Countdown in Iran to Israel’s counterstrike: ‘Spotlight’ on Press TV
The address yesterday of Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khameneh in a central square of Teheran following Friday prayers which drew an audience of hundreds of thousands chanting ‘death to Israel’ was the first of its kind in more than four years. Later in the day, the country’s English language global broadcaster Press TV s reached out to foreign talking heads for comment on what he said. I and Yves Engler, a political activist in Montreal were brought on air for a 15-minute round of questions and answers.
Put in brief, the Supreme Leader directed his attention exclusively at the crimes Israel is perpetrating in the neighborhood, for which it will be properly punished by Iran and its allies. He called upon the entire Muslim world to unite in support of this just fight.
What I found most striking in the report on the Ayatollah’s speech and in the formulation of all questions for our discussion by presenter Bardia Honardar is that all attention is directed solely against Israel; hardly a word is said about the United States’ role in the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza and Lebanon.
What I make of this is the following: Israel as the clearly visible perpetrator of the ongoing genocide and atrocities in the region is a country generally reviled at the popular as well as state level throughout the Muslim world. The enabler of Israel’s crimes, or, as I suggest, the power guiding Israel’s rampage for its own purposes, the United States, presents a more divisive issue for Muslim countries worldwide, since so many of them are embedded with U.S. joint defense agreements and are host to American military bases.
Support for Iran’s defense against Israel by these latter states and peoples who are embedded with Washington is being ‘requested’ by Teheran in an entirely separate way from the Ayatollah’s outreach to co-religionists. This took place at a meeting with the Gulf States in which Iran threatened to attack their oil rigs and refineries in case Israel attacks Iran’s hydrocarbon industry, which would be done with the approval and likely the military support of Washington. So much for ‘Muslim unity’ as an abstract concept.
Of course, none of the latter was put on air by our host.
I call attention to the mini-debate I had with Mr. Engler over whether Washington is just ‘complicit’ in Israel’s atrocities, as he believes, or is guiding the rampage, as I believe, following my concept of a US proxy war in which Israel is the proxy, carrying out the U.S. mission of kicking ass in the region and reinforcing American global hegemony within its assigned territory of West Asia.
I also call attention to the time lag in consciousness of what is going on by our Press TV interlocutor. His question at the conclusion of the program about U.S. ‘hypocrisy’ with respect Israel’s conduct sounds today like it comes from another planet. Hypocrisy is, as I say, the small change of diplomacy everywhere. Of far greater concern to us all should be Israeli practice of genocide that is enabled by Washington’s delivery of weapons and intelligence.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024