Talk:Iranian president says move Israel to Europe

I for one fully support the moving of all the buildings of the old city of Jerusalem, and any other contensted holy sights, to Montana, Nevada, or Utah.  :)

Why not move all the Islamists in Europe to Iran first? BTW, Chompsky once half-seriously suggested moving all the Palistinians to America, which is a much more reasonable course of action really.

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true ..." - as far as I see, he wasn't really saying that the holocaust didn't happended, he was claiming that the possibility of that cannot be investigated without becoming a taboo. Granted I doubt too about the seriousness of the people that claim the holocaust never happened, but saying he denied the holocaust - as the first paragraph of the article says, seems to me a little biased. Anyway, since this is a dangerous topic, I'm waiting for other people to give their opinions. algumacoisaqq

• "We don't accepted this claim" -> claim = the Holocaust
  
• "If we suppose it is true" -> It (the Holocaust) is false

Thats a pretty clear case of denying the Holocaust to me. --Deprifry|+T+ 18:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, your right. I understand it wrong. Just read the news in portuguese, then there were no doubts left for me. algumacoisaqq

It's clearly holocaust denial. Boud 15:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Can we make this lead? Our current one is getting stale.

---

I get a feeling that this article, as well as most western media for that matter, gives a rather simplistic image of the matter. Not being an Arab or muslim, I however realize that it is a common sentiment among the Islamists that the Palestinians, and muslims in general, are bearing the consequences of Europeans' crime against the Jews. True, Palestine may be the ancestral homeland of the jews, but that, in modern political theories, hardly constitute a claim over its ownership a thousand years later. Furthermore, this article blurs the line between Holocaust denial, anti-semetism and anti-zionism. As far as I can tell, Ahmadinejad is clearly anti-zionist but no where do I see him as being anti-semite; he seems much more antipathic toward the western powers who supported the establishment of Israel than to Jews in general. Similarly, neither can holocaust denial be equated to anti-semitism, despite what many insist to be the case. 82.123.3.102 13:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Blogger comment

I don't care for that being included in the article. -68.232.153.54 04:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Its a section for the "Iranian reaction" to the comments, which seems completely reasonable. It just so happens that people have only boothered to post one Iranian reaction.

If anyone can find other reactions by ordinary Iranians, please add them. Let's not paint a black-and-white picture of "all Iranians are anti-semites" just because they elected a fascist for president. Iran is not the only democracy in this situation... Boud 15:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Whoever thinks a whole country can be generalised as anything is already beyond our help. These blog comments seem too much like random spam from some fame-seeking arm-chair commentators. Let us not go there.62.189.34.9 16:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

A whole country cannot be generalised by the statement of any one individual. So then the question is: whose comments can be validly quoted? GWBush's comments are mostly not his own, most are generally considered to be designed by w:Karl Rove (e.g. for (i=0;i<<1000;i++) {printf("terrorist\n");};) The political leaders of most European countries that supported the attack on Iraq were opposite to what most of their citizens wanted. If we want representative comments, then we should probably ban quotes by politicians. On the other hand, if we want statements which in some sense represent some sort of balance between the most powerful political forces in a country, no matter how authoritarian they are, then we should encourage quotes by politicians. Boud 22:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

MrM tore somebody a new a**hole recently for one of these large sections of quotes, but I really like them. Its true that they are not as easy to keep impartial, but they are something really quite unique to wikinews. Instead of havving our own mindless comments, we go scour the world for the best comments which can actually fit into the article. Its a way for us to have the best of traditional media and the best of "new media" (comments, blogs, etc.). Nyarlathotep 16:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I think two quotes from bloggers is probably enough, I'm not in the least surprised that the literate in the country can see beyond the hate-mongering rhetoric, and the main thrust of the article is the questionable statement of a supposedly powerful political figure. Question is, who in the country is likely to hold the same views as him? this "maze" on the BBC site gives some background on the Iranian government structure, where are the "hard line clerics" mentioned in our article in that power structure? Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

They exist, but they won't be blogging, although there should be interviews, but not in English. Nyarlathotep 17:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

i agree that two quotes from bloggers is probably enough. But i'm not sure that the hardline clerics will not be blogging: see w:Iranian blogs, although it hasn't been updated much recently. At the wikimania meeting a few months ago, Hossein Derakshan said that the Iranian clerics have known about the internet for a long, long time and they understand it well enough to know that although it allows people to criticise them, it also allows clerics to argue back and try to convince people why their political/religious/social ideas are correct. This is why more than 5 million Iranians have internet access and there are 700,000 Iranian blogs! The clerics may have mediaeval ethical concepts (like gwbush and rumsfeld), but they encouraged the use of internet technology. Boud 22:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Objectification

I have attempted to revise the article for more objectivity. Inclusion on basis of supposed “best” status of the quotes from “blog” writers is not verifiable. This article reports on a statement and official responses to the statement by the UN and varied sovereign nations while the quotes depict nothing but particular opposition interpretations to the statements. These individuals are not subject to any impetus for accurate reporting or more than opinion mongering. It is not NPOV for the news article to degenerate into an editorial piece, the statements by individuals without any political significance are irrelevant. I have removed the quotes on that basis. Opalus 22:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

GWBush and Blair and Ahmadinejad are also not subject to any impetus for accurate reporting or more than opinion mongering. There is now a large consensus that GWBush made many outright lies regarding WMD in Iraq.

The Iranian bloggers do have political significance as a group: 700,000 bloggers in a conservative, theocratic democracy is a politically significant population.

If you want to remove the bloggers' quotes, then you should find quotes by people of political significance inside Iran who criticise Ahmadinejad's anti-semitism. Boud 17:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Why so? It is not an encyclopedia's duty to provide excuses for any blameworthy behavior of a country's leaders. That is assuming that there is a universal view that everyone visiting the site shares. It's ok to add some links to the bottom of the page, or mentioning the blog community in a single sentence. Now, to think that the opinion of two bloggers mean ANYTHING in a context of international politics, by dedicating a section to it... Really, have a reality check, please.

NPOV? - weapons of mass destruction

Is it NPOV to have a link in the article to Israel and weapons of mass destruction? As far as I'm concerned, if any of the issues on that page are relevant to this article at least one example should be cited and that link relegated to a references section. The quotes from Iranian bloggers balanced the story in one way, I think this topples it in another direction altogether. Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

If there is any mention of the Iranian nuclear program (which itself is ambiguous between civilian nuclear and military nuclear, which according to the NPT are separate issues), then there must be mention of the Israel existing nuclear bombs and delivery systems. We have an NPOV article on this in the wikipedia - i just reworded the summary, since i'm not totally sure about the GFDL/CC-BY copyright transfer. Boud 17:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed sentence and link as I agree now looking at the article that the result of my objectification at its former stage might give greater weight to the Israeli program jilt. I have located a particular article from which we may be able to derive a brief summary of the situation between Iran and Israel regarding nuclear weapons, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/menukes.cfm, particularly the section under heading "Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East". What would be appropriate, perhaps a summary of Israeli justification for the weapons, a summary of Iranian justification for also having developmental programs capable of producing nuclear weapons, and summary of the general Arab/Israeli conflict? At minimum, a primary focus on the last to describe the situation framing the incident the article focuses on and a brief description of the role of nuclear weapons in that conflict should be included as the quotes from Israeli and US officials focus on that aspect particularly. Opalus 00:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

There's also the wikipedia article: w:Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction, in case you didn't notice... Boud 17:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

accuracy in quoting

If you don't want us to show that certain newspapers are sloppier than others (in this case it looks like the USA Today rephrased ahmadinejad's words but put them in quotes anyway), then please at least have the courtesy to either find the original source yourself or else take the quotes which are more credible. Reuters+Rediff is IMHO more credible than USA Today. The ex-editor of USA Today cannot even understand what "edit this page" means and clearly failed to understand the concept of error correction. (see w:John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy) Boud 17:30, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. There are blatant misquotations, at least according to wikipedia: Translation of phrase "wiped off the map" and Iran 1989-Present (from "October 2005"). Xarvh 20:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)