The problem is that anti-Semitism is a cultural habit that is almost certainly not amenable to change via economic sanctions. You can punish a government, but the underlying hatred in the greater society is not going to be anything but reenforced by what will be perceived as persecution. Indeed the anti-Semites will just use it to their best advantage - “Oh, it is those evil Jews whipping up an international cabal against us all.”
I don’t know what the answer is, really. But I am certain there is no quick fix to the problem - these things die slowly, only over generations and usually in the context of long, relatively peaceful intermingling ( if we can judge by race relations in the U.S. over the last century and a half ). And that last doesn’t seem imminent in the ME/NA at the moment.
See, that’s the trick I had foreshadowed. And you’ve bought into it. It goes like this, any opposition to the actions of Israel must be anti-semitism. So avert your eyes from considering the justice of the Palestinian cause. Comfort yourself that you oppose anti-semitism instead. That’s how it goes.
Not my point at all. The point, as explained above, is that the most vituperative and firm opposition to Israel can and does exist on a basis entirely independent of anti-semitism.
It’s facile to depict all and any such opposition in that way, but it happens a lot.
So when he says Israel is a disgraceful blot that should be wiped off the map, and criticizes Muslims leaders who have diplomatic relationships with Israel…
I have to admit I’m having trouble buying this. The roots seem deeper.
Several factors, not least of which is double posts. I kid, I kid. We’re having a civilised discussion here.
As previous posts indicate, it is likely to be purely cynical; a concern with his local politics and rousing his diminishing support.
Then there is the ‘Israel: Stalking Horse of Western Imperialism’ point. Which to be fair, is an understandable position to take given the region’s history.
Could it be an impediment to Iranian/Shia domination of the region?
Perhaps he represents a profound solidarity with the Palestinian people and resents their (pace) oppression.
Lastly, it may well be that he is indeed an anti-semite, but I don’t see evidence of it. Or evidence of the other reasons for that matter beyond my moderately informed conjecture.
For now, we are. I can’t promise what’ll happen if you keep drawing attention to my computer problems.
It may be cynical, or, as you note, any of a number of other things. But I think the statement itself retains its anti-Semitic overtones, and if it didn’t, I don’t think he would have said it. Seems to me that’s the message he wanted to convey, and I don’t know if his audience is really slicing this finely enough to say “Jews are okay, it’s Israel I can’t stand.”
Yes, and? He probably had the consequences in mind when he made the statement, and deliberately made no such distinction. It plays right in to your comments about his cynicism.
Probably not, but we’ve now gone from the OP’s statement that Iran maybe the next Nazi Geremany to a discussion that a statement by the leader might have anti-semetic overtones depending on how his audience might want to interpret it. I don’t think we’re seeing the equivalent of a Mein Kampf here in anycase.
There are many reasons to I might support sanctions on Iran, including their general human rights record and/or their sketcheness involving their nuke programs. But in the case of anti-semetism, the Jews living in their country are apparently not treated worse then any other minority (and better then many) and while their prez may spout off and threatenJews outside his borders, it doesn’t appear to be much more then words, the same threats they’ve been making now for decades, and can’t carry out even if they ment them.
No, not any actions. I was opposed to the Israeli wall, just like the US, UN and Arabs were because it cut into palestinian territory. Had the built it along the green line I would’ve been ok with it.
But are you saying with a straight face that a huge part of the motive on the part of the ‘palestinian cause’ isn’t just xenophobic antisemitism?
I don’t think the situations are at all comparable. South African apartheid was a really vicious and invasive program of segregation and discrimination. And the resistance to it was fundamentally internal: South Africans themselves, some white ones as well as black, protested and criticized the apartheid system for years before it was overthrown. Foreign sanctions were—well, maybe not just the last nail in the coffin of apartheid, but certainly not the main cause of its demise.
As noted above, Jews in Iran are facing nowhere near the kind of subjugation that blacks faced in apartheid South Africa, and there is nowhere near the kind of internal resistance that the anti-apartheid movement was able to produce.
Yes, there certainly is a lot of anti-semitism in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, but most of it appears to be secondary to anti-Israel political sentiment. That doesn’t make ME anti-semitism okay, of course. But it means that the fundamental policy problems between Israel and Muslim countries will persist even if we somehow manage to eradicate personal anti-semitic sentiment and instil personal religious tolerance and egalitarianism in every Muslim in the region.
In that case, we’d just have lots of Muslims saying “Jewish people are just as good individuals as anybody else and I don’t have anything against them and they’re welcome to live in my neighborhood if they want to, but the state of Israel is still an encroaching illegitimate Euro-imperialist land-grab and I want it wiped off the map.” Which would be better than what we’ve got now, but still not an adequate resolution.
And by the way, as noted in this thread, the US has not even managed to keep anti-Israel discrimination out of the foundational document of the one country in the region that we’ve actually been in charge of for the last couple of years:
So the odds don’t look good for our somehow eradicating anti-semitism or non-recognition of Israel in Iran. (And by the way, most of the people there already dislike their theocratic government, so the OP’s suggested displacement strategy probably wouldn’t work.)
