I just heard an interview on Israeli radio with Menachem Gantz, an Israeli journalist who was humiliated by Tariq Aziz, the racist Iraqi foreign minister. The Boston Globe (www.boston.com) reports:

Racist Iraqi foreign minister refuses to acknowledge the existence of Israeli journalist

Touching off hoots and boos, a top Iraqi official snubbed an Israeli journalist yesterday, refusing to answer the correspondent's question about whether Baghdad might attack Israel in case of a US military strike on Iraq.

At a news conference here, correspondent Menachem Gantz, based in Rome for the Israeli newspaper Maariv, asked Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister: ''Are you considering any kind of attack as a possibility against Israel in case of an American attack?''

Aziz, invited by the Foreign Press Association, responded:

''When I came to this press conference it was not in my agenda to answer questions by the Israeli media. Sorry.''

Journalists whistled and booed.

The association's president, Eric Jozsef, a French journalist, urged Aziz to respond. ''No, I'm not going to answer,'' the Iraqi official said.

The room was packed with about 100 journalists. Twenty of them, including Gantz, walked out.

Iraq is the only country that has never accepted or signed a cease fire with Israel, even though it attacked and lost many wars against the Jewish state (see the history page for details).

Iraq also fired dozens of Scud missiles, directly aiming at women and children in Israeli cities during the gulf war in 1991. I spent many nights in the bomb shelter, or in a sealed room, wearing my gas mask and hoping the next missile would not kill me, my family or my friends.

I copy the full article below and a video of Tariq Aziz's refusal to even speak with an Israeli.

If you don't see the video embeded above, click here. You'll need a player capable of handling the Windows Media format (WMV). the file size is 2.5Mb.

Iraqi snubs Israeli paper
By Associated Press, 2/15/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/
046/nation/Iraqi_snubs_Israeli_paper+.shtml

ROME -- Touching off hoots and boos, a top Iraqi official snubbed an Israeli journalist yesterday, refusing to answer the correspondent's question about whether Baghdad might attack Israel in case of a US military strike on Iraq.

At a news conference here, correspondent Menachem Gantz, based in Rome for the Israeli newspaper Maariv, asked Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister: ''Are you considering any kind of attack as a possibility against Israel in case of an American attack?''

Aziz, invited by the Foreign Press Association, responded:

''When I came to this press conference it was not in my agenda to answer questions by the Israeli media. Sorry.''

Journalists whistled and booed.

The association's president, Eric Jozsef, a French journalist, urged Aziz to respond. ''No, I'm not going to answer,'' the Iraqi official said.

The room was packed with about 100 journalists. Twenty of them, including Gantz, walked out.

Later, another journalist asked the same question and Aziz replied: ''We don't have the means to attack anyone outside our territory.''

Posted by David Melle
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