About
Gerald A. Honigman
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida
educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle
Eastern Affairs, created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda
programs for college youth, lectured on numerous campuses and
other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen.
His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of
newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around
the world.
Link
One would
think, with all the hatred towards Jews and Israel spewing forth out of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs' mouths, that Iran
has always been a bitter enemy of the Jewish nation.
Not so...in fact, the Korash Prism is an ancient Iranian document which
gives testimony to Cyrus the Great's decree allowing the Jews to return
to Judea, freeing them from their captivity in Babylon in 539 B.C.E. It
corroborates the Jews' own Biblical account beautifully in the Books of
Ezra and Nehemiah. And then there is the Book of Esther, again, in the
Hebrew Bible as well, again testifying to this age-old relationship
between these two ancient peoples.
Jews were grateful to their powerful Iranian liberators and served in
their armies throughout their empire. At the fortress in Elephantine,
Egypt, for example ancient documents related to this were discovered
along with a synagogue built there for Jewish soldiers serving under the
Iranian ruler.
Centuries later, when Judea fought for its freedom and independence
against the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries C.E, it was Iran,
again, which came to the Jews' aid. And centuries later still, on the
eve of the Arab explosion out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th
century C.E., ancient documents record a Jewish army aligning itself
with Iran against the hated Byzantines.
So, what happened?
Well, for one thing, there was that not-so-little thing briefly
mentioned above...the Arab conquest.
After Muhammad and his successor imperial, Caliphal armies burst out of
the Peninsula in all directions, both Israel/Judea/Palestina and Iran
fell to the Arabs' jihad in the spread of their Dar ul-Islam.
In the Middle East, especially, often internal differences due to ethic
and national conflict are reflected in religious expression. The
Khorasani and other mawali--disgruntled Iranian converts to Islam--thus
became followers of the martyred 'Ali...Shiites...in opposition to the
brand of Islam of their Arab conquerors, the Sunni Umayyads. They
supported the Abbasids, who would soon conquer the Umayyad seat of Sunni
Arabism in Damascus. Baghdad would next become the new and Shi'a
capital of Islam.
While the fate of Jews under both branches of Islam was fragile, to say
the least, in some ways it was even worse at the hands of the Shi'a.
Thus, as the centuries progressed in a henceforth Muslim Iran--and a
Shia one, at that--Jews would soon find themselves in an awkward
position whereby their very lives and livelihoods depended upon a
powerful, more secular political ruler (Shah) who could act more on
their collective behalf against the powerful force of the hostile
religious establishment, the ulema and the mullahs.
While some pre-Islamic problems are noted in the Book of Esther, the
fate of Iranian Jews had far more ups and downs clear up to the present
time due to the situation brought on with the Arab Muslim conquest of
the land. And since Jews were largely dependent on the political power
of the Shahs, if the latter were unjust or whatever, the masses--stirred
up by the mullahs-- frequently took it out on the Jews.
Okay...let's jump to the present.
Recently, Iran held a presidential election in which the mullahs' front
man, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supposedly defeated Mir Hossein
Mousavi. Major demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have
broken out by numerous people who feel that the election was stolen. The
mullahs' Revolutionary Guards have given warning that their patience is
wearing thin.
Whatever the differences in foreign policy which might exist between the
two candidates (probably not many), the protests are mainly over
internal matters...freedom, in all of its true democratic forms, as the
main example.
And this, my friends, is the real reason for folks like Ahmadinejad's
professed hatred of the Jews and the Jew of the Nations...
Undemocratic, oppressive dictators always make sure that they have at
least one great, external bogeyman to channel internal frustration,
unrest, and violence against.
Who better than the world's scapegoat and whipping post par
excellence...the Jew?
Hopefully, more and more Iranian people will start to see through this
injustice as they rethink that age-old relationship between their own
nation and that of the Jews.
