iraq and the possibility of a looming war with Iran have all forced the Arab-Israeli conflict onto the back burner.

Since Hamas took control of Gaza at the expense of Muhammad Dahlan’s militia in June 2007 Fatah, along with the Israelis, Americans and European powers have been doing their utmost to oust the elected government. Dahlan’s militia receives funding from the US and some European countries, such as Britain, and some commentators even opine that he’s currently being groomed as the next ‘strong man’ to accede to the presidency and restore Fatah to power.

If peace is to be realized it’s clear that Hamas cannot be excluded from the process as the International Quartet have pressed President Abbas to. President Carter in his most recent visit to the region frankly acknowledged just as much. Not only do they have deep communal ties inside the occupied territories, providing numerous social, welfare and health services to a population forsaken by the international community, and at the mercy of the IDF and Israeli policy makers.

The extra-judicial assassinations of key Hamas figures and the international blockade of Gaza which has reduced Gazans to a new low in their long-established destitution has only gone to buttress support for the Hamas government elected in the January 2006 parliamentary elections with a majority of 74 out of 132 seats. In addition, its acceptance of the two-state solution as a basis for negotiations, not only bespeaks an ideological moderation since its inception in the 1987, but also its tacit recognition that Israel is here to stay. Hamas is going through the same process of maturation as the PLO had done previously. Though by no means ideal, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

The pressure brought to bear by the International Quartet has further been viewed as an ultimatum to Gazans that they overthrow their own elected government or suffer the consequences. Abbas was urged not to yield security control to the government and its Interior Ministry, as stipulated in the constitution. The Quartet also demanded that he quickly reclaim powers from the new government and incorporate them into the executive branch: financial responsibilities would be removed from the Ministry of Finance; the salaries of government officials would be paid by the president’s office and finally, all key policy decisions would be enacted by presidential decree.

The international community’s economic blockade of Gaza, rather than initiating Hamas’ downfall has strengthened the resolve of Palestinians, who refuse to be cowed. The recent bombings and ground offensive into Gaza has just brought more of the same, breeding more hatred and more future martyrs. The actions of the Quartet have only reinforced many Palestinians profound sense of isolation and further entrenched the perception of Western double-standards. Palestinians democratically elected a government in free and fair elections and were punished for having done so. For critics of the Bush administration’s policy vis-à-vis the Israel/Palestine impasse, ample evidence has been provided that the US will only accept a democratically elected government if the democratically elected government in question is one of which the administration approves. A similar trend is deemed to be present in the analogous cases in Algeria, Egypt and Iraq.

Despite the hollow and evermore distant prospect of a Palestinian state, President Bush has said repeatedly that it might be realized before he leaves office. A crucial omission however, is that the Bush administration has entirely undercut the pre-existing international consensus, i.e. that Israel should withdraw to the pre-June 1967 border in exchange for peace. When Bush gave a letter to the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, whereby he committed his government to recognition of the de facto legitimacy of the settlement blocks inside the West Bank, he lent credence to Israel’s transformation of any future Palestinian state into a series of non-contiguous cantons, without meaningful sovereignty in any sense of the word i.e. control of its airspace, borders, trade and armed forces. The consequence: in March 2006 Olmert, announced a unilateral program of withdrawal, postulating that Israel intended to keep 36.5% of the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem and the Jordan valley that represents almost half of the 22% of the post-1949 Palestine upon which many Palestinians had dreamt of building their very own state.

The settlement enterprise continues unabated as we speak, while armed settlers, protected by the Israeli army travel back and forth to Tel Aviv on modern roads strictly for the use of Israeli Jews, from which Palestinians are barred. Israeli settlers are furthermore permitted to harass, maim and kill Palestinians with impunity; and it is exactly because Jimmy Carter has underscored the presence of parallel legal and lived worlds predicated on race and religion in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that he has created such a stir inside the American mainstream.

Finally of course there is the issue of the Israeli ‘security wall’. The illegality of the wall was unequivocally condemned by the International Court of Justice in July 2004, since it violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids any occupying power from transferring part of its civilian population into territories seized by military force. The wall is projected to be at least three and a half times as long as Israel's internationally recognized border and cuts directly through Palestinian villages, breaking up families and dividing farmland. Some 375,000 Palestinians have been included on the 'Israeli' side of the wall. Moreover, the wall completely encircles the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya and its 45,000 inhabitants, with the overwhelming majority of their land and one third of their water supply seized unlawfully by the Israelis. Scores of communities have been bulldozed. The concrete and electrified fencing materials are supplemented by two-meter-deep trenches, roads for patrol vehicles, electronic ground and fence sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, sniper towers and razor wire, all of which have been erected on Palestinian land.

For those interested an excellent article has recently been published by Columbia professor Joseph Massad in light of the ongoing Israeli crimes being committed in Gaza. //electronicintifada.net/v2/article10110.shtm...

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

for Sadegh

Sadegh jaan,

I am glad your dissertation is proceeding well. I will be happy to read it and send you my comments.

On Palestinian-Israel conflict.

There are two main solutions (or policy proposal to solve) the conflict. First, one state solution. Second, two-state solution.

The maximalists on the Palestinian side say that Israel has no legitimacy and there should be only one Palestinian state. Hamas and PIJ say that it should be an Islamist state; their go back to Omar’s invasion of the land and that once a land has been in the hand of Muslims, it should not revert back to the hand of those who held it before them. On the Jewish side, they claim that this land has belonged to them since the ancient times and was taken from them by Romans and then Byzentines, and then by Arab-Muslim invaders. Their religious wing argues that God gave them the Promised Land.

The two-state solution argues that the practical optimal solution is division of the land: two state living side by side; one for the Jewish people, the other for the Palestinians. Since the Oslo process, the PLO abandoned its demand for one state solution and accepted in principle the two-state solution. As did the Rabin, Peres and a good proportion of the Israelis.

Hamas rejects the two-state solution. Hamas won the parliamentary election by a plurality (about 40% of the votes cast). I disagree with you that once a people votes for a group, we have to shut up and not criticize that vote. If a majority of a district in Mississippi voted for a KKK candidate, should we welcome that candidate, or should we criticize the people for voting for the KKK dude.

Hamas is against the two-state solution. Hamas is an armed group. They fight against Israelis in order to achieve their goal of destroying Israel and establishing an Islamist state. What do YOU expect the result of this policy to be? Do YOU, or Hamas, or those who voted for Hamas is that Israelis will accept being killed and not respond with military force?

Therefore, violence, bloodshed, and the killing of large number of innocent children is the result of the policy of one-state solution. If Palestinians are represented by Hamas, this means bloodshed. If the Israelis are represented by Kach or other extremist groups, that would mean bloodshed. If Israelis voted for one of the radical extremist parties, we should condemn that vote.

The PLO made a strategic decision to go for the two-state solution in 1993. This means that the leaders of PLO have to sit down with Israeli leaders and negotiate, make painful compromises whether on land or the right of return and a host of sensitive issues. This requires that if someone within the Palestinian side used violence against Israelis, it is the duty of the PLO (now PA) to arrest and punish that person or group. Just like if an Israeli extremist went and used violence against Palestinians, it is the duty of the Israeli govt to arrest and punish that person or group.

For the above reasons, I disagree with your designation of PLO as:

"emerged as the corrupt prison wardens of their own people, permitting the Israelis to get their hands less dirty than they would be forced to otherwise.."

There is only two real policies. Either one-state solution policy, which automatically results in war and bloodshed and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of innocent children and adults dying.

Or the two-state solution and painful compromise.

There is NO real third alternative. The late Edward Said opposed the Oslo process and advocated the old PLO policy of one secular democratic state (multinational). Unfortunately, in the real world when these groups are killing each other, the notion that they can live peacefully in one state is not realistic, certainly in the short term. The Arabs have about 21 states. When Arab Sunnis cannot live in one state, to demand that Jews and Arabs do, is not real. Even the unification of Syria and Egypt did not last more than two years or so. Just see that PLO and Hamas could not live together and started killing each other. If Hamas and PLO cannot live together in peace, how in the world would be possible for the Jews and Arabs to live together. There is not one democratic system in the Arab countries (partial exception in Lebanon). Why would the Jewish population that has succeeded in creating a democratic system for themselves, be willing to abandon that and risk living under an Arab dictatorship. We should not make IDEALISTIC PERFECTION to destroy the achievable good (despite its shortcomings).

In conclusion, there is only two path ahead. Demand for the destruction of Israel, and war for ever and ever and ever. If one accepts this position, then one cannot complain about bloodshed and the lives of innocent human beings lost. War and human suffering are ONE process. You cannot have war and innocent people not being killed. Under this circumstance, if one promotes the one state solution, then one is also knowingly or unknowing promoting war and bloodshed.

If one is against war and is horrified by the loss of life, especially innocent children, then the ONLY solution is the two-state solution. This means that one should support PLO among the Palestinians and the center-left among the Israelis. By supporting Hamas, one is also supporting war, bloodshed, and loss of innocent lives, which are the INEVITABLE result of Hamas policies.

If my analysis is right, all of us, should condemn Hamas as well as the illegal Israeli settlements and put pressure on Israeli govt and PA to sit down and sign a peace agreement. What the fundamentalist regime has been doing is very harmful. It keeps giving assistance to the most reactionary, violent, terrorists among the Palestinians such as PIJ and Hamas. The fundamentalist regime, by its very nature, does not give a damn about the human rights of ANYbody. It is just pouring more gasoline on the fire. The good policy would be to ask for calm, reconciliation, coexistence, and compromise.

Best regards,

Masoud

Intellectualism is dead with Iranian diaspora

Dr. Sadri,
As someone else mentioned in this thread, it is impossible to use words of reason and logic with most of tehranjelesi-revolutionary-crowd. All they know is to wait for their messaia to come and put Iran on their lap to go back and exploit again. Out of convenience, they find it easy to incriminate Islam since it is in-style and serves the purpose these days. It parallels McCarthyism 40 years ago.

I see no distinction between Fox news analysits and what Masood Kazemzadeh is preeching. You are approaching the issue from academical perspective and replies are coming purely with political agenda. It really is a loosing battle. The only gain I guess is that the silent and passive majority of readers are the best judge and they are more in-tune with realities than the loud and irrational minds.

The business today asks for bashing Islam and it bodes well with their agenda.

On the other hand, I think Islamic societies are going thru some growing pain and all these violent oppositions to true spirit of Islam from both crowds (In-the-name-of-GOD and Anti-GOD camps) are natural components of this phenomena.

Why wait.....

no time like the present....I always say.

Your Farsi is  advanced. You can write to them in Farsi/script.

I am sure that they are interested in intellectual discourse.

When Ahmad met Massoud!

I suppose I must be one of those nameless, loyal detractors of the esteemed professors. And yes, my English is way below their learnednesses standards too. But while I was loitering this site, I came across this clash of the Titans and couldn't give it miss. So I read, and read and read until I arrived at this point:

"I will continue to publish in Iran and in Persian as long as I am allowed to do so."

And perhaps his Wiseness would care to tell us when, in his wisdom, would he expect the authorities to "disallow" him from writing in the Iranian papers?

May I venture a lame reply?

When he ceases to be a "useful critic" of the regime.

hint: remember the great mentor "Soroush of Qunya".

Dear Dr. Kazemzadeh

Dear Dr. Kazemzadeh,

thanks so much for taking the time to give such extensive replies, but I have to take issue with your definition of war, especially vis-a-vis the current crisis in Gaza.

First of all, Gaza isn't a nation as such and doesn't have a standing-army and many other of the features found in the conventional nation-state – can one declare war on a people, or a constituency of people? – and is collective punishment really a form of warfare? – furthermore, because one party (in this case the stronger of the two) claims to be safeguarding its interests, how are those defined? Should we take such a claim at face-value (given that Palestine is occupied, I most definitely think not)?

Moreover, the Palestinians as a people, it is true constitute a "nation", the Palestinian Authority possesses a rudimentary bureaucracy, but they are not a state in any conventional sense of the word for they do not possess sovereignty over their territory (“Palestine” is little more than a series of discontiguous cantons, policed by a foreign occupier) - in the final analysis they are completely reliant upon Israeli discretion and acquiescence for freedom of movement, for trade, employment etc…etc….

Furthermore, the Palestinians are a people, as I have already mentioned, under occupation, whose supply of food, medicine etc... depends on the benevolence of an occupier with an expansionist agenda (the Israelis continue to build settlements at a rapid pace in completed defiance of international law). Also as you know full-well, a people who are occupied are within their rights to resist an occupier.

It is unfortunate that Hamas has been in the ascendance of late (which is largely due to the cooptation of the secular leadership, who have emerged as the corrupt prison wardens of their own people, permitting the Israelis to get their hands less dirty than they would be forced to otherwise – and this is much the fault of the Palestinian leadership as it is the Israelis), and has engaged in terrorist activity against Israeli citizens. I'm not going to going into the spiel about the so-called "weapons of the weak", since such attacks in my view are beyond the pale, pure and simple. But I do reiterate that the West Bank continues to be occupied and settlements continue to be built, violence continues to be committed by the Israeli militarized regime against innocent men, women and children, Gaza was previously withdrawn from by the Israelis, but is no more than a prison in which the prisoners are allowed to roam about freely inside, but from which they can never escape – only the intervention of the ubiquitous prison wardens can assure that, and they had only temporarily (given the present ground assault) shifted to the prison's outskirts. That they are able to do this at any time of their choosing corresponds to the definition of “domination” defined by Philip Pettit (in his famous book on republican liberty).

The Palestinians are not only an occupied people, even upon withdrawal they continue to be a “dominated” people. Also surely in the definition of war, there has to be some idea of parity or proportion (one only has to look at the 2006 attack on Lebanon – we still hear stories of Lebanese children being blown to smithereens by Israeli cluster bombs).

The Israeli army is the 4th most powerful military in the world, and are in possession of US military equipment of which other US allies can only dream. It receives $3bn a year to be spent almost exclusively on US military hardware, while let's face it, the al-Qassem Brigades are a ragtag army of most probably disaffected youth who have nothing better to do, given the over 60% rate of unemployment as a result of the Israeli economic blockade, as a result of what all independent observers admit was the fairest election in the region. We may not like the result, but that is not our decision. One can't have his cake and eat it too.

Lastly, indiscriminate bombing, e.g. dropping a 3 ton bomb on an apartment complex packed with civilians to kill a suspected militant (also an instance of extra-judicial killings, something a proponent of the rule of law can't possibly condone), is at the very least a war crime. For it is self-evident that such tactics will result in the death of innocents in huge numbers. The lessons of Dresden should surely have been learnt by now. Justice of the strong, or victor's justice is not just.

Indifference to the destruction of human life is still blameworthy. One prominent scholar likens the situation to Hamas claiming upon blowing up a bus full of people, that they didn’t in fact mean to murder innocent people, but merely destroy the bus; such an argument of course it utterly laughable and morally reprehensible.

From what I have read here, it appears that many self-styled “anti-regime” types (and this isn’t a furtive jab at you Dr. Kazemzadeh, as I know that despite our differences, we can have a meaningful dialogue, unlike many others who populate this site) define themselves simply by opposing everything the Iranian government supports. That is not rational, reasonable or an instance of what Kant defined as self-determination or autonomy – it’s simply unthinking reaction and moral carelessness.

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh    

Thanks Dr. Kazemzadeh. Hope

Thanks Dr. Kazemzadeh. Hope you're well. I've been busy researching myself, working on clientelism in Iran for my PhD. Once I've written something substantial I would very much like to hear your thoughts. In the meantime I wish you all the best with your scholarly pursuits.

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

responses

Sadegh jaan,

Welcome back.

MK

=====================

Dear for_dr_kazemzadeh,

Several issues are being amalgamated here. Let me try to make these as clear as I am able to.

1. It is wonderful to see moderate Muslims condemn terrorism and extremism. One could not be a moderate Muslim and support terrorism and extremist Islamic entities such as the fundamentalist regime in Iran, Hezbollah Hamas, and PIJ. Dr. A. Sadri and Dr. M Sadri condemned whole lot of groups from Cherik Fadai, PMOI, Jondollah, al Qaeda; but they did not condemn the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran and its proxies and allies. My attempt was to show that to be consistent they should also include the fundamentalist regime in Iran and Hezbollah, PIJ, and Hamas.

2. The Sadri brothers correctly distinguish among a variety of phenomena (that you confuse). Not all violence, or political violence is terrorism. Some are wars, some are coups, some are ...

3. We need to discuss the roots of terrorism. Sadri brothers are correct in stating that all major Abrahamic religions’ sacred scriptures contain violent passages and they have has violent past. Their argument is that what we observe as widespread violence and terrorism by various Islamic groups today is the result of European anarchists; and that this was introduced to Iran by a Marxist organization Cherika Fadai Khalq in the 1970s. My critique was to show that the first modern use of terror was an fundamentalist Islamic organization (Fadaian Islam) which was the Shia version of the Moslem Brotherhood (established in Egypt in the 1920s). In addition, I showed the notion of anarchists being responsible is problematic.

4. Political ramifications. There is no dispute that we observe a great deal of terrorism and violence and extremism in the Islamic world. If we are against terrorism and violence and extremism, we need to discuss the root causes of this phenomena. We need to ask why instead of a decent moderate democratic system in Iran, we are ruled by the fundamentalist regime? Why al Qaeda is a major organization? Why do we observe the rise of Hamas instead of PLO-Fatah or moderate decent individuals like the late Faisal Husseini? Why Hamas and not Hanan Ashrawi are getting more votes among Palestinians? Why the Shia Lebanon support Hezbollah instead of a moderate decent democratic group? In the 1960s, many young Shia in Lebanon became supporters of the Lebanese Communist Party, in the 1970s, they were organized by Musa Sadr (with financial support from the Shah), a bit later they supported Amal.

5. If my analysis is right, we should look at several contributing factors in analyzing the rise of extremist violent Islamic fundamentalists. One factor is the existence of violence in Islamic history. My mentioning of violent past was to show that violence did not arrive in Islam from 1791.

6. On Israel and its relations with our discussion.

What is the relationship between Hamas and PLO-Fatah killing each other and Israel?  When Hamas took over Gaza, they killed a lot of PLO officials, including throwing one from the 5th or 6th floor of a building!!   What the fundamentalist regime doing to the Iranian people got anything to do with Israel? In actual fact, in the Iran-Iraq war, Israel secretly sent military equipment to Iran, and the PLO (and what became Hamas) supported Saddam Hussein.   The fundamentalist regime oppressing, repressing, brutalizing the Iranian people has NOTHING to do with Israelis.

You asked: "

Do you Dr.Kazemzadeh, accept that the policy of Israel, in targeting civilans both in Lebanon and now in Palestine again and again.."

MK: No.

You asked: "Israels targeting civilans and causing death and injury to children constitutes war crimes and in greater scheme of things terror?"

MK: The phenomena you mentioned are classified under "war." Therefore the definitions of "terrorism" do not apply. War is analyzed under the laws and norms of war. As long as one side claims that they target military assets, then collateral damage is not considered war crimes.

7. My PRIMARY concern is Iran and how we can put maximum pressure on the fundamentalist regime and help establish freedom, democracy, and human rights in Iran.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,

Masoud

Profesors

There are questions from Fred on the defenitions of crimes committed by the IRI. There is a detailed comment from Sharex regarding the legitimacy of Islam as a belief system of terror and backwaedness.
Hopefully our professors from any site have the audacity or interests to answer such comments which now grow and are the core reflections among youth in Iran.

Dr. Kazemzdeh,

I am not an academic, so will leave those technical discussions to you two to sort out, but reading your posts, one gets a sense that terrorism is a unique concept introduced by Moslems and used as a tools by Moslems.

Do you Dr.Kazemzadeh, accept that the policy of Israel, in targeting civilans both in Lebanon and now in Palestine again and again and by that token U.S in unconditional support for Israels targeting civilans and causing death and injury to children constitutes war crimes and in greater scheme of things terror?

Dear Dr. Sadri

Dr. Sadr, good article as per usual. But you're fighting a losing battle with these maniacs (Dr. Kazemzadeh excluded). They are irrational lunatics and no amount of rational discussion and showering of facts is going to have any impact - I have tried many times myself, but life is simply too short to waste one's time on a bunch of uneducated zealots, who simply want their prejudices confirmed. The sad thing of course, is that they really have no idea how irrelevant they have become, with a completely slanted and warped vision of their putative "homeland" skewed through the egregious ignorance of broadcasters like Fox News and the like - you tell the colonial that he's a babarian and savage long enough and he'll start believing it - unfortunately many Iranians in the diaspora have succumbed to such flights of fancy. Leave them their petite delusions of grandeur, it's all they have after all.

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

response for Roshanbeen

Dear Roshanbeen,

I have no idea who Fred is. There is no such site as you mentioned. There was a site established by Jebhe Melli Iran in Washington, DC; its website was www.jebhe.org which had a bb. I used to write under "Farhad100" there. The original site is no longer there. Instead, the url sends one to the new site (JMINEWS) managed by a faction of JM in the US.

Best,

Masoud

Response to Dr. Ahmad Sadri

Dear Dr. Ahmad Sadri,

If my critique offended you or hurt your feelings, I apologize. As mentioned several times, I applaud your efforts and encourage you and your brother to continue in your endeavors. My repeated intention was to help deepen your analysis by pointing to what in my humble opinion were shortcomings in your effort. I highly value your (you and your brother) efforts.

Much of your rejoinder is attempt to respond to my critiques. I am not sure whether you chose the title or it was chosen by JJ. But come on: "A Tale of Two LUNATIC FRINGES." :-(

As you might know my politics is the middle-of-the-road Jebhe Melli type. The title of my blog is "Iranian Liberal Democrat." My issue was your lack of including the extremist violent entities such as the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran and its extremist violent proxies and allies in your definition’s application.

A note on terminology: I do not use the term "Islamist" when referring to Islamic fundamentalists. By the term "Islamist" I refer to any group that has transformed Islam into its political ideology. This would include Liberal Islamists such as Nehzat Azadi or many in Melli-Mazhabi, as well as Communist Islamists such as the PMOI. It also included Islamic fundamentalists. When I use the term "Islamic fundamentalists" I use it to one sub-set of Islamists; those that have a right-wing extremist interpretation. I use the term "orthodox" or "conventional" for those devout Muslims who do not transform Islam into a political ideology. In other words "Islamist" includes Liberal Islamists, Communist Islamists, and Islamic fundamentalists: all have transformed Islam into their ideology.

Dr. A. Sadri: The anti-Islamic fringe is now accusing me of apologizing for Islamofascists, IRI, Hamas and Hizbollah. Both attack me for the same reason: decoupling Islam and terrorism. The fringe crucible (both Islamist and anti-Islamic) where Islam and terrorism are fused together is heated by the same parochial agenda: Islamists favor Islamic terrorism as a club to bash their regional foes and the anti-Islamic front finds it useful to bash Islam.

MK: Let me simply quote from what I wrote in my blog last week.

//iranian.com/main/blog/masoud-kazemzadeh...

"There have been decent clerics such as Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari, Grand Ayatollah Abolfazl Zanjani. One may disagree with them on a host of issues, but we have to accept that they opposed Khomeini’s fascistic terroristic version of Islam, and instead they presented a version of Islam that was compatible with democracy and freedom. For that matter, Ayatollah Naini of the Constitutional period presented many good interpretation (or re-interpretation) of Islam."

Dr. A. Sadri:

But the two have more than an ideological interest in common. Conceptually, both groups harbor an outdated essentialism, an anachronistic belief in a trans-historical "essence" for Islam.

MK: For my critique of essentialist views of Islam see:

//iranian.com/Kazemzadeh/2005/December/Paidar/index.html

Dr. A. Sadri :

The first step in an international campaign to end terrorism is adopting narrow, lean and trans-nationally applicable definition for terrorism. But all we have is the sloppy thinking of the Islamist and Islamophobic fringes. Take for instance the concept of "terrorist regime" exclusively applied by my venerable critic, Dr. Kazemzadeh to the Islamic Republic of Iran. He calls Iran a "terrorist regime" because it has sent munitions to its none-state proxies and because it has engaged in internal and extra-territorial assassination of its opponents

MK: You and your brother Dr. Mahmoud Sadri completely accept the definition of terrorism as use of violence for political purpose against non-combatants who are not armed. What I did was to show that by the use of THE DEFINITION that you and Dr. Mahmoud Sadri use, the fundamentalist regime is a terrorist entity. Applying YOUR definition, one could not but to also include the Lebanese Hezbollah, PIJ, and Hamas. Now you are complaining why I APPLIED this to the fundamentalist regime and its allies. The REASON I used these examples is to show that using YOUR definition, the fundamentalist regime is a terrorist regime.

Now if the application of YOUR definition could include other governments, then go ahead make that argument. I have no problem with you applying YOUR definition.

Now let me provide my thoughts. There is no one good definition of terrorism. As I say in my lectures on this subject, "providing one universally agreed upon definition of terrorism is like "nailing jello on the wall." If we use this definition (which btw, I, too, use) would make the Nicaraguan Contras a terrorist organization and would make the US govt under Reagan a state sponsor of terrorism.

Dr. A. Sadri: With that definition, one might wonder, what other countries are also "terrorist regimes?" Is it "logically consistent" to underline Iran’s reprehensible assassination of its opponents (which I have condemned in my editorials at the Daily Star of Lebanon, reprinted at this site (e.g. "Kazemigate") but conveniently forget about the culturally celebrated "licensed to kill" agents of superpowers or the targeted killings conducted by Israel? Wouldn’t the assassination of Palestinian leaders that followed the Munich terrorist attacks (portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s eponymous movie) and the ones in the last two months of the now broken Hamas ceasefire also register Israel as a "terrorist regime?

MK: Here you are confusing two separate phenomena. Israel assassinating those who killed Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich is part of the war between Israel and its Palestinians. If Israel assassinated Faisal Husseni, the famous non-violent Palestinian activist, then this action would be classified as terrorism. But if a terrorist killed an Israeli non-combatant, and then Israelis assassinated that terrorist, then the Israelis targeted and killed a combatant. An equal action would be the fundamentalist regime targeting a member of Forqan in Europe and assassinating him. What makes the fundamentalist regime a "terrorist regime" is that it systematically uses violence against non-combatants who are not armed.

Dr. A Sadri: What sense does it make to mention, as my critics do, the indiscriminate missile attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad (whose condemnation was the very point of my essays) but conveniently forget about the far more lethal, repeated and indiscriminate cluster-bombings of Lebanon and the ongoing bombardments of Gaza? Dr. Kazemzadeh continues to harp on the Palestinian terrorism even as Israeli disproportionate attacks on Gaza have killed nearly 400 people and injured three times as many. Why do these keen critics, following the lead of the right wing chatterboxes of Fox News and Neo Con websites, only repeat the Muslim on Muslim atrocities in Darfur to the exclusion of Srebrenica, Sabra and Shatila? Ideologues like Dr. Kazemzadeh use this selective approach to cobble together a case for denouncing Islam that is fit for a closing argument in a court of law. But such rhetorical forays only generate parallel, selective diatribes on the other side where US and Israel appear as pathological mass murderers. Haven’t we all had enough of this bloody and boring dialogue of the deaf?

MK: I did NOT use the example of indiscriminate PIJ and Hamas missile attacks. AGAIN, you confuse different phenomena. What is going on right now is WAR. The actions of Israelis, PIJ, and Hamas in this case is analyzes under the laws and norms of war. Innocent people killed due to such bombardments (on BOTH sides) are collateral damage as long as one could claim that they were targeting the armed opponent.

I have no problem in condemning Sabra and Shatilla massacre. Everyone should. Or the ethnic cleansings by Serbs. But what in the world my critique that you fail to apply your definition to the fundamentalist regime in Iran and to its allies has ANYthing to do others killings each other in different contexts.

Dr. A. Sadri: The truth is that ALL religions (including Islam, and "including Islam" was the very point of my articles on terrorism) share violent passages in their Scriptures and a history of violent interpretations of those passages. To use the language of religion, all religions must repent from aspects of their past. Terrorism is just one of the incarnations of this unfortunate abuse of religion. The way to combat this is to call on the believers to hark to the better angels of their nature not to demonize one religion to the exclusion of others. All manners of violence against non combatants are being perpetrated in the name of religion. What Muslim Janjawid have wrought in Darfur is just is despicable as the legacy of the Christian Army of the Lord in Uganda. In such a world, it is intellectually dishonest to make a partisan argument against one religion where there is enough blame to go around for all of them. Besides, castigating one religion as a terrorist creed is politically foolish as no conceivable policy can ensue identifying hundreds of millions of followers with terrorism. Unless, of course, the suggestion of one of the anti Muslim bigots (the radio host Michael Savage) to murder 100 million Muslims counts as policy.

MK: You are absolutely right in this passage. My critique was to encourage you and your brother to go deeper and be more bold in analyzing the violent roots of various religions in general and Islam in particular. My critique of your analysis is that it is too superficial. It does not go to the root causes. There is a difference between a group that is national liberation type that has demands for independence, autonomy and the like that uses terrorism as a tactic (e.g., PLO, IRA) and states that use terrorism as a cheap way to undermine their opponents (Reagan administration in assisting the Nicaraguan Contras) on the one hand, and those entities that are by their very natures terrorist (e.g., their ideology is a violent ideology, they could not survive without the use of terrorism) such as the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran.

Dr. A. Sadri: As I have already stated, for analytical as well as practical reasons the questions of war crimes, targeted killings and assassinations, massacres and varieties of ethnic cleansing ought not to be mixed up with the scourge of international terrorism. My not mentioning these is not the result of wishing to hide something or engage in cherry picking. I believe each of these problems must be separately studied and confronted. Professors (such as my venerable critic Dr. Kazemzadeh) must be in the business of bringing clarity not confusion and clutter to the subject of their discussion. Professors like Dr. Kazemzadeh would not be setting a good example for their students when they mix phenomena as diverse as the Safavid forced conversion of Iranians to Shiite religion in the sixteenth century and the religious persecution of Bahais after the Islamic Revolution, with "terrorism." State sponsored violence leading to forced conversions and religious persecution are disturbing enough in their own right. It serves no purpose, indeed it is counterproductive, to widen the definition of terrorism to cover everything and everyone that we dislike.

MK: This has actually been MY critique of you and your brother.

Dr. A. Sadri: Dr. Kazemzadeh engages in substantive criticism of my essays in two areas: the legacy of Anarchism and the history of terrorism in Iran. First, he casts doubt on the provenance of Islamic Terrorism: "Sadri then states that it was the anarchists who invented the use of violence for political purpose. But in all the cases that he mentioned the anarchists used violence against political leaders." Here I would have to respectfully request that Dr. Kazemzadeh spend more time in the library. Anarchists perpetrated many assassinations. But they also engaged in blind acts of terrorism as a form of mass communication.

MK: In all the cases you mentioned before, the anarchists uses violence on political leaders which according to the definition you provided would count as terrorism. Instead of sending me "donbal-e nokhod siah" you should provide a scholarly defense of a MAJOR thesis of YOUR argument that terrorist was an invention by European anarchists. It is NOT my job to go and search and see whether YOUR assertion has merit. YOU assert, YOU should provide the evidence. In this ver essay, ALL you could present is one example of one dude detonating one bomb in a café killing one and injuring 20. Your other examples refer to two NOVELS!!!!!! One would expect to see major anarchist theoreticians (e.g., Bakhnin, Proudhon, Emma Goldman, Bookchin) arguing that it is legitimate to use violence against civilians who are not armed as one of the main methods of struggle.

Even worse, you classify the unabomber as an anarchist activist. This person has mental illness. His actions were not a result of anarchist ideology. To the extent that he articulated an idea it was against technology and he targeted many university professors and technology related executives.

Your assertion that 1960s groups SLA, BPP, and WU that their ideology was anarchism needs presentation of evidence. If your assertion is correct, you should put this in your revised version of the original essay. It would provide some evidence to your assertion.

Dr. A. Sadri:

The second substantive area of Kazemzadeh’s critique covers the history of terrorism in Iran. But his grasp of the modern history of Iranian political activism is not much better than his knowledge of anarchism. Our friend must familiarize himself with the history of Fadaeean-e Eslam, Mujahedeen-e Khalgh, Fadaeean-e Khalgh and Hojjatieh Society before venturing off hand theories on the subject. He says: "It is logically inconsistent to call the violence used against heads of governments by anarchist "terrorism" but not call the use of violence against non-combatants committed by Islamic groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Lebanese Hezbollah "legitimate resistance." First, condemning the violence perpetrated by Muslim extremists against civilian targets was the very point of my articles.

MK: In your essay, you only criticized suicide bombing, but justified resistance by Leb Hezbollah, PIJ, and Hamas. I would like to invite you to classify the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran, Leb Hezbollah, PIJ, and Hamas as terrorist entities based on YOUR definition of terrorism and as applied to anarchists.

Dr. A. Sadri: Second, what connects the anarchists and Islamic terrorism is not the use of violence or assassination attempts aimed at political and ideological enemies – because these practices predate both anarchism and modern terrorism. Rather, the common denominator is the disregard for the lives of ordinary citizens. Dr. Kazemzadeh implies that I tend to coddle Fadaeean-e Eslam by not mentioning them as the forerunners of terrorism in Iran. I have no used for the bloody, medieval ax wielders of this band of assassins. But the fact remains that they were not the forerunners of modern terrorism in Iran.

Assassination of enemies by secret brotherhoods of professional killers is not a new phenomenon. Not even the disciples of Hassan Sabbah could claim to be the first in the use of assassinations to further their political goals. But there is something radically new in the urban guerilla warfare of "Fadaeean-e Khalgh" and "Mujahedeen-e Khalgh:" the anarchist idea of "propaganda of the deed." Fadaeean-e Eslam’s liquidated their ideological (e.g., Kasravi) and political (e.g., Razmara) enemies. But they never blew up a bus; it would not cross their mind to plant a bomb in the bathroom of the Kourosh Department Store.

MK: So, what group introduced terrorism in modern Iran? According to your definition, it is Fadaian Islam. If you would to include ideological opponents (who are not armed) as combatants, then you open the door for anyone to go around and kill anyone who disagree with their ideology and has the ability to write it down. According to your criteria, you and I are ideological opponents of Ansar-e Hezbollah and if they were to kill us, this would not constitute terrorism!!!!!

My point was that according to your definition, the first modern terrorist group in Iran is the Fadaian Islam.

On Hojjatieh.

MK: Thanks for your elaboration. My information on Hojjatieh is extremely limited. Mehdi Khalaji states that your brother Dr. Mahmoud Sadri was a member of Hojjatieh.

Khalaji, "Apocalyptic Politics," p. 10.

//www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=286

Khalaji also mentions the following who were members of Hojjatieh who held top position in the regime: Ali Akbar Velayati, Kamal Kharrazi, Ali Akbar Parvaresh, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Mostafa Chamran, Abdul Karim Soroush (Ibid., pp. 11-12).

You are correct on the differences between the Hojjatieh and Khomeini. And all of the above had to leave Hojjatieh in order to get positions in the regime. Of course, one’s membership in one organization has nothing to do with what that person does later on.

I would be most grateful, if you would be kind enough to write on the relationship between Hojjatieh and whether or not it worked with the Shah after the 1953 coup in the violence against Bahais. As far as I am aware, you and your brother are among the experts in this issue, and I would be grateful to learn from you.

Dr. A. Sadri : "He calls Iran a "terrorist regime" because it has sent munitions to its none-state proxies and because it has engaged in internal and extra-territorial assassination of its opponents"

"analogies that equate Iran to KKK"

MK: It is false to equate Iran (a country) with the ruling regime [nezam]. Iran includes millions and millions of people who oppose the nezam velayat faghih or what I call the fundamentalist regime. I do NOT call Iran "terrorist regime." I call the ruling nezam velayat faghih a terrorist regime, because it is a regime and according to the definition provided it uses violence against non-combatants who are not armed for political purposes.

A final note. Again, I admire your efforts and endeavors and wish you best of luck. What you are doing is courageous and it deserves support from all those who would like to see a clear demarcation between the moderate Muslims who oppose terrorism and the violent terrorist elements within the Islamic world.

My apologies for typos and grammatical errors. I am in the middle of finishing a scholarly project , and try my utmost to spend as much time as I could on non-scholarly matters. If I missed any nuance or detail due to my too quick readings, my sincerest apologies.

With best wishes,

MK

Mr. Sadri

Thanks for the article. Please ignore the lunatics. Rational humans who follow real world events understand and appreciate your work but probably feel no need to comment.
Have a nice day.

History of Islam is the tale of Continuous Crime!

Dear friend, your ever present worries about the reputation of Islam is in stark and strong contrast with realities. The truth is that Islam has never had a glorious or respectable past, it has not contributed to development of anything else than spreading of hatered, ignorance and dishonesty. It begaun with the very pesron of Muhammed, the polygamist, the warmonger, the pirate and even the child abuser and we have witnessed it's ugly nature in 1400 years of Islam's criminal hitory in Iran, Egypt and Bisance.

 Islam can be proud of having destroyed 3 shining civilizations, replacing them with a pathologic culture of self-denial ,constant poverty, ignorance and schizophremia. 

Before Islam, these 3 civilizations contributed Greatly to human civilization, if there has ver been short periods of resurrection in these countries, achievements and dvelopments, it has nothing to do with Islam, it has been despite to Islam.

Islam is the mastery of falsification, robbery and Crime, It has a filthy nature, it is a blend of demagogy,mythology and psychological warfare. 90 % of what you call for Islamc art, is nothingg more than Persian Art, the rest is the remnants of Egyptian and other pre-islamic art. Before Islam there were leading centers of research and science in this region, if you find individually successful scientists and artisans in this region since islam, it still has nothing to do wth Islam, it is despite to it.

Insetad of being concerned about the good reputation (??) of Islam, you should be concerned about people, humanity, freedom, science, art, and future of these people, you should ave the gut and honesty to identify the disease (ISLAM), and prscribe the solution (Eradication of this disease).

It has passed 1400 years since then, every time these civilizations have tried to resurrect, they have effectively been fought down by a new Ayatollah, by the New Islam, by the True Islam, only to enslave the soul and spirits of these nations. Every time Islam has demonstarted it's true anti-human nature, people like you have prepared for the true and civilized Islam, just in order to make the true opposition impossible,

Islam is beyond reforms, it has nothing in common with culture and civilization of success and progress, it is against freedom, and individuality, and must be eradicated by any mens and atany price.

We will not let the so called opposition, to borrow the mantle of Islam just inorder to get the popularity and majority support, then leting this religion of ignorance and crime to nestle in the minds and hearts of the future generation, preparing for new islamic resurrections. Either IRI should stay or the whole package of Islam, in power or opposition, must disappear, there is no third way, there is no easy or middle way, and we are there to make you and the recociliatory opposition sure about that.

In your articles you are prescribig a so called universal justice and shared welfare, you like many other hippies and addicted liberals of different subcultures ask for negotiations between the so called moderate Islamists and the secular developed world, to share their values and wealth with Islamists, it is both naive, and smells eroticism en solo, also,masturbation.

There is no moderate Islam, there has never been any moderate , progressive Islam, and in th ight of that, you must wake up to realities and understand that as long as we are chained to the block rock of Islam, there will be no freedom, and therefore no development.
This country needs a total revolution, or better to say, a counter-revolution , not just against the Islamic Republic, but against the very existance of Islam as a cultural, political, economical andtraditional Institute, both in power and in OPPOSITION!

Fred

are you same poster as Farhad100 on jebhe-melli.org?

Wasting Your Time on Dr. Kazemzadeh

It is very good of you to spend so much time to discuss Dr. Kazemzadeh. However, I believe you are wasting your time on this professor. Dr. Kazemzadeh only notices wrong doings by Iran or its government. To him, it is perfectly OK when other nations or other groups kill millions of people.

Half-truths longish version

By setting the 1960s marker are you intentionally excluding the militant Islamist terrorist groups like Fadayan-Islam of Navab Safavi infamy which goes back to at least 1940s? Your attempt at equating unwelcomed criticism of your brand of Islamism with Islam the religion is passé and won’t work. No answers yet to the outstanding questions like the ones about you following the failed teachings of Ali Shariati and association with its natural end result Fardid and the Islamist “Luther”?  As usual other half-truths are in abundance in your longish wordplay.