CHRISTMAS DISGRACE

Posted at 8:11 a.m. ET

In an insult to believers and to decency itself, Britain's Channel Four is broadcasting a Christmas message to the UK from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is offering season's greetings to Christians in a British TV address and suggesting that if Jesus were alive he would oppose "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers" -- an apparent reference to the United States and its allies.

Another message of peace.  Of course, Middle East "scholars" will eat it up.

Ahmadinejad's Christmas Day broadcast will be delivered on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot that provides an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message, the station said Wednesday. A leading British Jewish body said it was appalled.

Well, it's 1943, and here's Chancellor Adolf Hitler in a Christmas message to the British people.  Can't let the king have the only word, can we? 

Yuch.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over," Ahmadinejad said, according to the English translation of the Farsi-language speech. The broadcast will air with subtitles.

There are protests to this obscenity, but, sadly, not many:

The Israeli ambassador to Britain condemned the speech as a "bogus message of goodwill."

"That [Channel 4] should give an unchallenged platform to the president of a regime which denies the Holocaust, advocates the destruction of the sovereign state of Israel, funds and encourages terrorism, executes children and hangs gay people is a disgrace," Ron Prosor said.

"Outrage doesn't begin to explain it," he said.

British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell echoed the comments, saying the broadcaster was "aiding and abetting a tyrant."

At least Britain has one human rights campaigner who's actually interested in human rights. 

There's a time and a place.  Channel 4 has done some good things.  But this is an affront to Christians and Jews, and the management might reflect.

December 25, 2008.