← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Paleoleftist
Thread ID: 9193 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-08-21
2003-08-21 20:46 | User Profile
This thread is devoted to those who believe that violence or even madness, mass murder and mayhem are needed in order to limit Zionist influence.
Iran, with its 80-100.000 Jews at the time of the Islamic Revolution, gives an example that all that is necessary is a government with a strong religious/cultural focus.
Some quotes:
** The Constitution of 1979 recognized Jews as an official religious minority and accorded them the right to elect a representative to the Majlis. Like the Christians, the Jews have not been persecuted. Unlike the Christians, the Jews have been viewed with suspicion by the government, probably because of the government's intense hostility toward Israel. Iranian Jews generally have many relatives in Israel--some 45,000 Iranian Jews emigrated from Iran to Israel between 1948 and 1977--with whom they are in regular contact. Since 1979 the government has cited mail and telephone communications as evidence of "spying" in the arrest, detention, and even execution of a few prominent Jews. Although these individual cases have not affected the status of the community as a whole, they have contributed to a pervasive feeling of insecurity among Jews regarding their future in Iran and have helped to precipitate large- scale emigration. Most Jews who have left since the Revolution have settled in the United States. **
[url=http://countrystudies.us/iran/59.htm]http://countrystudies.us/iran/59.htm[/url]
** Today, Jews enjoy considerable official freedom to practice their faith. They elect their own deputy to the 270-seat parliament and have certain rights of self-administration. As their community has become smaller, it has become more tightly knit, and the synagogue has become the focal point of social life, ensuring a new religious fervor.
Privately, there are grumbles about discrimination, much of it of a social or bureaucratic nature. Government jobs are hard to come by, they say, and Jews have to wait much longer for travel documents and exit visas. The most pressing complaint is that Jewish schools must open on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.
There had been high hopes these concerns would be addressed when Khatami was elected by a landslide two years ago. "But nothing has changed," says a dealer in spare car parts. "He's a good man, but they [his hard-line opponents] won't let him do anything."
Once more Jews are leaving Iran. "Every week you hear of another family going," says the wife of a rabbi at one of Tehran's 23 synagogues. But it is the ailing economy rather than the arrests that are blamed. She says, "It's simply that people think they can have a better life for their children elsewhere." **
[url=http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/10/26/p6s1.htm]http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/1.../10/26/p6s1.htm[/url]
** Although many Jews hold jobs in government ministries or within state-owned firms, they say they are unlikely to rise to top positions. In addition, Iran's strict Islamic law, or ''sharia,'' contains many discriminatory provisions toward non-Muslims. **
[url=http://www.khomeini.com/gatewaytoheaven/Articles/LiveOfJewsLivingInIran.htm]http://www.khomeini.com/gatewaytoheaven/Ar...ivingInIran.htm[/url]
** In 1979 the Shah was toppled and Ayatollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic. He attacked Israel, Zionism, and world Jewry. But he also tried to ease the anxieties of Iran's Jewish community by issuing a fatwa saying the Jews are people of the book and are to be protected and permitted freedom of religion. He also said "the Iranian government differentiates between Iranian Jews and the Zionist government of Israel."
Netzer says that Jews have fared in the Islamic Republic better than some other minorities in Iran. The Jews are considered monotheists, can run for parliament, can have one representative, and even are exempted from bans on alcohol. But they also have faced serious difficulties. Netzer says:
"Compared to their Muslim brethren and compared to the Bahais and other religious and ethnic sects, the Jews of Iran during the Islamic Republic have not been treated worse than others. But there were also a lot of difficulties and more than 12 Iranian Jews were executed in Iran, most of them, perhaps all of them, because of ties to the [Shah's] royal court and what [the Islamic Republic] called Zionism or some economic issues. The Jews left Iran because of the Islamic regime, they were afraid of the Islamic regime."
Revolutionary courts have proved arbitrary in their crackdowns on wealthy individuals. The Jewish community's fear of these courts has led to a mass migration out of Iran. In the 20 years of the Islamic Republic, the Jewish population has dropped from 80,000 to just 30,000 today. **
[url=http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/07/F.RU.000703124835.html]http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/07/...0703124835.html[/url]
If they could do it, so can we!