I’ve seen a few articles like this recently, but another one has popped up today. Is there anyone out there with half a brain (besides Juan Cole, of course) who doubts that Iranian Jews have been forced to toe the Iranian line regarding Israel?
Iranian Jews condemn Israeli crimes
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency) — Iranian Jewish Community in a statement released here on Monday condemned Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.In their statement, Iranian Jews have expressed their sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people and stated their profound concern over the increasingly intensifying violence by the Zionist Regime, which has so far claimed the lives of many innocent human beings and resulted into growing usurpation of the Palestinian nation’s rights.
[…] The Iranian Jewish Community has also stressed, “The Zionist Regime’s violence and genocide of the Palestinians do not at all comply with the religious fiats and decrees presented by Prophet Muses and all the God-fearing Jews and followers of Prophet Muses, thus, express their profound hatred for such movements and measures.”
The International Herald Tribune runs an article that says Iran and Israel (and Jews) had historic ties of friendship that have been severed only in the last two decades.
But since Ahmadinejad was chosen president of Iran, the threats against the Jewish community have increased.
Yet in Tehran, Jews say Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric has prompted threats not heard in more than 15 years.
“No, not ordinary people, but mostly the Basij,” said a Jewish shopkeeper, saying the harassment came from the paramilitary from which Ahmadinejad emerged. “The thing they usually say is ‘dirty Jew.’ But I believe these people are insane. They’re not real people.”
The culmination of these threats, of course, are the supposed pronouncements from the Iranian Jewish community against Israel. When you read these words, remember that the vast majority of Iran’s Jews fled due to the Khomeini revolution:
LONDON, July 2 (IranMania) – The Iranian government and nation do not officially recognize Israel and Jews share the same position, according to an Iranian Jewish figure, IRNA reported.
Head of the Committee of Tehrani Jews Haroun Yashai told Russian Gazetta daily, “We are citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
He ruled out allegations that religious minorities are deprived of their rights in Iran, saying, “Foreign journalists usually think that our comments on good condition of religious minorities in Iran are false; foreign journalists wrongly believe that we express everything on the call and under pressure of Iranian officials,” IRNA stated
He said Jews are free to react to some of the policies of government and even write to government officials on the issues.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (the one holding the sword ready to cut the speaker’s throat). Know that an Iranian Jew can only leave Iran if he leaves behind most of his family. An entire Iranian Jewish family is not allowed to leave the country, for fear they will emigrate. Where there is no freedom to emigrate, there is no freedom of speech—and no freedom.
The Iranians keep their Jewish community hostage, much as Syria did until the 1990s. (And it wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts that the Syrians stopped. Bashar Assad, the Nazi-shelterer, was forced into letting Syrian Jews leave.)
For years, the Jews in Syria lived in extreme fear. The Jewish Quarter in Damascus was under the constant surveillance of the secret police, who were present at synagogue services, weddings, bar-mitzvahs and other Jewish gatherings. Contact with foreigners was closely monitored. Travel abroad was permitted in exceptional cases, but only if a bond of $300-$1,000 was left behind, along with family members who served as hostages. U.S. pressure applied during peace negotiations helped convince President Hafez Assad to lift these restrictions, and those prohibiting Jews from buying and selling property, in the early 1990’s.
Remember this when you hear the spokesliars of Hamas talk about how well Jews would be treated in a palestinian state. Remember this when you hear anyone discuss the one-state solution, which is another name for Hitler’s Final Solution. There will be no freedom of worship for Jews under any Muslim despot. There is no true freedom for Jews now in Iran or Syria. There was no true freedom for Jews, ever, under Islamic rule. Not in the ancient past, when reading the Torah was forbidden. Not in the recent past, when you can still find (in the New York Times archive) the pictures of Jews swinging from the gallows during the Iraqi Farhud, or Jewish stores and homes looted, smashed, and burned. Or Jewish synagogues destroyed.
The only state in the Middle East where Jews can live in complete freedom is Israel.
And the Muslims—and their allies—would take that away from us.
I think not.