Now what is the real source of Iran’s opposition to
Israel? Is it all about Israel’s ‘expansionist policies’ and ‘Zionism’ or is it
really all about the Jews and Judaism? It depends on both who you ask and when you
ask. If the BBC or The Guardian (in the UK) is interviewing high-ranking
Iranians, those officials or leaders will say it’s all about the evils of
Israel and Zionism. But if Iranians are talking to Iranians, it’s nearly always
about the evils of the Jews and Judaism.
I finally became convinced of this when I read Hizbu’llah:
Politics & Freedom, by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb.
The writer is a Lebanese Leftist who also has a soft spot for Shiism –
or at least for Shia political activism. However, she makes it crystal clear
that for both Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, it’s not all about ‘Israeli crimes’
or the ‘racism that is Zionism’. It is indeed often – sometimes mainly – about
the Jews and Judaism. And it is this aspect of Iran and Hezbollah that she
doesn’t like. (She demonstrates this Jew-hatred with many quotes from various Lebanese
and Iranian Shia.) And neither does she like the fact that both Muslims (when
speaking to non-Muslims/Westerners) and Leftists deny this reality outright.
The former Iranian President, during his eight years of
power, made many anti-Jewish statements. It is far from being only a
case of Ahmadinejad's many denials of the Holocaust (which everyone knows about). Indeed
it can – and must - be said that his denial of the Holocaust is a result or consequence
of a hatred of both the Jews and Judaism which existed in his mind long
before any ‘revisionism’ (as is also the case with European/US Nazis). In other words,
Jew-hatred comes first and then Holocaust denial follows it.
A lot has been made, by Western Leftist and Left-Liberals,
of the new President’s moderation (vis-à-vis, presumably, Ahmadinejad). More
relevantly, it recently became headline news – in the West – that President
Rouhani had wished Jews a happy new year. He hadn’t. Rouhani’s office was very
quick to tell reporters that the message had in fact been sent by someone else
who wasn’t even a member of the government. It wasn't an
official statement.
Officially it has been said that the Supreme Leader of Iran,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has handed over control of the negotiations over its
nuclear programme to President Rouhani. Whether this is entirely - or strictly -
true is hard to say because, in the end, all final decisions on issues of war
and peace are made by the Ayatollah.
Nonetheless, there will be talks in New York later this
month.
The man who will head these forthcoming discussions will be
the foreign ministry’s Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Zarif is another Iranian leader who has been hailed as a
‘moderate’ by various Western leaders and US officials. His
particular talent was to ensure talks between the US and Iran, both previously
and for the upcoming New York discussions.
There’s always a lot of talk about
‘talks’ in political circles. (Sometimes there’s even talk about ‘talks
about talks’.) Nonetheless, as all those on the ground know, what really
matters is not talks, but the results or consequences of talks. Are the results
positive or negative? Or, more often than not: Are the supposed results actually non-existent - despite the theatrics? I
suppose that’s both diplomacy and politics for you. The point is, at least in
the Iranian case, that it could all be bullshit. It could all be Iranian taqiyya. All that will depend on two main
questions. One: how truly independent is the President of Iran from the Ayatollah?
Two: how genuinely moderate is President Rouhani?
It’s ironic that the other week I received comments (from a Wali Bak) on a
piece I had written for American Thinker - in which I discussed Iran's Press TV - which said that there is
little freedom in the West because, amongst other things, no one is allowed to put a pro-Iran
position here (except the Stop the War Coalition, Counterfire, George Galloway, The Guardian, The New York Times, CounterPunch, etc.).
It’s ironic because Facebook, amongst other social media, is banned in Iran.
(Some reporters have said that it’s ‘banned but not illegal’.)
It may seem strange, then, that the new spokesperson for the
Iranian foreign ministry, Marzieh Afkham, has a Facebook page which recently
received as many as 25,000 ‘likes’. This is a very large figure if you bear in
mind the fact that the Iranian regime blocks Facebook. It would be a surprise,
too, were it not for the fact that it’s not actually Marzieh Afkham’s account in the first place.
It was a hoax perpetrated by an Iranian exile. Afkham herself had to publicly
deny the page after reporters kept on quoting lines - and sometimes whole posts
- from the page.
The spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry is not the
only victim. Other ministers in the Iranian government have complained that the media is
frequently quoting from Facebook - and other social media - accounts which do not
in fact belong to them. They too are all fake.
The problem is even worse than that. The Supreme Leader’s
own Facebook page has also received 56,000 ‘likes’. Yes, he hasn’t got a
Facebook page either. It’s another fake page.
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