Solomonia Archive: Don't tell me, tell him -- Iran's hard line in the Globe

Friday, December 23, 2005

Don't tell me, tell him -- Iran's hard line in the Globe

Meryl Yourish emails to alert me to this op-ed in the Boston Globe:

Behind Iran's hard-line on Israel By Karim Sadjadpour and Ray Takeyh

IRAN'S BELLIGERENT foreign policy toward Israel is among the more puzzling issues in international relations. At a time when most Arab governments, including the elected Palestinian leadership, have come to accept Israel's existence as an unalterable fact, non-Arab Iran continues to call for eradication of the Jewish state. Over the course of the last several weeks President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran attacked Israel as a ''tumor" that should be ''wiped off the map of the world" and asserted that the holocaust was a ''myth." Despite widespread international criticism, the Iranian president has been unrepentant, saying, ''Western reactions are invalid. . . . My words are the Iranian nation's words." In actuality, however, the Middle-Eastern country where Ahmadinejad's declarations resonate least is Iran...

Overall, this isn't a terrible piece, if more than a little Pollyana -- "most Arab governments, including the elected Palestinian leadership, have come to accept Israel's existence as an unalterable fact"? Come on. That's far too pat a statement to make about a far more arguable proposition.

And here, as Meryl points out, is more:

...Whatever the calculations of Iran's new president, throughout nearly three decades of calls for the ''liberation of Jerusalem," Iran's revolutionary regime has never come to terms with an essential reality: There exists no inherent reason why the Israeli-Palestinian struggle should be an overriding concern to the average Iranian. Iran has no territorial disputes with Israel, no Palestinian refugee problem, a long history of contentious relations with the Arab world, and an even longer history of tolerance vis-à-vis the Jewish people. To this day, the Jewish community in Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel...

"There exists no inherent reason why the Israeli-Palestinian struggle should be an overriding concern to the average Iranian." I agree with that, and I think a regime change in Iran would be a promising proposition -- promising, if not exactly the perfect antidote. BUT, then there's this: "...an even longer history of tolerance vis-à-vis the Jewish people. To this day, the Jewish community in Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel." Not so fast.

The Jews of Iran entry at the Jewish Virtual Library tells you what you need to put the perspective on Iranian tolerance and that "largest Jewish community in the Middle East" right there in the sub head:

1948 Jewish population: 100,000
2003: 11,000

So yeah, 11,000 is a large Jewish community by current standards, but it also stands as an object lesson in how to lie with statistics. You can also get an idea of Iranian (or at least Islamist) tolerance by reading the entry. Why is there still such a relatively large population in Iran now compared to other Muslim nations? I'm not sure, but it could be that while other countries kicked their Jews out, Iran made it more difficult than the others. Here's a possible clue:

...At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution 19 years ago, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate.

Of course, the main problem with the article is that it's in the wrong newspaper. It should be distributed in Iran. Someone needs to let Mr. Ahmadinejad know that the old sport is being utterly irrational don't you know.

Posted by Solomon at 2:35 PM on Friday, Dec 23, 2005 | Comments (1)
Click to share this post

1 Comment

#1 Mike Nargizian | December 23, 2005 3:26 PM

Ummm well what do you expect from a leftist... there has to be some fantasy painting in it.

What about the Jews who were in prison, including an old man and woman I believe, whom the bloviating Jesse Jackson made an appeal for a few years ago? They were supposed "zionists"... etc...

I think their sentences, for most of them, were suspended and they were released.
http://www.farsinet.com/news/jun99wk2.html#jews
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jesse+jackson+iranian+jews

And the population of Iran 68,017,860
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html compared to 11,000 people... lol... that's like a needle in a haystack or 0.16172223% or 1/16th of a 1%.

Mike