With Friends Like These, Palestinians Don't Need Enemies

Regarding Ahmadinejad's revolting Quds Day performance: while I cannot agree with Jeffrey Goldberg that the Palestinians are "a group of Sunni Muslims the average Iranian cares about not one whit," I concur with him that it is hard to find a "better example of the cynical manipulation by repressive Muslim governments of the Palestinian cause." Cynical to the point of self-parody! Does the regime believe that the Iranian people cannot see what is in front of their eyes? Does the regime not see that Quds Day is a "two-minute hate" lifted directly from Orwell's 1984?

Anyone who actually cares about the Palestinians should be nauseated by the vile Khamenei and deranged Ahmadinejad. The Palestinians benefit from the 'friendship' (contempt disguised as friendship) of these clowns about as much as they benefited from the 'friendship' of Saddam Hussein, which is to say about as much as they would benefit from a hole in the head.

Here Juan Cole diagnoses Ahmadinejad's world-view as "like The Highlander meets the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."