I want to paraphrase what I said to commentors in the initial installment of guest poster Cascadian’s travelogue to Iran. Immediately, comments appeared committing a classic Jewish prejudice regarding Iran: because Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier and regional warmongerer could never — NEVER — implicate all Iranians. They underscored the very purpose of Cascadian’s amazing and incredibly risky trip. Against a Jewish mythos which claims that Jews will be lynched in the streets, Cascadian is taking a potentially life-threatening chance doing what most Jews would never do: see if for themselves. It behooves us to hear everything about his trip, simply to honor the risks he may (or may not) be taking in cross-cultural dialogue.
In these two installments, Erev Shabbat and Yom Shabbat, Cascadian spends the good day with Iranian Jews who, to his own incredulous ears, tell him that Ahmadinejad is “good for the Jews” and walk the streets with their kipot openly. The second correspondence gets into the politics of what Iranians think of themselves, Hezbollah, and nuclear weapons. Tehran is more than meets the eye, and the echo chamber of Jewish villainizing viz a viz Iran has fallen, unsurprisingly, as only half the truth. –KFJ
Iran Two: Erev Shabbat
Last night I fell in love.
It all started when a group of us were going for a walk. I decided to keep my kipah on, because we had Leila with us, who grew up in Iran, so speaks perfect Farsi. This is relevant, because if someone had a question about what is that thing on my head, she would be able to explain, and also understand if the questioner was hostile.
“Are you a Jew?” a passerby asks incredulously to me. I have the current distinction on the trip as the only visible Jew; among the four Jewish men I am the only one who wears a yamika in non-ritual situations.
After being momentarily taken aback, I realize that he too is wearing a kipah. More »
Guest post by Cascadian, a Jews in the Woodser who is presently on a Fellowship of Reconciliation trip to Iran. We’ll be guest posting much of his trip correspondence as he relates his first-hand impressions of the country the Jews presently love to hate. (His first paragraph is so noteworthy because last time he entered Israel, security held him for something like 12 hours.)
Last night, around 3 am in Tehran, I was accepted through passport security at the airport. The hassles didn’t turn out to be much; we didn’t get our bags searched, not even fingerprinted. The officer who was in charge of the x-ray machine wasn’t even looking at the screen as our bags filtered through.
As the plane landed, women covered their heads, many halfheartedly. The line of acceptability has been effectively challenged and blurred by the generation of modern women in Tehran; for some the hijab is halfway back on their heads, revealing plenty of hair, clearly stating “I’m just doing this ‘cus I have to.” This next to a handful of women, who are authentically observing the religious tradition.
A recent article in YNet revealed this ironic nugget: the US Ambassador to Israel has sent a letter to Israeli Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, excoriating Israel for illegally consuming Iranian pistachios nuts:
The US ambassador’s letter reveals another amazing fact: Israel is the largest per capita consumer of the pistachio. “I am writing to draw your attention to the troubling issue of illegal importation of pistachio of Iranian origin to Israel,†writes Jones.
“Israel is the world’s largest per capita consumer of pistachio nuts and therefore an important market – estimated at $20 million – for pistachio producers…Evidence strongly suggests that most, if not all, of the pistachios entering Israel are actually of Iranian origin.â€
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israeli snacking habits will attest that Israel will be hard pressed to give up their pistachio addiction, no matter where the nuts actually come from. For its part, Israel claims it gets most of its pistachios from Turkey (yeah, right!)
The most priceless part of the article comes at the end, when journalist Nahum Barnea unabashedly editorializes on the scandal of the situation:
Every pistachio nut brings Iran another step closer to achieving nuclear capability…
You know how we keep hearing that Iran’s drive for nuclear power must mean it wants to build nuclear bombs? Apparently, the U.S. is working with Iranian neighbor Bahrain to support a civilian nuclear program. Double speak or US-support proliferation race? (AbuAardvark)
Will Bush attack Iran before November? Chris Floyd reads the tea leaves and says yes. Arthur Silber, who has been calling for mobilization against war with Iran for over a year, asks whether our silence is Enabling Evil? (Remember: If the bombs start falling on Iran, you can’t say that the American Jewish community hadn’t been working for that goal for years).
Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics to encourage moderation and tolerance. Yeshiva University’s Richard Joel might want to try a similar program. (BBC)
Finally, from earlier this month: How Bush’s delusional incompetence brought Hamas to power in Gaza (Vanity Fair)
Avigdor Lieberman, avowed racist and right-wing MK, pulled his 11-seat Beiteinu party out of the coalition government, leaving Olmert still standing with a majority of 67 of 120 seats but lacking a clear mandate.
CNN reports, “Avigdor Lieberman announced Wednesday he was pulling his Israel Beiteinu party out of Israel’s coalition government because the new push to establish a peace deal was taking the focus off more pressing issues, such as the threat from Iran.”
More:
 Lieberman said the issues of a shared capital, borders with a Palestinian state, and the return of Palestinian refugees are “the most sensitive nerve points of the Israeli society” and threaten to divide the Jewish state.
“We are moving from consensus and agreement to discord,” he said.
…”This process, this direction of Annapolis, I cannot accept and if I cannot accept this process I must be out of the government.”
I don’t like this story. I’ll be honest, the last time I wrote about the good guys trying to provoke a war, I was wrong, but I’m still gonna call the US out this time. You’ve all heard the news, a few speed boats irreverently boated around some American warships in the Persian Gulf. I heard that too, and figured it’s another crotchety Iranian thing, trying to test us, find limits, be pricks in general. And, the US played it up. Annoying, dangerous, but typical news.
But then I saw the video and heard the audio track.
Give me a break! I can do a better Persian accent than that. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am willing to trust Uncle Sam enough, and accept that nobody at the DoD cooked up this video, or any of the sound. But, Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, speaking to CNN admits that there is no way to establish that the communication came from those boats. Aside from the accent, if you were bopping around in a little speedboat, you would expect to hear some background noise. You know, those outboard motors are pretty loud, as is the wind. Here’s my guess, some bored sailor, trying to have some fun, was sitting alone somewhere we had a radio set, and well, he got cute.
I can imagine it perfectly, you’re in the middle of a long mission. It’s boring, like always. But, just to make things a bit more annoying this time around, every couple of days, they wake you all up, and make you sit at battle stations again. One time, it’s a strange white thing floating in the water, the next - some unidentified plane. Today, after working your eight hour shift at the radar, keeping an eye on over two hundred fishing boats, you finally get to bed. You lie down blang! goes the klaxon. You’re back to some God forsaken part of that boat (somebody with more naval experience can help me out here) this time because some speed boats are messing around. Why not have a little fun? Unprofessional, yes. Dangerous, yes. Stupid, yes. Exactly the kind of crap a bored serviceman does, yes.
Here’s the rub. I see through this. You know the people on that ship see through this. They didn’t seem particularly threatened or scared when they heard it. The military brass sees through this. Then why the hell are they publishing it? So, you want the video, fine. Then edit out this crap. You don’t have a problem editing other stuff out. For example, I never hear any orders to the crewmen, nor do I hear any officers discussing how to act. That they got rid of. So, get rid of this too.
I guess that’s our America for you. Trying to get a provocation cooked up. Anything that can be done to bring war in our time is good. It seems Bush is still trying to start a war, but instead he’s just looking even dumber.
Update:The Times now has a similar angle, and is covering developments on the story. Aside from bring up the problems that I mentioned, they also have links to Iranian videos of what might be the same incident.
How did I miss this?? Last month, Israel was caught red-handed propping up Ahmadinejad’s regime! America demanded that Israel respect international sanctions against Iran and Israel, shamefacedly, crowed that it would of course cease immediately. Apparently, Israel is the world’s largest importer of pistachio nuts whereas Iran is the world’s largest exporter, and Israel’s imports from Turkey were revealed to be funneled through from — you guessed it — the Jew-haters of Tehran. Dun dun dun!
I’ve finally put up a site with some subtle cartoons, some previously published, others rejected from every publication in the world. Please visit, and remember to leave insulting comments. Extra points for proper spelling of “despicable self-hatred.”
Yesterday, Rav Avi Weiss and the Jewish activist organization he founded, AMCHA: the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, coordinated a civil disobedience protest at the United Nations.
Around 50 rabbis and rabbinical students, as well as a lay communal leader or few, participated in the protest. They prepared themselves in a staging area near the Iranian Mission to the UN — putting on talleisim and distributing signs — and after a few short speeches and rounds of slogan-shouting, they marched, singing ‘Am Yisra’eil Hhai, to the steps that go down past the Isaiah Wall across the street from the UN buildings.
At the bottom of the steps, they sat down, blocking the public thoroughfare.
[...] A representative from the police department addressed the protestors, explaining to them that they need to cease obstructing pedestrian traffic, or they will be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct (as well as more severe offenses if they actively resist). So about half of the protestors stepped back and dispersed along the upper reaches of the staircase, obeying the police orders, while the other half remained sitting and blocking the steps, expressing their willingness to go all the way and be arrested in order to make their message heard more dramatically.
And so, one by one or two by two, the waiting police officers with their belts full of plasticuffs handcuffed the civilly-disobedient protestors and deposited them in the back of two police vans.
Israel and the U.S. are conducting a large-scale missile defense exercise aimed at combining their systems, American and Israeli officials said Sunday, as both countries warn that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The operation, code-named “Juniper Cobra,” is taking place in the Negev desert in southern Israel with thousands of American and Israeli troops. Both sides described the timing as routine, denying a direct connection to the Iran threat.
See, here’s the thing… If you’re concerned about the prominence of phrases like –
“dual loyalty” [...] and intimations of powerful “Jewish lobbies” [...] exerting undue influence over foreign policy
– then perhaps you ought to stop acting in a way that affirms these impressions.
Case in point:
The JTA reports,
AIPAC lobbying helped remove a provision from a bill that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval for war against Iran. A number of congressional sources confirmed that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backed dropping the provision from the Iraq war spending bill introduced Tuesday by Democrats. The bill ties funding to deadlines for withdrawal from Iraq.
AIPAC and a number of Democrats close to Israel said the provision would have hampered the president as he attempted to leverage Iran into backing down from its alleged nuclear weapon plans. Others said the provision simply reasserted the constitutional role of the U.S. Congress in declaring war that is believed to have been eroded by Bush during the Iraq war.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel, officials said Monday.
Let’s just be sure we’re clear here: AIPAC successfully lobbied to strip Congress of its ability to authorize a strike on Iran, awarding the Idiot Prince free license to embroil the US in yet another disastrous war, and did so because it allegedly serves Israel’s security interests?
And yet to accuse AIPAC of “dual loyalty” and “exerting undue influence over foreign policy” is antisemitic?
This is an overt action supposedly done in Israel’s favor that blatantly contravenes American interests. By coercing the Congress to abdicate its Constitutional authority to declare war, they just cut the legs out from under the American people, giving infinitely more leeway to an Executive branch seen by most Americans to have already far overstepped the limits of its power.
I mean, hell, if you’re going to have a hand in nullifying fundamental Constitutional provisions, at least don’t brag about it!
I can hardly imagine an act more affirming of negative critiques of Jewish power, nor one more likely to engender hostility towards American Jews.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, chairman of ZAKA and former operations officer for the Ultra-Orthodox community, hit the Jewish man who kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was reported on Monday.
The violent incident occurred last Friday in Poland during a mass visit of Orthodox Jews to the country in order to honor Hassidic Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk.
When the visitors arrived at Lizhensk on Friday morning, they heard that Moshe Arye Freedman, a member of the fanatic anti-Israel group Neturei Karta, was present as well. Freedman recently made headlines when he was photographed kissing Ahmadinejad during the Holocaust denial conference in Teheran three months ago.
Meshi-Zahav, along with another ZAKA member, quickly located Freedman and set upon him, punching the man, kicking him and breaking his glasses.
The fight was dispersed when local police arrived at the scene.
As an act of appreciation, Meshi-Zahav was called up to read the Torah in synagogue.
Just in time for Purim: Israel’s entry in this year’s Eurovision — that annual celebration of tact — is a song that many say is about a nuclear Holocaust brought by Iran. (Although it can probably be read in various ways, as “some crazy rulers” could apply to a large percentage of players in the region.)
The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He’s gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers, they hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologic willingness to harm
They’re gonna push the button
push the button push the bu push the bu push the button
American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day. They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran’s military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons.
[...]
The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerised plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).
Sy Hersh: The Pentagon has drafted an attack plan that could be put into operation within 24 hours of authorization.
BBC: “US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country’s military infrastructure.”
Haaretz: “Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran.”
Telegraph: “Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Reuters: Raid on Iran wouldn’t stop nuclear program.
The Independent: “‘There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,’ a source with close ties to British intelligence said.”
Don’t ask me to explain what this is or where it comes from. The only thing I can make out is that the narrator is speaking Persian, he sounds completely serious, and he actually seems to be conveying the fascinatingly bizarre notion that Woody Allen is intentionally attempting to corrupt Western values as some sort of Jewish conspiracy.
Jesus H.
Moderate Islam, please, for the love of Allah, we’re trying over here. Please, try harder over there.
Wes Clark: “The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers.â€
RJC: “Clark’s remarks were hurtful, damaging, and wrong, and Wesley Clark should apologize to the American Jewish community for saying them.”
Clark to ADL: “My position on Iran should not be misinterpreted, defined out of context or used to create conspiracy theories about one group’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. There is no place in these critical policy debates for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that blame the Jewish community for the war in Iraq and for action against Iran.”
Matthew Yglesias: “Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What’s more, everybody knows it’s true.”
Jonah Goldberg: “Are there American Jews who favor military strikes against Iran to prevent it from getting nukes? Of course. But there are also Christians, atheists and perhaps even Muslims who feel likewise. They are all making arguments to support their view, but Yglesias and Clark don’t think that those arguments are legitimate, so it must be a right-wing Jewish cabal at work.”
Tonight’s event is the first time any of the 2008 candidates have competed for attention in the same room since they launched their campaigns in earnest. It is also an important illustration of just how much stock all of the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, will put in the pro- Israel community, particularly for campaign dollars.
[...]
A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton ’s re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.
New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community,” he said. “If you’re running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you’re interested in the issue that matters most to them.”
[...]
Mrs. Clinton, who has opted out of the public campaign financing system, has tapped into the circuit of influential Jewish donors for years and has strong support in the community. A spokesman for Aipac, Joshua Block, said yesterday that the senator and former first lady has “an extremely consistent and strong record of support on issues that are important to the pro-Israel community.”
Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel’s greatest threats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that “no option can be taken off the table” when dealing with that nation.
“U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” Clinton told a crowd of Israel supporters. “In dealing with this threat … no option can be taken off the table.”
While Jewish communal leaders focus most of their current lobbying efforts on pressing the United States to take a tough line against Iran and its nuclear program, some are privately voicing fears that they will be accused of driving America into a war with the regime in Tehran.
[...]
In warning of possible scapegoating, insiders point to the experience of the Iraq War. Since the initial invasion in 2003, antiwar groups have charged, with growing vehemence, that the war was promoted by Jewish groups acting in Israel’s interest — even though the invasion enjoyed bipartisan backing and popular support, and was not at the top of most Jewish organizations’ agendas. The Iraq backlash prompted former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to order in 2005 that his ministers keep a low profile on Iran.
Now, however, Jewish groups are indeed playing a lead role in pressing for a hard line on Iran.
