Al-Jazeera's Inside Iraq Clip on YouTube

Al-Jazeera disabled the comments on this long clip, whose topic was what a possible Israeli raid on targets in Iran would mean for Iraq. Very little was actually said about that subject, and there were no Iraqis on the panel! I have another question about it. It has become very common for Israel's opponents to say that Israel is a racist apartheid regime, as Seyed Mohammed Marandi did in this clip. What are the races? Aren't the Israelis Semitic peoples, of the same historic ethnicity as the Palestinian Arabs? Both groups speak Semitic languages and have similar regional roots.

I think the word "racist" has become a euphemism for "sectarian bias" and in this case the "races" are the Muslims and the Jews, period. If I am wrong, I hope some enlightened person will be kind enough to tell me what "race" controls the regime in Israel and what "race" it is discriminating against. The originators of the accusation against Israel that it is racist are probably Muslim. I've never heard any Christian Palestinians use the term, only Iranians and Hamas members.

This clip was designed by Al-Jazeera for Phyllis Bennis. Her organization's report was the foundation for the clip; she got the last word and was allowed to interrupt Ranaan Gissim whenever she wanted. Moderator Jassam Hazawi even broke Gissin off once to allow Bennis to break in at a facial cue from her.

When Gissin mentioned Israel's good relations with Iran under the shah, Bennis smirked (as did Marandi) and said "brutality breeds brutality," implying that the shah's regime was brutal while the present Islamic regime in Iran is not. Absurd!

I can at least agree with Bennis that we need diplomacy and a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.

In this video Pat Condell says the word "racism" has been hijacked and he explains why. I agree with him.