Why do so many Americans favor Israel over America?

[EagleKeeper]

Ah--the base instinct of survival! Perhaps this is why the likes of the Stern Gang and the Irgun used hotel bombings and assasinations against the British,

Given that the British were acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews or even staying neutral.

When the British pulled out; they turned over much of their arsenal to the Arabs.

 

[kylebisme]

political zionism was developed in the early 19th century by herzle, inspired by the dreyfus affair.

Herzl wasn't even born until the mid 19th century, and the Dreyfus affair started three years after the scheme to colonize Palestine with Jews was laid out in the Blackstone Memorial. Also, I'm not a leftist, and I'm not in the tank for anyone. Why are you so hostile to reality?

 

[kylebisme]

Given that the British were acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews or even staying neutral.

How in the world does the British holding Palestine under occupation while flooding it with hundreds of thousands of Jews constitute "acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews"?

 

[fallout man]

Given that the British were acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews or even staying neutral.

When the British pulled out; they turned over much of their arsenal to the Arabs.

The British were acting in the interest of the ethnic majority. Does this justify hotel bombings and assassinations? Should we split hairs here? Terrorism is terrorism, or so I thought... Is some terrorism less of a terrorism based on who is acting it out? That's a hell of an argument to make.

Herzl wasn't even born until the mid 19th century, and the Dreyfus affair started three years after the scheme to colonize Palestine with Jews was laid out in the Blackstone Memorial. Also, I'm not a leftist, and I'm not in the tank for anyone. Why are you so hostile to reality?

You just can't make sense of the crazy. IHV is king of selective history, and he hates America. We should wait until he consults his pastor, so expect a reply by Saturday.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Given that the British were acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews or even staying neutral.

How in the world does the British holding Palestine under occupation while flooding it with hundreds of thousands of Jews constitute "acting in the interests of the Arabs and not the Jews"?

1) The British were continually trying to reduce the flow of Jews into Israel.
2) Once the UN set in motion the state of Israel, the conflicts started erupting. The British were in more support of the Arabs than the Jews.
With the British throttling the Jewish immigration; they became part of the opposition. The original Zionists wanted/needed as many Jews in country as possible.

• To get them out of Europe and the Soviet Bloc.
  • They saw what the Stalin regime was getting ready to do.
  • European countries were not very willing to take in the Jewish refugees
• To help populate the planned state of Israel within Palestine.

Many Jews were smuggled into Israel to bypass the British immigration rules; just as they were smuggled out of the Soviet blocs.

The British did not "volunteer" for the mandate; it was handed to them from the League of Nations when Palestine was created. (which I believe that you posted links about)

 

[fallout man]

1) The British were continually trying to reduce the flow of Jews into Israel.
2) Once the UN set in motion the state of Israel, the conflicts started erupting. The British were in more support of the Arabs than the Jews.
With the British throttling the Jewish immigration; they became part of the opposition. The original Zionists wanted/needed as many Jews in country as possible.

• To get them out of Europe and the Soviet Bloc.
  • They saw what the Stalin regime was getting ready to do.
  • European countries were not very willing to take in the Jewish refugees
• To help populate the planned state of Israel within Palestine.

Many Jews were smuggled into Israel to bypass the British immigration rules; just as they were smuggled out of the Soviet blocs.

The British did not "volunteer" for the mandate; it was handed to them from the League of Nations when Palestine was created. (which I believe that you posted links about)

Clearly, some hotel bombings and assassinations got things moving in the right direction...

 

[kylebisme]

1) The British were continually trying to reduce the flow of Jews into Israel.

The British gave hundreds of thousands of Jews citizenship in Palestine during the mandate, as documented in their own records.

2) Once the UN set in motion the state of Israel, the conflicts started erupting.

Well we've been talking about the terrorism of Irgun and Lehi which started around decade prior, but yeah they along with Haganah started ethnically cleansing the region across the both sides of the UN Partition Plan soon after the vote.

The original Zionists wanted/needed as many Jews in country as possible.

Sure, to overwhelm the existing population, and to the extent that they lobbied against Jews being able to immigrate elsewhere, and again British facilitated that immigration by the hundreds of thousands.

The British did not "volunteer" for the mandate; it was handed to them from the League of Nations when Palestine was created.

Actually, the British offered to hand Zionists "a national home for the Jewish people" two years before the League of Nations was formed.

Is your charge of the British having been biased against Jews during the mandate period based on anything but misconceptions? Also, even if all the arguments I addressed above were grounded in fact, how would that be any excuse for terrorism?

 

[Noobtastic]

Herzl wasn't even born until the mid 19th century, and the Dreyfus affair started three years after the scheme to colonize Palestine with Jews was laid out in the Blackstone Memorial. Also, I'm not a leftist, and I'm not in the tank for anyone. Why are you so hostile to reality?

scheme to colonize palestine?

Why did you totally quote mine my post?

in full:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=29536725&postcount=49

This is what you claim:

Zionism is the baby of corporate fat cats and Dominionist Christians, and there are still far more of them raking in the dollars or hoping to bring Jesus back than there are Jews in the world, let alone Jews in on the scam for cash and/or hoping for a messiah themselves

Like I said, Zionism is not the "baby of corporate fat cats."

My reply:

the idea of establishing a jewish state was predicated on the belief that the jewish people must have a homeland or they might face extinction.

jews were expelled from britain, spain, france, germany, russia, and the arab world.

250,000+ jews were murdered in pogroms during the civil war, and 6+ million in the holocaust.

the illusion that israel - a country the size of your fingernail - is at war with the peaceful, innocent marxist and is inciting muslims to detonate their children is a product of billions in petrodollars.

Care to respond?

The whole Arab presence in the ME is through conquering. Arabs cleansed 1,000,000 Jews out of their land. Phonetician, Assyrians, Kurds, Egyptians, Dinkas, etc...all wiped out by the Arabs.

And yet the leftists see the minute Jewish presence in a largely Arab cesspool as an act of "colonization."

Perhaps, maybe. but so what?

Is USA not a product of colonization? Australia? New Zealand? Half of Europe? Most of Africa?

Oh I see, the buck stops at the Jews.

Ah--the base instinct of survival! Perhaps this is why the likes of the Stern Gang and the Irgun used hotel bombings and assasinations against the British, and even offered the olive branch of cooperation (with intent to commit terrorism and sabotage in allied-controlled and Eastern front territory to the detriment of the alliance) to the Nazi leadership during wartime in exchange for help in fulfilling their Zionist dream.

Revisionist history. The Etzel did not develop until AFTER the british nullified the balfour declaration. They failed to protect the Jews from the hostile Arab population, and banned Jewish ownership of weapons.

Palestine was the only destination available for Jewish emigration in a genocidal time in Europe, yet the British were far to concerned about offending Arab oil and its own hegemonic base.

The British subjugated the Jews and would have let them be slaughtered by the Arabs had not the Etzel developed to push the British out.

the whole zionist-nazi conspiracy is pure palestinian propaganda. In the 1920s major Jewish leaders tried to negotiate an expulsion process to palestine or other places instead of a genocide campaign. But the irgun fought nazi-funded Arabs in Palestine in the 30s and 40s.

Maybe they should move to Iran, like a lot of Iranian jews have done after tasting the fruit of the "oasis of understanding and democracy in the desert" that is modern-day Israel.

tell me of these iranians that have moved to the islamic apartheid state of iran.

i know the jewish population has shrunk by 1/3 since the islamists took over. many more would leave if given the opportunity but they have major travel restrictions.

an Iranian Israeli Jew:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaul_Mofaz

The left is pathetic. They cannot defend the Palestinians, Iran, or homicidal Muslims without invoking "zionist" and "apartheid."

I dare you to defend the peaceful, sucessful, human-loving Arab and Muslim tribes INDEPENDENT OF ISRAEL.

Please, I DARE YOU.

 

[Woofmeister]

tell me of these iranians that have moved to the islamic apartheid state of iran.

i know the jewish population has shrunk by 1/3 since the islamists took over. many more would leave if given the opportunity but they have major travel restrictions.

Beat me to it. Please provide some support for your claim that "a lot of Iranian Jews are moving back to Iran" after being lucky enough to escape to Israel. I'll settle for an article from a credible source identifying more than ten people.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews there are currently ten times more Jews of Iranian descent living in Israel than in Iran itself. I guess they didn't get the message that all the really cool Iranian Jews are moving back to Iran.

 

[kylebisme]

Like I said, Zionism is not the "baby of corporate fat cats."

Like I said, years before Herzl got into Zionism, industrialist leaders like John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpoint Morgan got together with Dominionist Christians and agreed to colonize Palestine with Jews in the Blackstone Memorial. Can you not bring yourself to acknolage this fact?

 

[Noobtastic]

Like I said, years before Herzl got into Zionism, industrialist leaders like John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpoint Morgan got together with Dominionist Christians and agreed to colonize Palestine with Jews in the Blackstone Memorial. Can you not bring yourself to acknolage this fact?

uh?

all i see is a letter trying to solve the mass-cleansing of jews during the russian civil war.

i dont think anyone would see the idea of moving the jews to their homeland to preserve their identity as some conspiracy of colonization.

if i recall this was during the ottoman control of virtually of the ME, so "palestine" was not even regionally declared at the time.

in other words, half of syria.

 

[Zebo]

[

why is the left so in the tank for homicidal arabs?
.

Hoping they chop their head off last.

And perhaps the noble savage worship e.g. the virtue of trying to transcend xenophobia and being able to question and to criticize one's own culture pursued to an excessive, irrational, and pathological degree.

I pretty left and get in this discussion all the time with my parents and friends. Basically it's boils down Israel is strong Arabs are weak most of the time. Typical underdog worship rather than right or wrong.

 

[patoman11]

Maybe because the Jewish community control a large part of U.S economy, don't you think?

 

[Genx87]

I don't hate Israel, I just don't give a flying shit about middle easterners, be they palestinians/iranians/israelis. What I do hate, is the fact that there are prominent Americans who want to risk American lives, money, and security for non-Americans.

I really don't care if either side wipes the other off the map, I'm a patriotic American. Unlike Palin and Robertson, I care about the U.S. and I don't want American lives lost or the U.S. further bankrupted over some middle easterners.

Jefferson warned us not to tangled in Alliances, yet that's the exact thing anti-American people like Robertson and Palin want to do.

Dont forget Obama who wants to get China and Russia to align with the United States against Iran.

 

[kylebisme]

all i see is a letter trying to solve the mass-cleansing of jews during the russian civil war.

You've got some curious issues with your ability to see, considering the fact that Russian Civil War started decades after the Blackstone Memorial.

Maybe because the Jewish community control a large part of U.S economy, don't you think?

I don't think that's true. Perhaps on a per-capita basis compared to other ethnic groups it might be arguably large, but best I can tell old WASP men control the vast majority of our economy.

 

[gingermeggs]

I talked to my Constitutional Law professor, and he said that there is a 50% chance that the U.S. will go to war against Iran.

How could anyone hate their own country so much? Why do these Neo-Republicans like Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson hate and want to destroy the U.S. by putting our young men and women at risk, tax the hell out of the citizenry, destroy our dollar, and risk our security, just so the Israelis can have a home of their own without anyone questioning it?

For the record, Iran has a smaller military budget than Greece and a few other countries combined. For another, people want to misinterpret Ahmedinajad's statesments.

All I can say is that I'm going to join a anti-militarist militia if our government keeps putting other nations before us.

Why do they "hate" the US!
the short answer is,
They hate themselves
- Maybe Moonbeam can elaborate!

 

[wwswimming]

Why do so many Americans favor Israel over America?

it has a lot to do with the schooling.

for example, even though i went to a college-prep type high school and a name brand university, which included one year of forced history education, i never knew that Martin Luther wrote a book entitled, "On the Jews and Their Lies"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

i was told about the Holocaust, but i was never told the difficult truths about it -
* that Zionist Jews were instrumental in selecting European Jews to be left behind in Nazi Germany, to a near-certain death. the Zionist Jews, the Jewish people who wanted to create an Israel, found themselves substantially opposed by the unwillingness of European Jewish people to move to Israel. So they negotiated a deal with Hitler, as documented in the book "The Transfer Agreement", by Edwin Black, a Jewish historian.
http://www.transferagreement.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Transfer-Agree.../dp/0786708417

* that Hitler was supported financially by Jewish people on Wall Street in America. as further documented in "George Bush, the Un-authorized Biography"
http://tarpley.net/bushb.htm
by Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin. Chaitkin is also a Jewish historian; his father was one of the judges at the Nuremberg trials.

* that the number of deaths of Jewish people was purposely exaggerated. Americans were taught the number 6 million. then in 1990 Walter Sanning's book came out, "The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry". Walter Sanning is also a Jewish historian. he found that there were no more than 3 1/2 million Jewish people in occupied Europe. the plaques at Auschwitz were changed accordingly in the early 1990's, from "in memory of 4 million" to "in memory of 1 1/2 million".

Sanning estimated the number of Holocaust deaths (killing of Jews by Nazi Germany) at 200,000. Total WW2 deaths - 60 to 100 million. in other words, whether 3 1/2 million Jewish people died in occupied Europe, or 200,000, the 6 million number has been quietly abandoned - except in American history school textbooks.


in general, Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that the act of talking about racist white supremacists - Israel, for example - is racist, and somehow bad.

We all make racial observations. it's pretty hard to watch a pro football game without noticing that the defensive teams are frequently all African American players.

I would say that what is racist, is the act of killing people because of their race, or because they don't go along with your own racist goals. that is specifically what happened in the negotiations between the Zionist Jews & Hitler - the Zionist Jews dealt with the problem (for them) of European Jewish people opposed to Israel, by letting Nazi Germany kill them. As described in terrible detail in the Transfer Agreement book.

 

[QuantumPion]

I heard Israelis murder Palestinian boys to use their blood for Purim cookies too. Don't forget about that one.

 

[Noobtastic]

I heard Israelis murder Palestinian boys to use their blood for Purim cookies too. Don't forget about that one.

Tastes so good.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Next post that is not on topic will cause this thread to be locked.

Common Courtesy
Anandtech Moderator

 

[fallout man]

Beat me to it. Please provide some support for your claim that "a lot of Iranian Jews are moving back to Iran" after being lucky enough to escape to Israel. I'll settle for an article from a credible source identifying more than ten people.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews there are currently ten times more Jews of Iranian descent living in Israel than in Iran itself. I guess they didn't get the message that all the really cool Iranian Jews are moving back to Iran.

Roger Cohen's (LOL SELF-HATING JEW LOL) piece on Jews in Iran:

February 23, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
What Iran’s Jews Say
By ROGER COHEN

Esfahan, Iran

At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”

The Jews of Iran remove their shoes, wind leather straps around their arms to attach phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sinuous murmur of Hebrew prayer courses through the cluttered synagogue with its lovely rugs and unhappy plants. Soleiman Sedighpoor, an antiques dealer with a store full of treasures, leads the service from a podium under a chandelier.

I’d visited the bright-eyed Sedighpoor, 61, the previous day at his dusty little shop. He’d sold me, with some reluctance, a bracelet of mother-of-pearl adorned with Persian miniatures. “The father buys, the son sells,” he muttered, before inviting me to the service.

Accepting, I inquired how he felt about the chants of “Death to Israel” — “Marg bar Esraeel” — that punctuate life in Iran.

“Let them say ‘Death to Israel,’ ” he said. “I’ve been in this store 43 years and never had a problem. I’ve visited my relatives in Israel, but when I see something like the attack on Gaza, I demonstrate, too, as an Iranian.”

The Middle East is an uncomfortable neighborhood for minorities, people whose very existence rebukes warring labels of religious and national identity. Yet perhaps 25,000 Jews live on in Iran, the largest such community, along with Turkey’s, in the Muslim Middle East. There are more than a dozen synagogues in Tehran; here in Esfahan a handful caters to about 1,200 Jews, descendants of an almost 3,000-year-old community.

Over the decades since Israel’s creation in 1948, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the number of Iranian Jews has dwindled from about 100,000. But the exodus has been far less complete than from Arab countries, where some 800,000 Jews resided when modern Israel came into being.

In Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Iraq — countries where more than 485,000 Jews lived before 1948 — fewer than 2,000 remain. The Arab Jew has perished. The Persian Jew has fared better.

Of course, Israel’s unfinished cycle of wars has been with Arabs, not Persians, a fact that explains some of the discrepancy.

Still a mystery hovers over Iran’s Jews. It’s important to decide what’s more significant: the annihilationist anti-Israel ranting, the Holocaust denial and other Iranian provocations — or the fact of a Jewish community living, working and worshipping in relative tranquillity.

Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran — its sophistication and culture — than all the inflammatory rhetoric.

That may be because I’m a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran. Or perhaps I was impressed that the fury over Gaza, trumpeted on posters and Iranian TV, never spilled over into insults or violence toward Jews. Or perhaps it’s because I’m convinced the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran and likening of any compromise with it to Munich 1938 — a position popular in some American Jewish circles — is misleading and dangerous.

I know, if many Jews left Iran, it was for a reason. Hostility exists. The trumped-up charges of spying for Israel against a group of Shiraz Jews in 1999 showed the regime at its worst. Jews elect one representative to Parliament, but can vote for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, cannot vote for a Jew.

Among minorities, the Bahai — seven of whom were arrested recently on charges of spying for Israel — have suffered brutally harsh treatment.

I asked Morris Motamed, once the Jewish member of the Majlis, if he felt he was used, an Iranian quisling. “I don’t,” he replied. “In fact I feel deep tolerance here toward Jews.” He said “Death to Israel” chants bother him, but went on to criticize the “double standards” that allow Israel, Pakistan and India to have a nuclear bomb, but not Iran.

Double standards don’t work anymore; the Middle East has become too sophisticated. One way to look at Iran’s scurrilous anti-Israel tirades is as a provocation to focus people on Israel’s bomb, its 41-year occupation of the West Bank, its Hamas denial, its repetitive use of overwhelming force. Iranian language can be vile, but any Middle East peace — and engagement with Tehran — will have to take account of these points.

Green Zoneism — the basing of Middle Eastern policy on the construction of imaginary worlds — has led nowhere.

Realism about Iran should take account of Esfehan’s ecumenical Palestine Square. At the synagogue, Benhur Shemian, 22, told me Gaza showed Israel’s government was “criminal,” but still he hoped for peace. At the Al-Aqsa mosque, Monteza Foroughi, 72, pointed to the synagogue and said: “They have their prophet; we have ours. And that’s fine.”

Roger Cohen's response to the inevitable froth rising from drones like IHV:

March 2, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Iran, the Jews and Germany
By ROGER COHEN

So a Jerusalem Post article says that I’m “hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries.”

The Atlantic Monthly’s Jeffrey Goldberg finds me “particularly credulous,” taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that “are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies.” (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)

A conservative Web site called American Thinker, which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis’ sham at the Theresienstadt camp.

The indignation stems from my recent column on Iranian Jews, which said that the 25,000-strong community worships in relative tranquillity; that Persian Jews have fared better than Arab Jews; that hostility toward Jews in Iran has on occasion led to trumped-up charges against them; and that those enamored of the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran regard any compromise with it as a rerun of Munich 1938.

This last point found confirmation in outraged correspondence from several American Jews unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany. I was based in Berlin for three years; Germany’s confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let’s be clear: Iran’s Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.

Munich allowed Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.

Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it’s far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.

Most of Iran’s population is under 30; it’s an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC’s new Farsi service is all the rage.

Abdullah Momeni, a student opponent of the regime, told me, “The Internet is very important to us; in fact, it is of infinite importance.” Iranians are not cut off, like Cubans or North Koreans.

The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared with the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned the Majlis, or parliament, down.

If you’re thinking trains-on-time Fascist efficiency, think again. Tehran’s new telecommunications tower took 20 years to build. I was told its restaurant would open “soon.” So, it is said, will the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a project in the works for a mere 30 years. A Persian Chernobyl is more likely than some Middle Eastern nuclear Armageddon, if that’s any comfort.

For all the morality police inspecting whether women are wearing boots outside their pants (the latest no-no on the dress front) and the regime zealots of the Basiji militia, the air you breathe in Iran is not suffocating. Its streets at dusk hum with life — not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear — but the vibrancy of a changing, highly educated society.

This is the Iran of subtle shades that the country’s Jews inhabit. Life is more difficult for them than for Muslims, but to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense.

One Iranian exile, no lover of the Islamic Republic, wrote to me saying that my account of Iran’s Jews had brought “tears to my eyes” because “you are saying what many of us would like to hear.”

Far from the cradle of Middle Eastern Islamist zealotry, she suggested, “Iran — the supposed enemy — is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic. As my father, who continues to live there, says, ‘It is the least undemocratic country in the region outside Israel.’ ”

This notion of a “post-fervor” Iran is significant. The compromises being painfully fought out between Islam and democracy in Tehran are of seminal importance. They belie the notion of a fanatical power; they explain Jewish life.

That does not mean fanaticism does not exist or that terrible crimes have not been committed, like the Iran-backed bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires 15 years ago.

But the equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.

I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one — the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.

It’s worth recalling that hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand, may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not.

Nor should racist demagoguery — wherever — prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it.

Oh, and perhaps you can personally write to the Jerusalem Post asking why they have taken down the following link, and the story is less-than-searchable on their website:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1131043721479&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

So 10 months ago gray-haired Ishak gave up on the Zionist dream and began to move his family and belongings back to Iran. He filled some of his numerous suitcases and trunks with the Persian carpets, silverware, and home decorations he came here with, and flew to Turkey with his two sons. There they sent their new Israeli passports by express mail back to his daughter in Israel. Then they took out their Islamic Republic of Iran passports and boarded a flight to Teheran. “

It was a good one, too.

Oh, and

http://www.scribd.com/doc/334280/American-Citizens-Living-Abroad-By-Country

This is State Department info from ~2000, the year of our Lord. I'm sure that the numbers have changed a bit, but having Saudi Arabia being second to Israel (of course, we're counting dual-citizenships) is not so bad. I don't see why thousands of people would choose to move and be constantly oppressed and tortured by those damn dirty Muslims!

Oh, and here's Lynn Gottlieb's (LOL SELF-HATING RABBI LOL AND SHE'S A WOMAN AMIRITE??!) response to Roger Cohen's experience in Iran:

Reading Roger Cohen's piece in the NY Times confirmed my own experience in Iran. I have had the pleasure of meeting the ancient community of Jews from Esfahan, Shiraz and Teheran on two separate occasions. I attended services in each of the cities, met with the official representatives of the community twice in Shiraz and Teheran and had several private conversations in hotel lobbies and private homes for hours on end, with youth and elders. I was also surprised at the depth of study of Jewish sources by Muslim scholars at Mofid University who quoted Maimonides, Rashi and Torah with ease and were anxious to learn more. As in any culture there is a diversity of attitudes. The condition of Jews is really no different than the condition of others who are in the 'reformist' camp. There is a need for interfaith civilian diplomacy so that those relationships can be explored and nurtured.

The Jewish community of Iran has been present in their society for nearly 3000 years. They object to the attitude by non Iranian western Jews that we want to save them, or educate them, or in any way interfere with their cultural and religious life. Before we make assumptions about what they need or who they are, it would be well to acknowledge that they are the oldest ongoing community of Jews in the world continuously associated with one place. They are not Jews of exile. They are deeply rooted in the land of Cyrus. They can visit the graves of Esther and Mordecai, Daniel and Habbakuk. They possess a Torah that is over 1200 years old. The Jews of Esfahan have their own language! The Jews of Iran are deeply proud of their own heritage, even though they, like other Iranians, may struggle with the limitations imposed by the Islamic Republic on freedom of expression.

The second delegation I led to Iran in December 2008 composed of 10 Jewish participants and four non-Jewish participants, included two rabbis, a rabbinic student, and six other members who identify as 'religious' Jews. During our visit to Yusef Abad, the largest of approximately 22 synagogues in Tehran, I was invited to speak from the bimah (for the second time). Like the first time, people clapped and shouted in appreciation for our visit. When I identified the members of our delegation and asked them to stand, and pointed out that Sarah Bassem was also studying to be a rabbi, the congregation cheered again. Many people came up to me and began asking me 'rabbinic' questions, regardless of my gender.

Obviously, there are limitations on life for non-Muslims. There are limitations on life for minorities in the States as well. Still, the Jewish community is extremely proud of its heritage, and views the Iranian American Jewish community as somewhat lost. They point to the increase in divorce and inter-marriage as an example of the impact of assimilation which they do not feel in Iran.

The idea of Israel attacking Iran is an anathema to the Jews of Iran. Certainly, it would endanger them. We should cease and desist all bellicose language that threatens military action toward Iran immediately. For those of us in the Jewish community who have had the pleasure to visit the Jews of Iran, we understand the preciousness of that community. Any actions taken by Israel that would put the Jews of Iran in danger is a travesty.

Finally, I look forward to my next visit which will occur this coming August. I pray that the gates will remain open, and I will have the profound pleasure of deepening my experience with this ancient and honorable community.

A rabbi and a woman?! Meshugah!!! Here's another self-hating rabbi for you (this time, a man):

Cohen’s report is very much in line with my own experience. When I attended an interfaith delegation to Iran this past November, we spent considerable time with the Jewish community – and among the many surprising impressions we received was their obvious sense of comfort and safety living as Jews under an Islamic regime.

American Jews are invariably astounded when I tell them that I myself wore a kippah publicly throughout Iran without a moment’s nervousness. (Once we were approached and asked by an Iranian man if we were Jewish – he turned out to be a Jew himself and he promptly invited us to his shul for Shabbat). I’m not being facetious when I say that in retrospect, I realize I actually felt safer as a Jew walking the streets Tehran than I often do in Israel – the only place in the world, frankly, where Jewish lives are under constant threat.

I took the picture above, by the way, at the Jewish community center in Shiraz. Just another assumption-busting Jewish Iranian image: the obligatory Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamanei hanging on the wall above a classic Jewish quote from Pirkei Avot in Hebrew and Farsi: “Every assembly that is for the sake of heaven will endure.”

 

[Noobtastic]

Roger Cohen's (LOL SELF-HATING JEW LOL) piece on Jews in Iran:




Roger Cohen's response to the inevitable froth rising from drones like IHV:





Oh, and perhaps you can personally write to the Jerusalem Post asking why they have taken down the following link, and the story is less-than-searchable on their website:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1131043721479&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull



It was a good one, too.

Oh, and

http://www.scribd.com/doc/334280/American-Citizens-Living-Abroad-By-Country

This is State Department info from ~2000, the year of our Lord. I'm sure that the numbers have changed a bit, but having Saudi Arabia being second to Israel (of course, we're counting dual-citizenships) is not so bad. I don't see why thousands of people would choose to move and be constantly oppressed and tortured by those damn dirty Muslims!

Oh, and here's Lynn Gottlieb's (LOL SELF-HATING RABBI LOL AND SHE'S A WOMAN AMIRITE??!) response to Roger Cohen's experience in Iran:





A rabbi and a woman?! Meshugah!!! Here's another self-hating rabbi for you (this time, a man):

Oh wow some B.S editorial and pimp piece.

Iran thugs go around Iran and arrest religious minorities and demand they convert to Islam or face execution.

Apostacy is a capital offense.

Jewish population in Iran has shrunk from ~150,000 to less than 25,000.

Most have fled to either Israel or the USA.

So FACTS and STATISTICS trump B.S human-interest stories.

Jews in Iran are second class citizens. I know for a fact they cannot travel to Israel.

There are no connecting flights from Iran to Israel.

Hell, Iran killed more than 200 Iranian Jews during the revolution, claiming they were "Zionist collaborators."

Just because Cohen is a Jew does not somehow make him an authoritarian on Jewish rights.

 

[fallout man]

Oh wow some B.S editorial and pimp piece.

Iran thugs go around Iran and arrest religious minorities and demand they convert to Islam or face execution.

Apostacy is a capital offense.

Jewish population in Iran has shrunk from ~150,000 to less than 25,000.

Most have fled to either Israel or the USA.

So FACTS and STATISTICS trump B.S human-interest stories.

Jews in Iran are second class citizens. I know for a fact they cannot travel to Israel.

There are no connecting flights from Iran to Israel.

Hell, Iran killed more than 200 Iranian Jews during the revolution, claiming they were "Zionist collaborators."

Just because Cohen is a Jew does not somehow make him an authoritarian on Jewish rights.

I'm willing to bet that Roger Cohen, and the rabbis are more "jew" than you are, IHateMuslims.

Of course, your thread-crap above is just what I expected. You are so far off your rocker that you've fallen and can't even be helped to get up.

I reckon you think that the Earth is 5000 years old too. Here you go, buddy:

OMG, THERE ARE NO DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM MASS. TO MOROCCO!!!!1111111 I FEEL SO FUCKING OPPRESSED. PASS THE RAZOR, PLZ.

 

[bigpimpatl]

americans don't know shit about politics in the middle east. And they sure as hell don't know any of its history. they are basically spoonfed what to believe by pat robertson and other hardcore christian fundamentalists, and similarly the media has its own agenda and and preferences for what is "news."

I bet americans would be surprised to know that more than half of the ME was once a British, French, and Italian colony/mandate/protectorate. And not too long ago either.

 

[Noobtastic]

I'm willing to bet that Roger Cohen, and the rabbis are more "jew" than you are, IHateMuslims.

Of course, your thread-crap above is just what I expected. You are so far off your rocker that you've fallen and can't even be helped to get up.

I reckon you think that the Earth is 5000 years old too. Here you go, buddy:

OMG, THERE ARE NO DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM MASS. TO MOROCCO!!!!1111111 I FEEL SO FUCKING OPPRESSED. PASS THE RAZOR, PLZ.

Like I said, prove to me all those Iranian Israelis flocking back to apartheid Iran with FACTS.

I see an Iranian Jewish population that as shrunk by more than 200% since the 1980s, and I see you unable to disprove this.

All those Iranian Jews in Bel Air, Tel Aviv, and New York who fled Iran during the revolution.

all lies invented by the Zionists?

MATH and STATISTICS trump Chomsky propaganda.

Iranian apologism. If it is so free and wonderful, go fuckin live there.