Examining Gil Hoffman’s comments on Iran

Navid Ghahraei
Contributor
As members of the Iranian Human Rights Society at York University (IHRS-YU), we strive to be the voice of the Iranian people, and have on many occasions condemned the government of Iran for its human rights violations against its own people.
After hearing a speech by Gil Hoffman at York University on Nov. 4, 2010, however, we deemed it our duty to voice our opinion regarding some of the inaccurate, baseless and pro-war statements he made during his speech.
Hoffman, the chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, referred to current Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a “messiah” whose duty it is to “save the Jewish people from Iran.” Such comments are misleading and fail to capture the genuine picture, as Iran is home to thousands of people of Jewish faith – in fact it is the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel.
Furthermore, Hoffman implied Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon. Iranians claim they want their nuclear power plant for energy, he said. Russia agreed to take Iran’s uranium, enrich it, and give it back to them in a way that it can- not be used as weapons, but Iran said no, really proving to the international community that they are seeking a nuclear capability, Hoffman concluded.
Unfortunately, however, the stark reality is different. Iran attempted to get its uranium enriched by Turkey and Brazil, only to be rejected by the United States. Furthermore, it must be emphasized Iran has a right by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to the development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, but as a non-signatory of the NPT, and as a nuclear weapons state, we believe that Israel, as well as Hoffman, are guilty of hypocrisy when it comes to its accusations against Iran.
Hoffman continued disseminating misleading information, claiming the sanctions against Iran are working: “they are having a significant effect on putting pressure on the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people.” Hoffman attempted to falsely portray economic sanctions as solely affecting the government of Iran and not its people. Then, oddly enough, he referred to a purely civilian enterprise, airlines, and stated that as part of the sanctions, Iranian commercial airplanes are not allowed to fuel at airports around the world. We ask Hoffman, how does this not affect the people of Iran?
Subsequently, Hoffman soon changed his stance by stating that due to the threat that Iran poses to the “international community,” sanctions alone are not enough and must be backed by a genuine military threat in order to prevent the Iranian government from achieving nuclear capability.
We believe that the Iranian government is indeed a threat to its own people due to the multitude of human rights violations it commits against them; however, it must be asked whether this is what the United States, Israel and the “international community” is wary about? If so, then perhaps the human rights violations in Western allied countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt should be examined as well.
Hoffman’s speech proves that what the United States, Israel and their allies worry about is indeed the military threat that Iran apparently poses to the “international community.” There is not enough evidence, however, to prove such accusations. A glance at statistics proves that the military expenditure of other countries in the region significantly dwarfs that of Iran. Iran’s dilapidated armed forces have a very limited capability to project force beyond its borders and are mainly a defensive organization. Such obvious facts prove the threat that Iran poses to the region and the international community is minute compared to what Hoffman and others rattle on about.
As members of the IHRS-YU, we were bothered not only by the promotion of war on our campus, but by the fact this repulsive idea was impishly proposed as an effective means of advancing peace in the region. We believe that a university is a sacred setting for the purpose of education and should not be contaminated by the promotion of war.
Many students here at York University have also shown their unified agreement through the 200 signed petitions that IHRS-YU has so far gathered in objection to this event. IHRS-YU has forwarded the petitions to the office of the Patrick Monahan, vice-president academic and provost, and while continuing to gather more petitions, hopes that the York administration hears the voices of its students and takes effective measures to address this concern.