Lobster for Iran
By Israel Shamir
“Iran’s
biggest threat since Nazis,” said Israeli defence minister Shaul
Mofaz, according to
the Guardian; “The world must not wait! Since Hitler we Jews
have not faced such a threat” as presented by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad who “further stirred international outrage by
calling on Israeli Jews to be resettled in Europe” (...thus the
Guardian).
These guys
are hard to please! In the 1930s, Hitler called for the Jews to
be resettled outside of Europe, and they declared war on him.
Now Ahmadinejad calls for the
resettlement of Jews in Europe, and
the Jews still respond with a
war cry. That is, unless the Guardian
missed the point in its report, and the outrage actually came
from the Europeans who preferred the Palestinians to serve as
unwilling host to these difficult guests.
Anyway I
beg to differ: President Ahmadinejad is the biggest threat since
Gerard de Nerval, a flamboyant French poet, promenaded a lobster
on a blue ribbon lead, just as one exercises a dog, along the
Palais Royal gardens in order to
épater le bourgeois. A truly
poetic soul, an enfant terrible if ever there was one,
Ahmadinejad aimed to wake us up from our over-long after-dinner
nap. What can the Iranian do if ‘Jews’ is the only magic word
that awakens us from this slumber? Sexual innuendos would not
bestir even a child fresh from his AIDS-awareness lesson. An
attack of Christianity would be warmly applauded by the
undeniable masters of European minds, Messrs Sauerkraut and
Finkelrot. In this post-modernist age, when the Vagina
Monologues have entered the matinee repertoire, it is not that
easy to épater the increasingly blasé bourgeoisie. If
Ahmadinejad would call for the
resettlement of six million European
Muslims outside of Europe, nobody would raise an eyebrow with
the possible exception of Oriana Fallaci and M. Le Pen, who
might object to his plagiarism. If he were to call for
the erasure of France from the world
map, the French would not sit up and pay attention: they think
there is already a Brussels directive to this effect!
I admire
Ahmadinejad. Not as a politician: let the Iranians judge him on
this merit. Not as a divine: I leave this to the Muslims. But as
a true poet who unveiled our hypocrisy and slaughtered our last
sacred cow. This is the only possible explanation of his deeds
and words: Iranians have really no reason to care about the
Jewish holocaust, one way or other. Nobody accuses them, not
even Mr Yehuda Bauer of Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial
institute, who is prone to accuse the World and its niece for
failing to save the Jews. The Persians from Cyrus to Hosroes to
Mohammad Resa Shah were always good to Jews, and even in these
mad days there is a large and flourishing Jewish community in
Iran. Ahmadinejad spoke about the Holocaust like Hillary
conquered Everest – because it presented a challenge!
The
innocent revisionist historians were so excited when he toyed
with an idea of “finally discovering the truth”. They prepared
their well-thumbed books and diagrams of gas consumption and
body heat. But Ahmadinejad is interested in the hard facts of
World War II about as much as Nerval was interested in
exercising his lobster. Acceptance of Holocaust dogma is a sign
of submission to the Tel Aviv–New York Axis, a sign of the new
colonialism. Ahmadinejad refused it just as St Paul refused to
accept the Noahide laws: not because St Paul wanted to partake
of pagan sacrifices, but because he did not want to take his
orders from the Jews.
The
European leaders, the docile supporters of patent war criminals,
of George W. Bush, the murderer of umpteen Iraqis, Afghanis and
sundry Arabs, of Shaul Mofaz,
the murderer of an eight-year-old girl (among hundreds of
others) he killed last week in besieged Gaza, all sat up and
expressed their outrage. They did not object when Israel strafed
and bombed defenceless Gazans. When Israeli politicians
threatened to turn Iran into “radioactive desert”, they did not
describe it as “a call to genocide”. By his challenge, president
Ahmadinejad saved the honour of human race, as only a poet can
do.
I admire
Iran, for the fiery crimson of their rose gardens and for the
azure of its old mosques, for the ravishing beauty of its women,
whose black eyelashes enhance the whiteness of their skin
shining through their black chadors. I admire Iran for its
marvellous painting that overcame the iconoclastic ravages. I
admire Iran for the spiritual subtlety of its poets, who united
their love to women with their adoration of God in one undivided
chant just as the Song of Songs did. Their Rumi and Jami, Sa’adi
and Ferdousi, Hafiz and Khayyam were of the most daring and
sincere poets who ever graced our earth. Ahmadinejad is heir to
their tradition, a daring mocker of our hypocrisy, a boy who saw
through the emperor’s new clothes. Even if the ham-fisted Yank
should flatten this daredevil, and burn the rose gardens of
Shiraz just as he once incinerated the blossoms of Nagasaki, we
may be proud of Ahmadinejad, our contemporary who dared to tread
on the tiger’s tail.
II
The
European and American reaction to Iran’s nuclear program was
that of Uncle Tom’s slaveowner, Simon Legree, on learning of an
escaped slave. How does this dusky dare to touch the white
masters’ toys? Their empty talk of an “Iranian threat” is
designed for the ignorant: Iran has never, ever attacked a
European nation since the wars for Anatolia in the 5th
century BC; whereas European imperialists have repeatedly
occupied and controlled Iran, most recently in 1942, or by proxy
in 1953, when they deposed democratically-elected Mosaddeq and
returned to dominate this ancient nation.
Yes, the
old colonialism is dead. England can’t rule over Iraq, nor
France over Algeria, but the new collective colonialism, that of
the imperialist Core of highly industrialised Western nations
over the rest of the world, is hardly any better. The old
masters have decided to pool their resources and powers to rule
their erstwhile slaves together. They switched from the Athenian
model where a citizen had his slave, to the Spartan model, where
slaves belong to all Spartans. In this new collective
imperialist universe, the US is the arm, the enforcer of this
new colonialism, while the mind, the ideology is supplied by a
vast syndicate that unites and coordinates the majority of
newspapers and networks of both left and right from Madrid to
Moscow and from Texas to Timbuktu, despite their pretensions of
competition and rivalry.
This
syndicate is the real powerbase of what two American professors,
John Mearsheimer of Chicago, and Stephen Walt of Harvard, (M&W
for short) politely called ‘Israel Lobby in the US’, though this
syndicate has other fish to fry beside that of the State of
Israel’s. While fully approving of M&W’s endeavour, we should
say: they minimised rather than exaggerated the problem, for it
is a global, rather than
a local (the US) phenomenon. The fearsome AIPAC is just the
visible tip of iceberg below which are miles and miles of solid
ice: media lords, chief editors, their pundits, Masters of
Discourse, in short. As if by a magic wand, the Iranian crisis
made it visible to the naked
eye: they have all cried out in one mighty voice like the legion
of demons in the Capernaum synagogue in response to Christ’s
words.
In his
thought-provoking speech Ahmadinejad said: “The vast Zionist
network has been at the service of the imperialists for
decades.” This is open to an argument whether the Zionist
network serves the imperialists, or the imperialists serve this
network. It’s an example of Managerial Revolution: Jews were
managers for the imperialists, until they took over the show,
some would say. Oh no, they remained docile to their imperialist
overlords, argue others. Whatever position we take, the Zionists
and the Imperialists are surely integrated and intermeshed, and
if one accepts the idea of the Iranian threat to Israel, one
subscribes to this demonic network.
The nations that refuse the Masters of Discourse are subjugated by force. A nuclear weapon serves as a great equaliser, as did the Colt gun in the Wild West, when they used to say: “The Declaration of Independence claimed that all men were created equal, but Colonel Colt made it so.” In order to prevent too much equalisation, the American pioneers kept guns out of native hands. The same policy now drives the West in its attempts to keep nuclear power out of reach of Iranians.
A few days
ago I was invited to a live discussion on Russian TV Channel
One, where the Moscow BBC bureau chief rhetorically asked why a
peaceful Iran would need ballistic missiles, and he listed the
Iranian missile arsenal. He could not answer the question of why
a peaceful Britain would need ballistic missiles and nuclear
weapons! Actually, why would anybody need one? But if England,
with its long and bloody history of subjugating the Third World
from Ireland to Japan, may have these toys, then
it is likewise the duty of any
important country willing to protect its populace from the
Western masters’ whims.
Yes, Iran
is still working on a peaceful program of atomic energy, but if
and when that country decides to build the bomb, we may support
this decision, as it would enhance peace. Actually, few people
did more for the cause of world peace than Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg and their associates Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs. These
wonderful men passed the secrets of American-built nuclear
weapons to Russia, and thus saved Moscow and St Petersburg from
the fate of Hiroshima. Without their heroic deed, the colonial
masters would have turned Russia into a radioactive desert.
Joseph Stalin passed the know-how to emerging China, and this
was a very good deed -- otherwise the Americans wouldn’t have
hesitated to nuke Vietnam as they did Japan.
The Russian
nuclear shield is the only thing Gorbachev and Yeltsin did not
break down in their destruction of the Soviet Union, probably
because they did not expect the patriotic forces to ever return
to power in Moscow. This shield allows the Russians to disregard
the nagging of Frau Merkel, and gives them their freedom of
choice: to sell their oil and gas to Europe or to turn the
stream towards China. It allows the Belarus people to have the
president they elected by huge majority: without it, Lukashenka
would share the fate of Noriega and Milosevic for his steadfast
refusal to sell the assets of Belarus to George Soros. Let
Iranians, too, have this freedom of choice, and restore balance
in the region.
The sad story of Iraq is the best proof that disarmament and compliance is not an option. Saddam Hussein allowed the vultures of IAE to turn his pockets out, and he ended in prison, his country ruined for decades. Ahmadinejad did it better: he responded to the American-Israeli demand to disarm just like the captain of the French guard on the field of Waterloo. “Disarm, the brave soldiers”, - said the English general. And Cambronne replied: “Merde!”
And to sincere well-wishers of our Israeli well-being I’ll say: Iran is no danger. Nobody wants to kill us. The truth is, the Jews could live extremely well in
Palestine. By making peace with the native inhabitants in 1948,
we would have kept our common home, Palestine, as the hub of the
Middle East with Iraqi oil coming to Haifa refineries and trains
from Baghdad to Cairo flying by Lydda and Jaffa, with Muslim
pilgrims coming to al Quds on their way to Mecca, with
Christians walking in the footsteps of Christ from Bethlehem to
Nazareth and with Jews doing their aliya (this word meant
an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem like the Hajj, rather than a
permanent immigration to Palestine as Zionists wont). We would
prosper beyond our wildest dreams, as the prophets promised, if
we were to kick the nasty old habit of separateness and
dominance.
It is not
too late even now, sixty years and many deaths later. For this
purpose, we may take the advice of Ahmadinejad: let the
exclusive Jewish state be eliminated from the map of the region
to be replaced by one state of all citizens of the land, Jews or
not. “The right to govern belongs to all people of Palestine, be
they Muslims, Christians, or Jews”, said Ahmadinejad, and by
golly, only a Jewish supremacist may object to his words.
When I said
this at the TV discussion in Moscow, I was attacked by the
Chairman of a Russian Jewish Congress and Director of a Zionist
Middle East Institute, a greasy and spotty bully of a man with
hanging belly, a living cartoon from Der Sturmer, with
the fitting name Satanovsky. “Watch out, - told me Satanovsky
after the show, - apparently you have never been beaten hard
enough. Here in Moscow we know of no restraints of democracy, my
Jewish lads will tear your balls off like they did to many men
like you. Israel should remain a Jewish state forever”. Such
Jewish Mafiosi are the real leaders of the Jewish Lobby and
chief supporters of the Jewish state abroad. These sort of
people lead the Jewish organisations in Russia, in America and
elsewhere. They need a Jewish state to escape their lands in the
hour of wrath, but we, the ordinary citizens of Israel, do not
need it.
However,
the Mafia can’t rule forever. I take heart in the words of
Ahmadinejad: “The young tree of resistance in Palestine is
blooming and blooms of faith and desire for freedom are
flowering. The Zionist regime is a decaying and crumbling tree
that will fall with a storm. (Remember the parable of the barren
tree? - ISH) Palestine is the meeting point of right and wrong.
The destiny of the region will be decided in the land of Al-Qods
and it will be a great honour to share in the victory of
Palestine.” The victory of Palestine is our victory and we shall
be happy to share in it.
“Now, will
there be a war?,” one is often asked. I have no full confidence
of George Bush, he does not share his plans with me. But while
the gatekeepers of the Left say that Oil is the reason for the
war, in my view Oil can be the reason for peace. As the price of
oil has now crossed the $70 threshold, President Bush must
decide whether he will survive its hike above $120 -- whether
his voters in the red states will happily accept the advice of
an American Jewish Congress pundit and director of their
Israel/Middle East Office Eran Lerman (previously of Israeli
intelligence) to stop driving cars every other day. Bush has the
power to steer the US away from its perilous course, and tell to
the Jewish Congress pundits to shove it.
And to my
Israeli countrymen: I’ll remind you of our age-long tradition of
friendship with Iran. Two thousand years ago, a picture of the
Iranian capital city Susa was presented on the Eastern gate of
the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Mishna (Berakoth 9) called for
being especially careful towards it: “never show disrespect to
the Eastern gate!” According to Rambam, this was done so that
they would have the fear of the king of Persia upon them. This
tradition is worth remembering and carefully preserving.
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