Abandoning the March on Jerusalem

There is perhaps no government in the world more outspoken in its enmity toward Israel than the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran’s ruling mullahs routinely denounce the “Zionist entity,” send millions of dollars to pro-Palestinian militant groups and provide an economic lifeline for Lebanon’s Hizbullah.

However, unlike Arab governments, which have for decades employed the “Palestinian card” to curry favor with their domestic constituencies, the Iranian regime is discovering that its glorification of the Palestinian cause is having the reverse effect domestically.

Rather than applaud efforts on behalf of Palestine, Iranians are today increasingly voicing frustration at the Islamic Republic’s contempt for Israel and seeming obsession with being “more Palestinian than the Palestinians.” It is a policy, they argue, that is being carried out at the expense of Iran’s own citizens.

In the 1970s, during the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, solidarity with the Palestinian cause ran deep in Iran. Tehran’s cozy relationship with Tel Aviv was widely unpopular with Iranians, not least because Israeli Mossad agents were thought to have trained the Shah’s secret police, the Savak. Shortly after the fall of the monarchy in 1979, the keys to the former Israeli Embassy in Tehran were handed over to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared the Islamic revolution would march onward until the “liberation of Jerusalem.” Unsurprisingly, this pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli attitude became a pillar of the foreign and domestic policies of the new Islamic Republic.

Three decades later, however, Iran’s young population (approximately 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 years of age) has little interest in marching onwards to Jerusalem. On the contrary, many disavow the anti-Zionism and radical politics of their parents’ generation, saying it brought them nothing but an oppressive religious theocracy.

Having themselves experienced a traumatic eight-year war with Iraq, Iranians can empathize with Palestinian anguish, to which they are repeatedly exposed in newspapers and on television. However, the fact that the Iranian government emphasizes Israeli human rights abuses and Palestinian suffering while suffering and human rights abuses persist in Iran is a growing source of aggravation.

As one 23 year-old engineering student at Tehran University put it: “We are tired of the pro-Palestinian propaganda. Why is our government so preoccupied with them? We have so many problems of our own.” Young Iranians’ frustration was in evidence during last summer’s student protests. Amid calls for greater democracy and freedom, one popular slogan delivered in rhythmic Persian was: “Forget about the Palestinians! Take care of us!”

Officials in Tehran downplay the extent of their financial support for radical groups, arguing, perhaps correctly, that the United States and Israel overstate the numbers. “More than anything, we provide moral support for these groups,” said one reformist politician. Nonetheless, given the government’s relentless anti-Zionist rhetoric, and the thousands of billboards in Tehran depicting Palestinian martyrdom and Israeli cruelty, it should come as no surprise that the Iranians’ perception of their government’s support for Palestinian groups is possibly greater than the reality.

High unemployment, rising inflation and a dearth of political and social freedoms have resulted in intense and widespread discontent with the ruling clergy. Despite Iran’s vast oil wealth, some economists in Tehran estimate that close to a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Many see Iran’s moribund economy as partly a result of the country’s embrace of international radicalism, which has damaged foreign business ties.

After years in international isolation, young Iranians in particular are anxious to have contact with the global community and rid themselves of their tarnished international reputation. Most are not granted foreign visas, and those who are often come back from abroad discouraged. “I see the way people look at me when I travel,” complained one youth. “Immediately, they think, ‘Watch out for the Iranian, he might be a terrorist.’ I blame our government for cultivating this image by supporting radical groups.”

While the Lebanese Hizbullah is considered largely an Iranian creation, today the term “Hizbullahi” (a Hizbullah type) has taken on negative connotations in the Iranian street, where it describes someone who is reactionary and violent. When Islamist thugs crushed student demonstrations last summer, rumors spread around Tehran that Palestinian militants and Hizbullah fighters had been flown in from Gaza and southern Lebanon to do the government’s dirty work.

This, combined with the economic crisis, has given rise to a feeling among many Iranians that charity must begin at home. A 31-year-old Tehran carpenter perhaps best captured the general sentiment: “We don’t have a problem with Israel, that’s the Arabs’ problem. If the government were to stop supporting Hizbullah tomorrow, I think most people wouldn’t mind. On the contrary, if people thought that that money would go to their own families instead, many of them would be happy.”

While young Iranians have been the most outspoken in voicing discontent, frustration with the state transcends age and socio-economic background. When government aid was slow in reaching earthquake victims in northeastern Iran two years ago, one Western journalist reported that some villagers whose homes were destroyed complained that had the earthquake hit in south Lebanon, the government would have reacted more quickly.

The recent earthquake in Bam, which took the lives of tens of thousands of Iranians, produced similar resentment. “Our government is only preoccupied with slogans: ‘Death to America,’ ‘Death to Israel,’ ‘Death to this and that,’” a middle-aged woman queuing up to give blood told The Guardian, adding: “We have had three major earthquakes in the past three decades. Thousands of people have died, but nothing has been done. Why?”

Some may find it difficult to believe that at the height of the Israeli government’s inhumane policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians, the question of Palestine has lost resonance in Iran. Yet it is presumptuous of Iran’s leaders to think that the Iranian people, after years of waiting in vain, would want more for the Palestinians than they want for themselves, namely a free and dignified democratic state based on the rule of law, human rights and personal and civil liberties.

Karim Sadjadpour, a visiting graduate fellow at the American University of Beirut, writes frequently on Iranian affairs. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

I'm personally looking forward to the day the Iranian people tear the Shiite mullahs to pieces with their bare hands. I plan to buy the video and watch it again and again. But, that's just me. ;') This was on AOL, back when they gave no links:

Iran Protests Enter Third Day
by Ali Akbar Dareini, AP
06/13/03 04:50 EDT
Hundreds of protesters called for the death of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei as thousands of onlookers watched early Friday, the third day of demonstrations in the capital despite threats by the hard-line regime to crack down to end the disturbances... They shouted chants including, "Khamenei the traitor must be hanged," "Guns and tanks and fireworks, the mullahs must be killed," and "student prisoners must be freed," witnesses said... Before they dispersed, police had prevented some two dozen pro-Khamenei vigilantes on motorcycles - at times chanting "oh the exalted leader, we are ready to follow your instructions," - from confronting the students. Thousands of people looked on, sometimes clapping with the protesters and taking up their chants. Residents near the university hospital left their doors open so that demonstrators could find quick shelter if the authorities cracked down... Khamenei, in a speech broadcast on state television and radio, referred to violence in 1999 when security forces and extremist supporters of hard-line clerics attacked students protesting media restrictions. At least one student was killed and the clash touched off the worst street battles since the 1979 revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah. "If the Iranian nation decides to deal with the (current) rioters, it will do so in the way it dealt with it on July 14, 1999," Khamenei said.

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