The Iranian-Israeli two-step

The Persians and the Jews have always had a volatile relationship. From Nebuchadnezzar's sack of Jerusalem and the forced exile of the Jewish people to Babylon in 586BC, to the fiery rhetoric of present day Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- the nearly 3000 year old rivalry continues even to this day.

You'd figure that time would have cooled the flames between these former powers. So what's all the kerffufle about?

Depends what government you ask. The Iranian diplomat will surely blame the illegitimate "Zionist Entity" for all the trouble. His Israeli counterpart will probably accuse the Iranian of supporting terrorism and meddling in the Middle East peace process.

And then there's me. I see the Iran's refusal to acknowledge Israel's existence as sort of the ostrich head in the sand deal. Even though the Islamic Republic's predecessor -- the Pahlavi dynasty (as personified by the Shah) -- was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel's existence, the ire of a specifically tailored Jewish homeland in what was viewed as historically Muslim Palestine was just too much for the new Islamic state to bear.

Sure there's those half-hearted comments by Khamenei and his minions calling for Israel to be wiped off the map; the Gaza-bound ships full of rockets and ammo intercepted by the Israeli Navy or the $400 million given to the terrorist group Hezbollah -- but deep down inside I'm pretty sure the Iranian regime doesn't really mean any of it.

And what about the good old days when Hebrew and Persian alike communed in the great halls of the Persian kings? Despite the Persian decimation of ancient Palestine and enslavement of its population in Babylon, the Jews eventually established a thriving community there.

Thanks to the likes of Daniel and Queen Esther, the Jews eventually won their rights as citizens there, including the right to self-protection and the right to emigrate back to the beloved city Jerusalem. The Torah books of Ezra and Nehemiah attest to this return. These rights were codified into ancient Persian law by Cyrus king of Persia, and a remnant of these Jews still live in Persia (Iran) to this day.

But the recent discontent with Israel is a curious one. While it is true that Iran is a Islamic Republic, it is not an Arab one. Israel's two geographically closest neighbours, Egypt and Jordan, are also both Muslim countries (and Arab), yet they have made peace with their Jewish Abrahamic brother.

So it appears that the row between Israel and Iran is not a nationalistic one, but a recent religious conflict. This is further highlighted by Iran's brazen support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, who also share a radical Islamic view of eradicating the infidel from what it views as occupied Muslim land.

And so the threats and accusations fly. The Iranian regime secretly arms its regional allies in their anti-Zionist resistance movements, and in response Israel blows up some Iranian nuclear scientist driving to work. Both nations deny any complicity in these covert actions, and both profess their innocence. But eventually things are sure to conflagrate.

The risks of Iran or Israel miscalculating and overreacting to the other's next move cannot be understated. The media bears constant witness to the international bluffing game between the two contestants – the Israeli air force flying practice bombing missions to show off its long-range strike capability; Iran testing out its short-range ballistic missiles only to be trumped by Israeli anti-ballistic missile tests; Israeli submarines deploying to the Red Sea only to be trumped by Iranian warships crossing through the Suez canal -- on and on the sabre rattling goes.

Israel fears a belligerent nuclear armed Iran, while Iran is angered by the ongoing Israeli “colonisation and discrimination” of their Palestinian Muslim brothers. It's a bit like two ants fighting over a dropped crumb of bread, all the while oblivious to the ant eater hungrily eyeing them from above. In the high stakes game of nuclear power versus wanna-be nuclear power, it is likely that the deeply ingrained ideological and religious beliefs of both sides will be the kindling for a future, horrible conflict.

But on the bright side, there's always room for improvement. Once upon a time these two enemies became friends, likely because they cohabited a common space (Babylon) and shared a common fate. They also benefited from the actions of a few wise leaders who took the courageous step of setting aside their differences.

Without moderate and realistic diplomacy, the Persian-Jewish two-step will continue its futile death dance. Israel will not disappear (unless made to by means of overwhelming and excessive force), and it is unlikely that Israel will ever remit its identity as a Jewish-majority nation. So the compromise that will usher in peace in this region will likely have to involve an accommodation of these two factors.

In days to come?

"The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army—your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. Persia, Cush and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you.

“‘Get ready; be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you, and take command of them. After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety. You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.

“‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people—all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land.” Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, “Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize much plunder?”’

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: In that day, when my people Israel are living in safety, will you not take notice of it? You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army. You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, Gog, I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I am proved holy through you before their eyes."

- Ezekiel 38, written sometime around 620 B.C.E



*For a little background on this text, visit the ynet news website here. 

The Mao-Tag Man

Making it illegal to disagree?

All of us argue. Most of the time these arguments expose the truths and biases we all have, while revealing our own incompetence or misunderstanding of the disputed issue. Those well versed in debating are more likely to swing us to their point of view by using convincing facts or strong analogy, but almost always they do so by appealing to our inner voice of reason. 

But sometimes the debate turns ugly. Facts get twisted or cleverly omitted, participants shut down objective reasoning and the whole thing turns into a battle reminiscent of something from The O'Reilly Factor. Institutional bias, political partisanship and ingrained religious viewpoints are usually the cause of this malcontent, which leads one to wisely consider the maxim of not discussing religion and politics unless paid to do so.

But it is something altogether different when a modern nation state shuts down the debate. In an recent display of this anti-Plato spirit of intolerance, France has decided to make it illegal to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottomans. Not surprisingly, Turkey isn't all too thrilled with the French Parliament's decision and has voiced its opinion by recalling its ambassador from Paris.

That's not to say that a genocide is a good thing. I suppose someone in the French Parliament just got fed up over the Turks rejection of culpability in that nearly 100 year old fiasco and decided to draft up a resolution just to spite them. After all, what does an Asian massacre carried out a hundred years ago have to do with life in 2011 France?

My guess is that some in France are trying to undercut Turkey's efforts regarding their European Union membership bid. Seeing that Turkey has never really been accepted into the European fraternity, it is likely this latest row is just another manufactured issue in an attempt to prove the unworkableness of such a shotgun marriage.

Another reason may be more domestic, as over 500,000 citizens of Armenian decent live in France, and are seen as a key source of support for President Sarkozy in the upcoming presidential election.

But it's not just the French proclamation that worries me. Despite the relatively free democratic, philosophical and religious environment of Europe over the last 60 years, there seems to be a movement towards limiting undesirable discourse.

Perhaps a generalized theory to explain this regression in European free expression could be the increasing secularization of European society. There seems to be an intolerance of dissenting viewpoints regardless of whether or not they are valid, if only to be seen defending humanist values.

But when a modern nation state threatens its citizens with imprisonment for diverging from a prescribed narrative, something smacks of state authoritarianism. It is doubtful that such a law would fly in the U.S, although Canada has come close a few times regarding other recently invented anti-humanist values, such as homophobia.

Recent controversy surrounding the Dire Straits song “Sultans of Swing” led to a massive backlash after the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled the song unfit for the airwaves due to an implied gay slur. And all this after one person complained.

But the intolerance being witnessed lately is peculiarly inverted. In particular, European society, at least on a corporate level, seems to have a greater level of intolerance towards views and beliefs that don't exactly gel with the mainstream. This attitude is clearly obvious when evaluating European Holocaust denial laws.

According to a Wikipedia entry:

Holocaust denial is explicitly or implicitly illegal in 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland. The European Union's Framework decision on Racism and Xenophobia states that denying or grossly trivialising "crimes of genocide" should be made "punishable in all EU Member States".

The problem is Europe just can't come to a consensus on this. Britain twice rejected Holocaust laws, Spain ruled the laws unconstitutional, Italy and the Netherlands refused to set prison sentences and Sweden and Denmark rejected such legislation.

While Holocaust denial is indisputably distasteful and intellectually dishonest, it's still just a viewpoint. Certainly those European members who rejected such "denial" legislation recognized the slippery slope presented by criminalizing an intellectual position, no matter how foolish it may seem.

Holocaust denial laws exist because of the psychic and tangible damage left behind by Nazism, especially in places that suffered from Nazi oppression, like France and Poland. Interestingly, Germany -- the birthplace and primary aggressor of the “final solution” -- is the most outspoken agent in silencing holocaust deniers.

And how far does this criminalization of thought go? Do conspiracy theories qualify? Anyone with half a hippocampos knows the holocaust happened pretty much the way the official narrative says it did, but what are we supposed to do about the fringe theories of the 9/11 Truth movement or the Flat Earth Society?

Just because a dissenting viewpoint is so obviously incorrect (and possibly offendingly so) isn't grounds for throwing people into prison. Such authoritarian actions make Western democracies look like a monster of sorts, and if there is a consensus we can all agree on it is that the 20th century saw enough of those.