Ahmadinejad Wants To Prove He Was Just A Stone's Throw Away From The Israeli Border

I suppose he'll get a standing ovation for this:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to throw a rock at Israel to demonstrate his hatred on his planned trip to Lebanon, London-based paper Al-Quds al Arabi reported on Tuesday.


Ahmadinejad plans to meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, as well as other Lebanese officials, on October 13. During the two-day visit, the Iranian president will participate in events near the Israeli border.

One event is the inauguration of a garden in southern Lebanon, during which Ahmadinejad plans to throw the rock, Al-Quds reported.

Of course, Ahmadinejad will not be the first well-known Muslim to do this.
Remember Edward Said?

The photo is from a Wikipedia article, which notes:

A photograph taken on July 3, 2000, of Said in South Lebanon throwing a stone across the Lebanon-Israel border drew criticism from some political and media commentators, some of whom decried the act as "terrorist sympathizing". Said explained the act as a stone-throwing contest with his son, and called it a symbolic gesture of joy at the end of Israel's occupation of Lebanon. "It was a pebble. There was nobody there. The guardhouse was at least half a mile away." Although he denied aiming the rock at anyone, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir asserted that Said had been less than 30 feet (9.1 m) from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story watchtower when he aimed the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire.

At least Ahmadinejad won't be chickening out the way Said did.

So just what is it about Muslims and throwing rocks? In Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts Through the Ages, S. D. Goitein wrote in 1955:

In former times--and in remote places even today--it was common for Muslim schoolboys to stone Jews. When the Turks conquered Yemen in 1872, an envoy was sent from the Chief Rabbi of Istanbul to inquire what grievance the Yemenite Jews had against their neighbors. It is indicative that the first thing of which they complained was this molestation by the schoolboys. But when the Turkish Governor asked an assembly of notables to stop this nuisance, there arose an old doctor of Muslim law and explained that this stone-throwing at Jews was an age-old custom (in Arabic 'Ada) and therefore it was unlawful to forbid it. [p. 76]

So the rock-throwing that pro-Palestinian apologists--and would-be Muslim leaders--glamorize as symbolic of Palestinian Arabs rebelling against the superior might of Israel actually has its source in the traditional--and legalized--Muslim practice of throwing rocks at Jews in general.

Is it any wonder Muslims get so upset when Jews hit back?

Technorati Tag: Ahmadinejad and Edward Said and Rock Throwing.