The Demonisation of Iran

There's an article in today's Ha'aretz newspaper which follows a familiar theme regarding Iran's Jewish population. The article is entitled "Christian-Jewish group bringing dozens of Iranian Jews to Israel" and states, "Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have brought dozens of Iranian Jews to Israel in recent months, offering cash incentives and claiming that Iran's tiny Jewish community is in grave danger."

I've covered this nonsense before, and regard stories like this as simply another crude attempt to demonise Iran and make out that Ahmadinejad is some kind of anti-Semite based on a false translation of remarks he made earlier in the year.

This is all part of the growing drumbeat from people who wish to see the US attack Iran.

The article quotes Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the director of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars in evangelical donations to Israel every year, as saying:

"Is this not similar to the situation in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, where they (Jews) also felt they could weather the storm?" he asked.

"Instead, 6 million were killed in the Holocaust."

And the article justifies such fears by claiming that Ahmadinejad has made "repeated calls for Israel to be wiped off the map", which is simply a blatant falsehood.

The story which prompts such headlines actually concerns a mere 82 Jews who have agreed to move to Israel from Iran out of an Iranian Jewish population of 25,000, one of whom clearly states that, "she was not in danger in Iran" and yet the whole tenor of the story gives one the distinct feeling that Jews are fleeing Iran and that those who stay are putting themselves in a position "similar to the situation in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, where they (Jews) also felt they could weather the storm?"

This is just a further disgraceful attempt to demonise Iran. I have already written about the reactions of Iranian Jews to this kind of scare mongering in the past, even when the Israeli government were offering them sums far in excess of those being offered by The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews:

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."

As Ciamak Moresadegh, an Iranian Jewish leader, observed: "If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not."

Iran's Jewish community are in no danger of any kind as they repeatedly make clear whenever anyone asks them. It is simply disgraceful that people like Eckstein continue to compare them to" Jews in Nazi Germany in the late '30's".

But these kind of stories are printed to give the impression that Jews are under threat in Iran and that those that remain there are ignoring the lessons of history. The real problem here is that people like Netanyahu who state...

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs." Of Ahmadinejad, he said: "He is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."

... have a real difficulty explaining why, if what they are saying is true, Iran's Jewish population are not only happy to remain in Iran but are refusing rather large cash incentives from Israel's government in order to do so.

And, if Ahmadinejad is some kind of blatant anti-Semite, Hell bent on destroying Israel and wiping the Jewish state off the map, why do Iran's Jewish population not feel under any kind of threat?

The fact that they don't undermines a central theme of the argument for war with Iran - that Ahmadinejad wants to destroy Israel - and is why so much is being made of the immigration of a mere 82 Iranian Jews.

But this kind of story feeds into the collective consciousness and is placed there to establish a blatant falsehood. And that falsehood is that Iran's Jews are in trouble and that the wise amongst them are fleeing.

Such false impressions are created for one reason, and for one reason alone, to create a justification for an illegal attack on Iran.

Click title for the full Ha'aretz article.

Tags: Ha'aretz, Iran, Israel, Iran's Jewish population