Jeffrey Goldberg spent three days with a self-reflecting Fidel Castro. Today’s is the first of several parts — and I’m going to be following them all. A sample:
Castro’s message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the “unique” history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.
I don’t mean to imply that Castro is a changed man — he clearly isn’t. But there are some pleasant surprises in here.
I read part of this interview a bit ago, and was shocked at the content. Has Castro always held this position wrt anti-Semitism?
I’m really scratching my head over this. Fidel is just about the last person I would expect to be expressing these particular opinions. At best, I’d have figured him for a “meh, not my concern.”
I really wonder what the source of all of this is. Does he have Jewish family members, perhaps? Something going on that makes this a very personal conversation for him? Because that’s how it reads.
Fascinating. So, he wants to be the elder statesman and solve the world’s problems. I still find it fascinating that he is tacking so hard against world opinion wrt Israel and Jews, especially given his previous rather more standard comments regarding Israel.
This still strikes me as personal, beyond his attempts at reconstituting himself on the world stage. His willingness to compare anti-Semitism with anti-Islamic attitudes will bring him no love from the fascists in the Middle-East, that’s for sure.
I wonder if he’s planning on offering his services as a “broker” in the peace talks. I think there may be layers here that we’re not even close to sniffing out….
Your suggestion that he might be angling to be a broker in the ME peace talks is an interesting one. And, he may be a Communist bastard, but I’m not sure if he wouldn’t do a decent job of it. Heck, it couldn’t get much worse, could it?
Bribing his way into heaven?
Emulating his hero, Jimmy Carter?
I’m waiting for someone to call Castro a “neocon”.