Changing Hearts and Minds, One Fundamentalist Despot at a Time
I was disappointed and quite frankly, surprised, at the backlash and backfire when a not normal quite mainstream Jewish organization spread false rumors of mandatory Holocaust couture in Iran. I mean, okay, they were technically wrong, but what about the emotional truth beneath the fabricated policy? Doesn’t the fact that it could have been true mean anything? And wasn’t this sort of thing inevitable when several board members of an already over the edge Jewish defense group collectively decided to go off their anti-anxiety medication at the same time?
Regardless, I have to reluctantly concede that perhaps there is a better way to bring us closer to the Iranian president, and give him the international Jewish communal bear hug we know he wants so badly.
And that is why I am thrilled that finally the president of the Jewish agency is reaching out.
The JTA reports,

The chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel offered to teach Iran’s president about the Holocaust. “I would be happy to host him at Yad Vashem and explain to him what befell our nation,” Ze’ev Bielski said of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s elimination…

This is a generous offer, President Bielski, and should do the trick. I sure hope President Ahmadinejad appreciates how valuable your time is, and how far you will personally go for educational purposes, and I hope that President Ahmadinejad understands that even if many in our community have manipulatively attempted to use this whole debacle in a crass and opportunistic manner to bolster their own Zionist political agendas, you, sir, just want to help.
In a further attempt to encourage Ahmadinejad to reconsider his animosity towards the Jewish people and his historical revisionism and consider his genuine suggestion for a different relationship entirely, Bielski added that,

It is unacceptable to welcome this anti-Semite who works tirelessly to deny the Holocaust and does nothing to benefit his people.

Exactly. Does not the Talmud advise us to push our student away with one hand, but pull him towards us with the other? Sometimes the gates of diplomacy are open, and sometimes the gates of diplomacy are closed. But the gates to fundraising are always open.