A letter to a secular Iranian American friend
(Edited to maintain anonymity)
It was most interesting to read your views. I wish we had a face to face discussion on all those issues. However, since this is not very likely the near future, let me share my thoughts with you. As a scientist I always try to remain objective while looking at historical events (experimental data) and processes (mechanisms, in our lingo). I care little about beliefs, as they belong to a different domain of human behavior - a domain where facts do not matter and processes are not existent (there are no dynamics in dogmas). Yet beliefs have had and have a profound effect on human behavior and on history, i.e., on facts and processes. Therefore beliefs cannot be ignored even if they are utterly detached from reality.
Our cultural structure and value system are being assaulted by the belief system that conquered Persia for the second time, and now Iran is threatening to wipe Israel, my ancient homeland, off the map. It is ironic that Persia, out of all nations, which facilitated the survival of Jewish nationhood twenty five hundred years ago, threatens to brutally destroy it today. Ancient Persia, like all ancient empires including classical Rome as well as the empires of the Far East, were political entities that tried to domineer territories and extract tributes for the benefit of the rulers, but generally they did not try to meddle with the beliefs of people. This is where the historical friendship between the Persian and the Jewish people has originated. It was based on common political interests with no ideological conflict. (The book of Esther is a story about court intrigues, embellished with a misojudaic i.e., anti-Semitic, overlay).
Here comes Islam, the first aggressive political religion, which mixes belief with politics. The Arab Israeli-conflict is a manifestation of this religion-driven assault on the beliefs of other people, off all non-Muslims for that matter. Judaism and ancient Persian beliefs have been victim of the same assault. And if we in the West do not wake up and defend our political system and our beliefs, all of us might be vanquished as well. The atrocities of 9/11 were just a miniscule, relatively trivial, Islamic suicide attack (like the ones that take place daily in Israel) compared to what might take place anywhere in the Western world in the foreseeable future. Imagine where would we have been today if the 9/11 Islamic suicide attackers were equipped with Iranian atomic bombs.
The Islamic attack on Zionism, which I consider an essential aspect of Judaism and Christianity and tried to make clear in my essays (essays #6 and #62), is part of an ongoing global offensive. Islamic ideologues are determined to vanquish Zionism and erase Jewish and Christian historical roots as part of their ambitious supremacist policy. To put it in scientific terms, the Muslims tell us: “Do not confuse us with facts, we have made up out minds”. The blatant denial of the history of the City of Jerusalem, including the historicity of its Jewish Temple, is a case in point. Moreover, they say “If you badly need facts, we will make them up for you”. This is the gist of Islamic propaganda. Even you fell in this trap when you described to me the situation in the ME from a perspective that ignores verifiable historical facts.. The Muslims care little about ancient Persian religion because it is not significant any more in today’s world. However, they viciously attack the Hindu pacifist religion (remember the Bamiyan Buddha statutes) and consider Taoism in China as a “legitimate” target. Destruction of Judaism and of Christianity is preconditioned by conquest of and Islamic sovereignty over Jerusalem (see “They are targeting symbols” essay #39). Jerusalem is the ultimate target of Islamic aggression rather than any other territorial issue. If the state of Israel was wiped off the map, Judea-Christian Jerusalem, the prime prize, would have been wiped out as well. The fall of Jerusalem into Islamic hands would symbolize the supremacy of Islam and open the flood gates to the Great Jihad on the rest of the non-Islamic world. Please forget the spin about a Palestinian nation and about Israeli “occupation.” This is my personal view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unfortunately, only few people in the West and even in Israel realize this.
This should gives you a taste where I am coming from, and why I wrote what I wrote (essay #62). I am angry at Jewish intellectuals who should know better and not air their obsolete Marxist revolutionary ideology under the guise of anti-Zionism, which is anti-Judaism in disguise. Remember that the Nazi ideology was a supremacist national socialist ideology, not far from that of Stalin (“Mother Russia” cf. “Das Vaterland”), both were misojudaic and anti-Christian.. Notice also that misojudaic Islam is a supremacist imperialist ideology not very different from Nazism or Communism. However, it is more dangerous to the world because it is associated with religion and thus immune to rational analysis. As you know, one cannot reason with believers, and one cannot stop suicide murderers except by brute force. Consequently, negotiating with the Islamic Iranian leaders is an exercise in futility. They believe in their right to dominate the world.
My dear friend, I am sorry to be this critical of the current leadership of your country of origin. Like you also I am also not proud of the current leadership of the State of Israel, which deludes itself that it can buy peace by surrender to an enemy that vowed to eradicate it. Following the traditional generosity of Islam, Muslims may allow surviving Israeli Jews to live under Islamic rule wearing humiliating yellow markings, recently mandated to be worn by Jews in Iran.
Your arguments about Washington politics, Neocons, AIPAC (which also I disrespect), etc. trivialize things. All these are meaningless in the bigger picture of things.
Hopefully this will better explain to you my view of our little world.
Wishing you the very best,
Michael