Posted on 11/24/2005 9:28:51 AM PST by freedom44
It's tiny now, but Iran's Jewish community was once vibrant — dating back at least 2,500 years.
It was the ancient Persian King Cyrus who freed the Jews from Babylon and sent them back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. Iranians gave thousands of European Jews shelter during the Holocaust. And Iran was the first Muslim country to have dealings with Israel.
But after the Islamic Revolution, Iran adopted a hard-line anti-Zionist policy, one Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reinforced last month when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."
Even though some officials have tried to soften the president's comments, the plight of the Palestinian people remains a national obsession here. Symbols of the struggle are everywhere; in Palestine Square in central Tehran, there's a statue of Israel with a hole in the middle of it. Cartoons glorifying Palestinian suicide and homicide bombers are running on Iranian television.
Some Iranians privately wonder why their government makes Palestine such a focus when Iranians aren't even Arabs, and when Iran has enough problems of its own. And some took issue with Ahmadinejad's comments.
"I was shocked ... I didn't believe my ears, my eyes," said one Iranian.
One journalist doubts the comments were just a blunder. He feels extreme regimes like to cut themselves off from the rest of the world so they can do as they please at home.
"Radicalism is the best friend of isolationism," said analyst Saeed Laylaz.
But there are people, even in Iran's hard-line government, who don't relish isolation and who privately say they hope the president learned a lesson from the backlash he received. Still, no prominent figure has come out and condemned those comments publicly.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Bump
It should read "the Iran question' or, better yet, "the Iranian government problem".
The Shah of Iran was a cruel and corrupt despot, but the people who replaced him are even worse.
It must not be easy being an Iranian.
Two things Amir, first the saying goes "fight fire with fire" not "fight fascism with fascism". Second philosophical objections do not manifest as genocidal threats. It’s imposable to defend a bankrupt ideology Mr. Mohebian so I'm not sure why you would try. Germany is still on the map yes, but Hitler and his henchmen where purged by the forces of freedom. Germany wasn't the problem, it was its leadership...
And now it isn't muslims who are the problem, it is fundamental islam (including those muslims who follow it now and those who will fall under its spell later).
This time, getting rid of the problem is going to be tougher.
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