Sunday, April 01, 2007
Iranian Jews bow deeply to Jesus. Why?
There are, apparently, around 20,000 Jews still living in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. The land of Cyrus the Great has certainly been better for Jews in times past than today, but that is still an awful lot of Jews by the standards of the region and considering the Islamic Republic's rejectionist stance toward Israel (the current population is, nevertheless, down from around 140,000 in 1948 and 80,000 at the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979).
These last Jews in Iran have just issued a very strange proclamation:
"In obedience to the instructions of Jesus, in the new Iranian year, which has been declared year of national unity and Islamic solidarity, Iranian Jews voice their readiness to defend all national interests of Iranians and to observe the guidelines set by Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) for the sake of strengthening national unity and solidarity in the fight against present-day pharaohs," the message said.
That message is either a genuflection to the regime -- coerced or in supplication -- or a coded cry for help. Either way, it gives me the creeps.
We await the world's outrage with bated breath.
8 Comments:
By 
Joseph, at
Sun Apr 01, 05:58:00 PM:
I didn't know they celebrated April Fool's day in Iran.
By 
, at
Sun Apr 01, 06:33:00 PM:
I believe it's a veiled reference to Isa, the Islamic version of Jesus. You know, the Jesus who isn't the son of god, is really a Muslim prophet whose message was corrupted by the Christians, and who on the Last Day will slay all the unbelievers (that is, all non-Muslims) to make way for Allah's rule over the entire earth.
In order to help extend their wretched lives and in (imo vain) hope that the oppression will lessen, it's common for subject populations in Islamic countries to publicly make proclamations that they uphold Islamic values. Thus the odd spectacle of Jews saying "heck yea!" to the idea of a "year of Islamic solidarity" when they are, obviously, not Muslims.
By Escort81, at
Sun Apr 01, 06:41:00 PM:
I had a HS classmate in the late 1970s (before the fall of the Shah) who was an Iranian Jew who had recently come to the U.S. He was a good guy, and he and his family were very happy to be living in the U.S. Many Iranian Jews came to the states after the Shah fell, and many went to Israel.
You are correct that 20,000 is, in relative terms, a big number as compared to the Jewish population in other countries in the region. There are some sects of Sephardic Jews who are not Zionist (principally, as I understand it, because of their interpretation of the Old Testament and that the preconditions for a return to the Holy Land have not been met), so perhaps some of the 20,000 fall into this category. More likely, they just can't leave, even though they'd like to.
Not to get off topic, but Iranian TV has just put up (on its Arabic language channel) another nautical chart showing for the second time its version of the facts -- that the British RIBS were on the Iranian side of the line of demarcation (I am just going by the visuals, since there was no English translation provided). The claim is that extent of the incursion was not great -- not many miles, nor was it threatening to the Iranian coast.
Let's accept the Iranian version of the facts for the moment, for purposes of the following exercise --
OK, so you are in charge of the coastal patrols in Iran. Do you:
A) Send a single patrol boat out and radio the U.K. RIBS on the VHF that they are out of Iraqi waters and need to return ASAP to avoid an incident
B) Send two patrol boats out with a friendly attitude and tie up to the same ship the U.K. RIBS are tied up to, take a GPS reading (as well as a dead reckoning reading), and exchange pleasantries and perhaps small gifts in the spirit of international goodwill and the camaraderie of good seamanship
C) Send two patrol boats out with a friendly attitude, and (knowing the British ROEs) then four other larger well armed boats to force the Brits to stand down from their mission, go back to the Iranian harbor with the Brits for three hours of detention and questioning, after which it is clear it is all a misunderstanding either as to where the border is or what the Brits thought their position was, and then allow them to return in their RIBS to the Cornwall
D) Send the two boats followed by the four boats as in (C), but quickly move the prisoners to a facility inland (perhaps near Tehran) after handing them off to another section of your government, and quickly escalate what might have been a minor incident into a potentially major international and diplomatic crisis.
Will somebody from the Rosie O'Donnell school of political theory ("Gulf of Tonkin -- Google it") and seamanship tell me why (D) is the response that the Iranians picked?
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Apr 01, 06:57:00 PM:
I think you've made an error in thinking that this was a 'response.' There was a similar incident a couple of years ago with US personnel who were returned pretty quickly without issues as in scenario C.
This whole issue smells like a deliberate, pre-planned operation. Iranian dissidents have said as much in media leaks. I just can't for the life of me figure out a rational reason for it. They can't seriously believe that we would hand over our treasure trove of captured Iranian agents in exchange; that would be the worst deal of the century.
My best guess now is that someone over there is looking for a fight because 1) Iranian political antics have spilled over internationally, (for instance, someone is trying to derail a moderate faction by triggering a crisis) or 2) they think Britain will back down or 3) they think that they can provoke US/Britain into shooting first and then somehow come out on top in the aftermath.
But if there's anything we learned from the Cold War it's that the national leadership of a police state lives inside a bubble and has a warped view of reality. That phenomenon is bad enough in our own system; imagine if the leadership was only told lies because the truth could get the messenger killed. That's one of the reasons Saddam's government was so screwed up and seemed to behave in strange ways.
By Purple Avenger, at
Sun Apr 01, 08:15:00 PM:
I just can't for the life of me figure out a rational reason for it.
Its a test. They want to know how well the dhimmification of the Brits is going.
You can read newspapers watch TV and such, but until there's a concrete incident to judge actual reactions against, you're just guessing.
So far, the test is working out much better than they expected.
By Escort81, at
Sun Apr 01, 09:34:00 PM:
Dawnfire -
I'm with you on the feeling that it was deliberate and pre-planned. I saw the article about the dissidents as well (but held that interpretation before seeing the article).
The point of my multiple choice question was to point out the logical problems with believing that it was anything else than a pre-planned op, and that what the Iranians did was way out of proportion to even their version of the facts of the "incursion."
Purple -
It's easy for the Iranians to mistake much of the British public's intense dislike of Blair's Iraq policy with skepticism over either London or Tehran's version of the facts of the location of the RIBS. But based on my reading of comment sections of the various British newspapers (Independent, Guardian, Times Telegraph) as well as BBC and Sky News, almost everyone wants the 15 returned immediately, and of course many want U.K. forces out of the region altogether. None of the Brits who want their forces to leave the Middle East want to live as "dhimmis" under Sharia law, and don't see how one relates to the other. While the U.K. does not have a Second Amendment (which makes dhimmitude in the U.S. an absolute impossibility), I have to say that it seems rather unlikely to happen there.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Apr 02, 01:25:00 PM:
More and more likely every month, though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770&ito=newsnow
By Escort81, at
Mon Apr 02, 04:53:00 PM:
Dawnfire -
Thanks for the link; point well taken.
At first I thought it was an April Fool's joke -- British schools not teaching about the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslim students??
Several points -
1. I can't believe that this is widespread in the U.K.
2. I would guess that there will be some push back on this matter because of this article
3. No doubt there are some Muslims who deny the Holocaust, but Muslims of all stripes (especially the educated elite, who are no fans of Israel) understand that the Holocaust, at least to some extent, led to a great deal of sympathy in the West for the realization of the goals of the Zionist movement and establishment of the State of Israel. This dovetails with the line of thinking that states that the Holocaust was a Western crime that should not have a solution in the Middle East. So (as one of the comments on the Daily Mail website said), I don't see how teaching the Holocaust would offend Muslims, since it would not be inconsistent with Muslim protests that a Western crime must have a Western-located solution.
4. The article may be a good illustration of overweening political correctness in the U.K., and it does kind of take your breath away, but it is a stretch to see it as a harbinger of the implementation of Sharia law in the U.K. Under Sharia, I am not sure much if any history is taught, especially to females, other than that which is in the Koran. The CNN special on Sunday night showed that there is a tiny but extremely vocal minority in Britain that is advocating Sharia and believes it will happen. The good news is that many moderates are pushing back hard against the extremists in the U.K. In any case, it really seems far-fetched that a country that now objects to the U.S. having capital punishment for serial murderers would end up in the not-too-distant future having a theif's hands chopped off.
5. I hope you agree with me that Sharia is impossible here in the U.S.
I am all for understanding the threat from radical Islam (or any extremist group that advocates terrorism), but we also can't think these guys are ten feet tall.
