Iran has all but become Nazi
In one of his papers, Holocaust scholar Professor Saul Friedlander posited a question: why couldn't the Nazis suffice with portraying the Jew as subhuman, a villain, evil-doer, wicked and harm-seeking? Why did they take pains, once they assumed power, to paint the Jews as a virus, as an ugly rat and a germ? Friedlander, a Holocaust survivor himself, offered a response: that was their way rallying of popular opinion behind a Jewish genocide.
It is much easier to accept the extermination of a virus than to come to terms with the murder of your next door neighbor, even if he or she are sub-human. I thought about Friedlander's paper on Wednesday, watching Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivering his speech.
He did not attack Israel; nor did he lash out against Zionism. Rather than attack the Jewish people as if he were an enemy leader, he used the lowliest of rhetoric by choosing to portray the Jews -- Israelis and Zionists -- as if they were non-humans. As if they were not descendants of Adam and Eve. This is as close as it gets to Nazi rhetoric.
There were other troubling features in his rare public appearance, but stripping Jews of their humanity was the lowest point. The world has looked the other way. It is not lending its ears. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton have tried to play dumb, as if the subconscious malice-filled campaign coming out of Tehran has been somehow lost on them. They yearn for a deal, at any price. Despite the draft agreement being taken off the table -- because France had sobered-up in the nick of time -- Iran now wants to discuss it again. But it wants more than that -- it also wants to punish the West; it seeks revenge after the West slammed the brakes and did some thinking.
The battle extends beyond diplomacy or economic interests. If and when next round commences, Iran's psychological abuse will have already compromised the enlightened world's ability to think clearly.
Most world leaders prefer to keep their eyes shut than confront the geopolitical reality as it is; they prefer to look the other way rather than grapple with the complexities of Iran's leaders. Surprisingly, this posture has been assumed by some Jews as well. Thomas Friedman's column in The New York Times has in recent years served as a litmus paper when it comes to the Obama administration's stance toward Israel. He has been traveling all over the Middle East, leveling criticism on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is his right.
But even if all of Friedman's accusations on Netanyahu were true, they would not measure up to the culpability Khamenei and his cohorts have for setting the region ablaze. Not even one thousand of one percent of that blame can be laid at Netanyahu's doorstep. The Western media has all but ignored this fact. This too would have fit nicely with the effort to rally the people against the Jews.
Considering this lay of the land, Netanyahu embarked on a mission that was bound to fail when he left for Moscow on Tuesday, hoping to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to check Iran's nuclear program. He could not shy away from the moral imperative to wage this campaign. That said, when Netanyahu boarded the plane he too knew that the odds were stacked against him. There cannot be any moral rationale for sitting idly by when you have an enemy like Iran, with its twisted logic. You must be cognizant of that particularly if you are a head of state that can retaliate for this aggressive behavior with a proper response.
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