There is an interesting problem with selling the "Iran as Nazi Germany" line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel's Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave, despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?
What is the basis for Israel's dire forecasts - the ideological scaffolding being erected, presumably, to justify an attack on Iran? Helpfully, as George Bush defended his Iraq policies last month, he reminded us yet again of the menace Iran supposedly poses: it is "threatening to wipe Israel off the map".
This myth has been endlessly recycled since a translating error was made of a speech Ahmadinejad delivered nearly two years ago. Farsi experts have verified that the Iranian president, far from threatening to destroy Israel, was quoting from an earlier speech by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in which he reassured supporters of the Palestinians that "the Zionist regime in Jerusalem" would "vanish from the page of time".
He was not threatening to exterminate Jews or even Israel. He was comparing Israel's occupation of the Palestinians with other illegitimate systems of rule whose time had passed, including the Shahs who once ruled Iran, apartheid South Africa and the Soviet empire. Nonetheless, this erroneous translation has survived and prospered because Israel and her supporters have exploited it for their own crude propaganda purposes.
In the meantime, the 25,000-strong Iranian Jewish community is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel and traces its roots back 3,000 years. As one of several non-Muslim minorities in Iran, Jews there suffer discrimination, but they are certainly no worse off than the one million Palestinian citizens of Israel - and far better off than Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
Iranian Jews have little influence on decision-making and are not allowed to hold senior posts in the army or bureaucracy. But they enjoy many freedoms. They have an elected representative in parliament, they practice their religion openly in synagogues, their charities are funded by the Jewish diaspora, and they can travel freely, including to Israel. In Tehran there are six kosher butchers and about 30 synagogues. Ahmadinejad's office recently made a donation to a Jewish hospital in Tehran.
Despite the absence of any threat to Iran's Jews, the Israeli media recently reported that the Israeli government has been trying to find new ways to entice Iranian Jews to Israel. The Ma'ariv newspaper pointed out that previous schemes had found few takers. There was, noted the report, "a lack of desire on the part of thousands of Iranian Jews to leave". According to the New York-based Forward newspaper, a campaign to persuade Iranian Jews to emigrate to Israel caused only 152 out of these 25,000 Jews to leave Iran between October 2005 and September 2006, and most of them were said to have emigrated for economic reasons, not political ones.
To step up these efforts - and presumably to avoid the embarrassing incongruence of claiming Iran's genocidal intent while thousands of Jews live happily in Tehran - Israel is now backing a move by Jewish donors to guarantee every Iranian Jewish family $60,000 to settle in Israel, in addition to a host of existing financial incentives that are offered to Jewish immigrants, including loans and cheap mortgages.
The announcement was met with scorn by the Society of Iranian Jews, which issued a statement that their national identity was not for sale. "The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money. Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran's Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews."
More important than the welfare of Iranian Jewish families, it seems, is the value of Iranian Jews as a propaganda tool in Israel's battle to persuade the world that coexistence with the Muslim world is impossible. For those who want to engineer a clash of civilisations, the 3,000-year-old Jewish legacy in Iran is not something to be treasured, only another obstacle to war.
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„Manchen Völkern genügt eine Katastrophe, sie zur Besinnung zu bringen. Deutschen, so scheint es, bedarf es des Untergangs.” --Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
„Wenn man so darüber nachdenkt ist es eigentlich erschreckend, wie wenig Politiker aufgeknüpft werden.” --G. K. Chesterton
„Manchmal frage ich mich, ob die Welt von klugen Menschen regiert wird, die uns zum Narren halten, oder von Schwachköpfen, die es ernst meinen.” --Mark Twain
A year later than I expected, the drumroll has begun towards a Western attack on Iran's nuclear capability. [...]
The West has no choice but to attack Iran, because Iran believes that it has no choice but to develop nuclear weapons. Make no mistake: this attack will destabilize the entire region, past the capacity of the king's horses and king's men to reassemble it. The agenda will shift from how best to promote stability, to how best to turn instability to advantage.
„Manchen Völkern genügt eine Katastrophe, sie zur Besinnung zu bringen. Deutschen, so scheint es, bedarf es des Untergangs.” --Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
„Wenn man so darüber nachdenkt ist es eigentlich erschreckend, wie wenig Politiker aufgeknüpft werden.” --G. K. Chesterton
„Manchmal frage ich mich, ob die Welt von klugen Menschen regiert wird, die uns zum Narren halten, oder von Schwachköpfen, die es ernst meinen.” --Mark Twain
Natürlich. Da wird propagandistisch schon mal vorbereitet, wie der Schwenk vollzogen werden kann, wenn Achmedinedings die Bombe präsentiert, die er ja angeblich nie haben wollte; wir wollten ja eigentlich gar nicht, aber wir wurden durch den Westen gezwungen. Und nun seit ihr selber Schuld.
DP schrieb am 29.10.2007 08:59
Natürlich. Da wird propagandistisch schon mal vorbereitet, wie der Schwenk vollzogen werden kann, wenn Achmedinedings die Bombe präsentiert, die er ja angeblich nie haben wollte; wir wollten ja eigentlich gar nicht, aber wir wurden durch den Westen gezwungen. Und nun seit ihr selber Schuld.
Das ist eine Moeglichkeit.
Ich ueberlege mir schon die ganze Zeit wie er die Testexplosion erklaeren wird.
Well ja, die Amis haben uns dazu gezwungen, und die Deutschen jubeln, Heil A.....
Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe geschlagen: Die Amis sind die Wustlinge (Hurrah), und ein enger Bund zu den Deutschen ist geschaffen. Er wird Deustchland anbieten, sie atomar zu schuetzen mit der Bombe.
Zum zweiten mal wird sicher die Merkel sowas nicht abschlagen, insbesondere wenn eine Iran Testexplosion alle moeglichen unberechenbare Kraefte in Gang setzt, die die Deutschen kollektiv bis tief in's Knochenmark erschrecken lassen.
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