[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 32, Issue 17

[Dan Lusthaus]

How can you guys perpetuate this offensive ignorance in the name of Buddhism? That Ahmadinejad has repeatedly -- in public, to international media -- called for the elimination of the Jewish state, and has said they will be the first target of his nuclear weapons once developed, is simply public record. To deny that is wishful -- and dangerous -- thinking. Kucinich was dead wrong on this one, regardless of whatever you may think of his views on other matters.

Utah? Herzl was offered Uganda as an alternate Jewish homeland, and rightly turned it down, for the same reason that the "offer" of Utah is absurb. If Jews have no right to their own homeland, what right can they claim to a place that only a handful of Jews have ever lived in?

Lance is right to point out that the claim of European Jews being the majority -- in Israel or elsewhere -- is problematic. Not only have Jews (which we would today call Sefardic) continually lived in the Holy Land, but in places like Jerusalem, Safed, and until the 1920s Hebron (at which time they were driven out by Arab riots) they were the overwhelming majority. This silly myth that Israelis only arrived the day after the Hololocaust ended -- another propoganda ploy cited repeatedly by Ahmadinejad, to successful effect judging by the sheer ignorance displayed on this list -- is fantasy. Moreover, many of the so-called Western Jews are also sefardic -- to name just two that list members should recognize: Seinfeld and Steve Heine.

Joanna's postings on Iranian Jews is what one finds on a quick web search, but is a skewered version of the reality. The Iranian Jewish community has been there longer than Islam. During the days of the Shah, Israel and Iran were friends and trading partners. That all changed overnight with the Iranian revolution (so another propoganda sleight of hand that Ahmadinejad repeated at Columbia and the UN, which is that Israel, not Iran, is the cause of the animosity between them, should also join the junk-heap of bald-faced lies). Iran has severely dealt with what remains of the Iranian Jewish community, including intimidation by execution. The Iranian Jews were compelled by the govt. to reject the offer to help Iranian Jews resettle in Israel or the States made by Jewish Iranian ex-pats, and the statement quoted by the community leaders was also a bit of coerced diplomacy (like hostages telling the video cameras that they are being treated royally). Since any pro-Zionist or pro-Israel statement would get one arrested and possibly executed (yes, for nothing more "dangerous" than that!), Iranian Jews are careful, especially when talking to journalists, to say the requisite anti-Israel slogans (or at least distance themselves from Israel by the govt. approved rhetoric of differentiating "Jews" from "Zionists" -- so when you read in Western media a quote from an Iranian Jew that mentions "problems" in attitude spillover from antizionism to difficulties for the Iranian Jewish community, that is code for what is going on, and why it is impossible for any Iranian Jew to make any public criticisms or complaints, especially on the record). The consequences of doing otherwise are dire. Jewish Iranians cannot travel outside Iran with their entire families, to prevent "defection to the Zionist entity," which is the main reason they have not immigrated, but have decided, despite intimidations and difficulties, to tough it out.

Some additional resources on Iranian Jews:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iranjews.html
http://www.haruth.com/JewsIran.html
http://www.ijchronicle.com/
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article549814.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm


As for Iran's intentions toward Israel -- and whether Iran and Arab states are pursuing a two-state solution -- see this article from the NYTimes:

http://tinyurl.com/2lpfvj

They are boycotting the Peace Talks between Israel and Abbas -- because they are the leading supporters of Hizbollah and Hamas, whose policy towards the continued existence of Israel I shouldn't have to remind you of. The call for boycott, incidentally, comes from the Ayatollah, Ahmadinejad's boss.

Dan