The Jewish High Holy Days start today, and out of the blue the nearly-restored Caudillo comes out, gives an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg, and says,
Fidel to Ahmadinejad: ‘Stop Slandering the Jews’
The kindness of Fidel’s heart made him say that?
Hardly.
As Goldberg himself notes,
Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world’s nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons.
Note how it’s Israel and America who Castro says are “moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran”, as if Iran was just sitting there growing fields of lavender to make sachets for little old ladies to put in their dressers.
Fidel, playing the wise sage for a credulous world audience, came out and criticized Iran,
He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. “This went on for maybe two thousand years,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.” The Iranian government should understand that the Jews “were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here’s what happened to them: Reverse selection. What’s reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation.” He continued: “The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. “I am saying this so you can communicate it,” he answered.
And so did Goldberg.
Why this new Fidel? Castro apologist Julia Sweig explained it all to Jeff,
After this first meeting, I asked Julia to explain the meaning of Castro’s invitation to me, and of his message to Ahmadinejad. “Fidel is at an early stage of reinventing himself as a senior statesman, not as head of state, on the domestic stage, but primarily on the international stage, which has always been a priority for him,” she said. “Matters of war, peace and international security are a central focus: Nuclear proliferation climate change, these are the major issues for him, and he’s really just getting started, using any potential media platform to communicate his views. He has time on his hands now that he didn’t expect to have. And he’s revisiting history, and revisiting his own history.”
Revising history, is more like it.
And if it brings US tourists to spend money in the island-prison, why not?
Trust me on this: this new and improved Fidel will sell well all over. After all, isn’t Cuba on the UN Human Rights Council already?
I’m talking about this in today’s podcast at 11:30AM.
Related:
Today’s “WTF? moment” goes to Fidel Castro VIDEO, with special thanks to commenter ryukyu for the link.
