Post #221 - Pumping Iran

This article ("The Perceptions Game in Israel, Iran and the U.S."), which appeared on Stratfor Global Intelligence's newsletter recently (March 2), bears reading, as we watch the price of gasoline at the pump rise past the $4.00 mark:

An Iranian media report of a pipeline explosion in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on Thursday served as a reminder of the impact that instability in Iran’s neighborhood can have on world oil markets. By extension, the event showed the impact Iranian propaganda efforts can have in deterring a military attack.

The claim that a fire had broken out near a pipeline between Awamiya and Shabwa appears to have emanated from an Eastern Province-based Saudi Shiite Facebook group. The group posted pictures purportedly portraying a blaze near a pipeline. The report was picked up by Iranian media outlet PressTV more than four hours later and spread from there. There was no independent confirmation of a purported attack, and all indications so far point to this being another propaganda move by Iran to shake the markets. It is the latest development in the long-running drama pitting Iran against Israel and the United States, with the central question being whether and when the two sides will go to war. Each actor is actively managing perceptions to serve their interests on the matter, and those perceptions don’t always line up with reality.

The narrative Israel seeks to project is of a country that feels increasingly existentially threatened, one barely able to keep itself from carrying out an airstrike on Iran’s nuclear reactors. This, of course, is the perception Israel has sought to create at varying levels of intensity during much of the past several years. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in Washington this week, ahead of a planned visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is scheduled to arrive March 5. A leak published Wednesday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz claimed that Netanyahu planned to demand in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama that he get on board with an Israeli-approved series of red lines on Iran. Were Tehran to cross them, Netanyahu’s demand allegedly went, the United States would publicly agree to work with Israel on a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Someone from the Netanyahu government likely issued the leak to Haaretz to help solidify the perception that Israel desperately wants to take action against Iran. The reality -- as U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey pointed out in late February -- is that the Israeli military lacks the capability to conduct a successful operation on its own. Israel could always launch the first strike, but it would be betting that the United States would come to its defense and finish the job, especially if Iran resorted to mining the Strait of Hormuz. Seeing how Israel cannot afford to lose American support, this is a big bet. Israel cannot miscalculate on this assumption, and this significantly constrains its ability to act.

The United States has little appetite for a war with Iran right now, for a variety of reasons. For one, the specter of a conflict in the Persian Gulf sending crude prices skyrocketing is unappealing, especially as Obama campaigns for re-election. Washington, however, also has a strategic interest in stemming the spread of Iranian power. It will therefore keep its military options on the table, while remaining open to the prospect of negotiations with Tehran as a means to keep tensions from escalating.

Washington is seeking to spread the perception that a war with Iran right now is simply not worth the cost. Its publicly stated intelligence assessments do not put Tehran close to obtaining a deliverable nuclear device with which it can threaten its neighbors, sapping the sense of urgency for any action. The United States has recently sought to dampen public support for military action by creating the expectation that such a move would increase the risk for Iranian retaliation elsewhere on the globe. The day after Ha'aretz published the report on Netanyahu’s planned ultimatum to Obama, a report in The New York Times -- a publication known to be a favored target for leaks from the current administration -- stated that participating in a strike on Iran would generate retaliatory actions abroad that would likely target U.S. citizens.

More than anything, however, Washington is wary of the war's impact on the price of oil. That edginess plays directly into Iran’s hands when considering the perception Tehran wants to create.

Iran shares Washington's primary goal: to popularize the notion that attacking Iran isn’t worth the cost. Iran uses the threat of retaliation as a foreign policy strategy unto itself, articulated by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and clarified in recent comments made by IRGC Commander Mohammed Ali Aziz Jaafari. Jaafari told state media that Iran had “entered a new phase and now it is our threats which are affecting the enemy.”

Iran’s biggest leverage to deter an attack is its ability to impact the price of oil on global markets. Its most obvious card is the Strait of Hormuz. Merely threatening to mine the Strait has in the past been enough to dominate world headlines. Iran is extremely reluctant to use this card, of course, because once played, it cannot be played again -- it is Iran's so-called “nuclear option.”

Iran of course can do more than issue threats. Its formidable land army can project power beyond its borders; it has covert capabilities in eastern Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and -- though proven rather ineffective in recent instances -- in Asia as well. But its main deterrent is Tehran's ability to impact the price of oil in its own backyard, something that Thursday’s incident in Saudi Arabia proved effectively.

Post #220 - What They Are Saying

Recent voices from around the world, as reported on Huffington Post's "Attack On Iran? Live Updates On The Drumbeat Of War " blog, which is edited by Nico Pitney:

Israel (from Ha'aretz):

Iran paid the Islamist group Hamas to block a deal with the rival Fatah movement that would have ended a five-year rift between the two main Palestinian factions, a Fatah spokesman said on Tuesday.

He said Tehran recently resumed financial aid to Hamas which it had suspended six months ago over the Palestinian movement's failure to back their mutual ally President Bashar Assad of Syria in his military campaign to crush dissent. 

Hamas has since turned overtly against Assad. But, according to Fatah, Iran is more concerned with supporting the armed Palestinian movement that is ready to challenge Israel from its Gaza Strip stronghold.

United States (Ray Takeyh in the New York Times):

The reason why Iran embarked on a judicious recalibration of its interests in both episodes stemmed not just from pressures, but also from the presence of a powerful, pragmatic coalition within the government that managed to prevail in internal deliberations.

In today’s Islamic Republic, all moderate voices have been excised from the corridors of power, and the debates of the previous decades have been displaced by a consensus among a narrow cast of militant actors. [...] 

Today, Iran is ruled by a supreme leader who brooks no dissent, countenances no alternative perspectives and seems obsessed with nuclear science. Gone are pragmatists and reformers who once used their status and power inside the government to edge Khamenei away from confrontation. That is the key difference between today’s impasse and previous historical encounters with the Islamic Republic.

United States

The United States is granting an exemption to 10 European Union countries and Japan from enforcing economic sanctions because the countries have significantly reduced their purchases of petroleum from Iran. 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday telephoned Sen. Bob Menendez to inform him of the decision. The New Jersey Democrat and Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois co-authored the sanctions last year that targeted the Central Bank in Tehran and financial institutions that do business with it. The penalties are designed to thwart Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

In a statement, Menendez said he supported the secretary's decision. (AP)

Germany:

Germany's Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere, speaking alongside [Israeli Defense Minister Ehud] Barak after holding closed-door talks with his counterpart, said it appears "unambiguous" that Iran's nuclear program also has a military purpose.

Iran must be stopped from developing nuclear weapons, requiring "tough negotiations and tough sanctions," de Maiziere said.

But the minister urged all parties involved to "rhetorical, factual and also military restraint," adding that a " military escalation would carry unforeseeable risks, for Israel, for the region, and for others." 

(Germany is part of the six nations group negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.)

Whether or not it is possible to compare the kinds of cautions being uttered today by world leaders, pundits and analysts with what was being said in the run-up to the Iraq War, it is certainly undeniable that everyone is fully aware of the high degree of uncertainty that exists about the potential consequences and ramifications of a strike on Iran. If a strike is made, and all hell breaks loose, no one can say "we didn't see that coming."  

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  (George Santayana)

Post #219 - Ancient Art, Present-day People

More from my 2006 travel to Iran -- Isfahan, continued:

Isfahan's Imam Square

Next, we found our way to the city’s central attraction: Imam Square, at 500 by 150 meters one of the world’s largest such open spaces (after Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and ahead of Red Square in Moscow) The Square is the scene of parades, military reviews, polo games and festivals over the centuries. Couples or families take rides in carriages like those that ply Central Park. There we chanced to meet Coleman Barkes and Robert Bly, well-known in the West for their own writing, and as translators of Persian literature. Barkes has been partly responsible for Rumi’s being one of the best-selling poets in the United States. They were in Iran to be honored for their work at a special ceremony.

Ali Qapu Palace's music room

The six-story Ali Qapu palace gave us a good vantage-point from which to view the square; on one of the higher floors, we visited the old “music room”, where the walls are lacy with cut-outs in the shape of musical instruments, giving it enhanced acoustic qualities as well as visual interest.

Sheikh Loftollah Mosque

Sheikh Loftfollah Mosque, like all the extant temples built since the time when Muslims conquered Sassanid Iran in 642 CE, was filled with geometric decorations of stupendous variety and intricacy; some ceramic decorative elements were so large that we couldn’t comprehend how they could have been fired – the kiln would have had be large enough to accommodate a single delicate piece of clay sixty feet in length.

§ § § § §

Our guide took us to the shop of noted miniaturist Mr. Hossein Fallahi, to see examples of this pictorial art which flourished despite Islamic prohibition of representative art. Fallahi gave us a concise description and demonstration of how this exacting work is done. Most often, such paintings are presented in frames which use another typically Esfahani art -- "khatam" -- the intricate, multi-color inlay work that one often sees on boxes and desk pieces.

§ § § § §

Later, we wandered individually through the bazaar, both for the bargains and for the interactions with merchants and other customers, wandered down quiet streets, or had tea, served in a small glass with lump sugar, at a neighborhood coffeehouse.

§ § § § §

Novice strongmen

The Zoorkhaneh (“house of strength”), which some of us visited in the evening, is an institution dating from the days of Mogul dominance, when preparation for war by the Persians was prohibited. The people found in it a way to retain martial skills, while cloaking the activity in enough artistic and religious traditions that its underlying purpose was obscured. In the form that one sees today, the zoorkhane members carry out a routine of exercises that are introduced and punctuated by prayers, chants or recitations, and accompanied by the beat of drum from their morshed (the coach/leader). It is customary for him to ask for a traditional prayer for the Prophet Mohammad and his family. This evening, he asked everyone to pray for the health of the guests from America, and he asked those present to respond so loudly that their voices would be heard in Washington D.C.. The various kinds of apparatus each have their origin in the movements (and muscle groups) needed for archery, swordplay and hand-to-hand combat. Those who excel are known as pahlavans, or champions, and the photos of the current group’s most illustrious predecessors fill the walls of the high-ceilinged practice/performance space.

At the climax of the evening’s routine, men swung, tossed and juggled long clubs of polished wood that weighed up to nearly 90 pounds each, and twirled like the Sufi mystics called darvish (the famous “whirling dervish”), until dizzy. This exercise prepared the warriors of old to defend themselves until their last breath against lopsided odds. We could see that even five or ten men would have difficulty subduing a pahlavan wielding two swords and swinging them in a circle with his nimble feet at the vortex.

Detail, Natanz Mosque

Natanz -- for us, a way-station on our way to Qom -- has become known in the West as a symbol of Iran’s entry into the nuclear “club.” Ironically, we (the United States) were responsible for encouraging Iran to begin a nuclear program in the first place, back when the Shah was in power, and according to James Risen, who won a Pulitzer Prize for work at the New York Times which he published in a book called State of War, the CIA gave Iran plans to build a nuclear bomb. (If that is in fact the case, then it would surely have been a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.)

Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reported that in 1976 the Ford administration “endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium - the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.” Noam Chomsky pointed out recently that “the top planners of the Bush administration, who are now denouncing these programmes, were then in key national security posts: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.”

As evidence of the persistence and patience that is a part of Persian culture, near Natanz is grown the saffron plant, a type of crocus that yields that most decorative – and expensive – typically Persian spice. For eleven-and-one-half months the farmer waits. Then the plant pushes a shoot aboveground which lasts for just fifteen days. For only 72 hours it blooms, and it is then that the saffron must be harvested – a miniscule amount from the stamen of each flower.

Post #218 - Another Take on President Obama

Rabbi Michael Lerner, leader of a group called Tikkun (Hebrew for “healing,” as in tikkun olam – healing the world), gave an alternate take on recent events. (In a message this week to Tikkun’s membership and friends, he cited their full-page ad in the NY Times urging that neither Israel nor the United States make a preemptive strike on Iran.)

The media has distorted what has been going on between Obama and Netanyahu, representing it as Obama standing up to Netanyahu and being a hero for peace. But actually what happened is that Obama legitimated a first strike and preemptive attack on Iran, arguing with Netanyahu about the timing of such an attack, seeking to allow coercive economic sanctions to work first, but stating explicitly that Israel should not be constrained in any way to follow what it decides to be in its best national interest in regard to a strike on Iran. That's why AIPAC gave him a standing ovation when Obama addressed them a few days ago. 

Obama has now fully embraced the militarist position of George W. Bush who argued that it was legitimate for the U.S. to take a preemptive attack on Iraq based on the suspicion that they had nuclear weapons, just as Obama two months ago gave the green light to legislation that allows the US to imprison for life without a trial U.S. citizens the government suspects to be cooperating in some way with terrorists, and just as he has taken the lead in developing drone technology aimed at civilians (which Pentagon militarists say may soon be used inside the U.S.). The media ignores this significant tilt toward militarism in the policies and rhetoric of Obama, and its potential for building even more support for the right wing policies that were once considered extremist in US politics. In so doing, Obama has set a lasting precedent that can be cited by other countries in the future should China, Russia or India ever get to the point where they have sufficient military advances to use the strategy of preemptive attacks against Israel or even the U.S. The ethical foundation for this has been set by Obama's AIPAC speech and his green light to Israel to attack Iran should they feel the need to do so. His caution of restraint is only about the timing, not about the legitimacy of first strike or preemptive attack.

The media has blocked this position out of public discourse. Our own attempt and the attempt of other peace groups to raise this issue through op-eds and public statements has been totally ignored. That's why we had to buy the ad in the NY Times, and why we now need to continue this campaign against preemptive strikes by taking similar ads in Israeli and US media. We need your help (and your understanding that we will make these points but may frame some of the sentences differently to make the ad feel up to date by the time we've raised enough money to publish it in Israel and in US media). Would you help us do that by donating for this ongoing media campaign at www.tikkun.org, or at least by adding your name to the 2,700 people who signed the ad by the morning of March 7. You do NOT have to donate to add your name, though the donations will help us spread this message beyond the NY Times!

Post #217 - Let the People Have Peace

Just check out this web-page -- no comment needed:

http://972mag.com/israeli-iranian-solidarity-exchange-sweeps-facebook/38565/

Post #216 - Right Place at the Wrong Time

Amy Teibel, writing for the Associated Press (March 17) cited "Worries over Iranian Jews if Israel attacks” (picked up by chron.com):


JERUSALEM (AP) — All but lost amid the heated talk about a possible Israeli attack on Iran's suspect nuclear program are the thousands of Jews who live in the Islamic Republic and could be caught in the middle.

Although Iran has a history of treating its Jewish minority fairly well, some Iranian Jews who have emigrated to Israel worry that an Israeli attack could expose family and friends still in Iran to retaliation.

Iran's government is "unstable and unpredictable. If there is a war, you can't tell what the response to the community will be," said Kamal Penhasi, who runs Israel's only Persian newspaper, Shahyad, and its companion website.

The level of worry among Jews in Iran themselves is harder to measure. At a tomb in southern Iran said to be the grave of the biblical prophet Daniel — a popular pilgrimage site for Iranian Jews — those visiting on a recent day were reluctant to talk about politics or the rising tensions between Iran and Israel, preferring to talk about their visit. "I prayed for peace in the world. I asked for health and blessing for all people, I prayed for all," said Erieh Dina, after she recited prayers in Hebrew next to her husband in front of the grave.

The rising crisis illustrates the uneasy situation of Iran's Jews, the largest community in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey. They are believed to number around 25,000, after two major waves of emigration following Israel's founding in 1948 and the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Before the revolution they numbered around 100,000.

Many in the community, centered in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, are affluent merchants. Publicly, they are supportive of a system that offers them protected minority status — though not equal access to certain government and military jobs — and assures them a seat in the Iranian parliament.

"No matter who dares to attack our country, we will stand against the threats like other Iranian people," the current Jewish lawmaker in the Iranian parliament, Siamak Merehsedq, told The Associated Press in Tehran. "The Iranian Jewish community will stand by their compatriots under any circumstance, forever."

In general, the community tries to lie low. Tensions between Iran and Israel have been high for years, and the leadership of hard-line Muslim clerics has not tried to retaliate against Iranian Jews, in part because it likes to tout their presence as proof of the government's tolerance. The biggest exception to that was the trial in 2000 of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel, which raised heavy international criticism.

The ornate tomb of Daniel in Susa, 450 miles (750 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran, is cited by Iranians as an example of the historic bonds of Jews and Muslims in the country. The site is popular among both Muslims and Jews, and some of the pious credit their prayers at the site for healing sick relatives or bringing rain for crops. Hundreds visit ever day, including high school students on field trips from around the country.

The grave is in an underground crypt that is usually open only to Jews, while both they and Muslims can visit an above-ground shrine over it, dazzling with mirrored tiles. In a sign of respect to the Jewish community, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an inscription put on the grave reading, "This is the shining tomb of the sagacious prophet Daniel, who directed believers while tolerating difficulties for the sake of God."

But an outright Israeli attack against Iran would be unprecedented and could put a heavy test on the government's policy toward the community.

Like the West, Israel is convinced Iran's nuclear program is being developed to build bombs, and not to generate energy and medical isotopes as Tehran claims.

It sees a nuclear-armed Iran as threatening the Jewish state's survival, and sparking a nuclear arms race in a region hostile to Israel's existence. In the U.S. last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu vigorously asserted Israel's right to defend itself militarily against the Iranian nuclear threat

Israeli officials say the presence of Jews in Iran won't influence Israel's decision on whether to strike.

Iran's Jewish community is one of the world's oldest centers of Judaism, its historical roots reaching back 2,700 years. One of Judaism's most revered figures is Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia — and heroine of the Purim holiday — who foiled a vizier's plan to annihilate the empire's Jews.

Many observers think Iran would retaliate against an Israeli military strike by firing its large arsenal of missiles capable of striking Israel, or have its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza hit the Jewish state with short-range rockets and missiles. It could also strike Jewish or Israeli targets in other countries.

But Meir Litwak, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University, said it is doubtful the government would lash out at Jews in Iran

The regime "has to treat Jews well to show that Jews can live under a Muslim regime as a protected minority, so there is no legal or moral reason for the existence of a Jewish state," he said. "If they start killing their own Jews, international pressure would be far more than before.

Iranian Jews living in Israel are not so sure. There are an estimated 250,000 Jews of Iranian descent in Israel, including the jailed former President Moshe Katsav, the former military chief and current opposition lawmaker Shaul Mofaz and one of the country's most popular singers, Rita, who recently put out a Farsi-language album.

Penhasi is afraid that even if the Iranian government doesn't directly attack Jews, its police might stand aside if angry Iranian citizens decide to do so in the event of an Israeli attack.

"The government could say, 'The people did it' and police forces couldn't stop them," he said.

So far, there have been no reported cases of such attacks.

Shahram Shahrooz, an emigre who moderates Farsi-language community radio and TV shows here, said Jews visiting Israel from Iran are "fearful of attacks on Jews."

"They are afraid there will be chaos in the Middle East," said Shahrooz, who moved here with his family in 1989 at the age of 11. "They know it won't end with a few booms. It will be a disaster for the region."

The visiting Iranian Jews refused a request, passed through Shahrooz and Penhasi, to be interviewed by The Associated Press.

Iranian emigres here maintain ties with the Jewish community in Iran over the Internet and by phone. Some Iranian Jews even visit, traveling through third countries, though the visits have diminished sharply since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel's destruction, became president in 2005.

At the Daniel shrine in Iran, a 10-year-old Jewish boy Daniel Morim — named after the prophet — played in the courtyard. A Muslim visitor to the site, Khalaf Dahani, watched the yarmulke-wearing boy and said, "Our God is the same. Let's appeal for peace."

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Susa, Iran.

Post #215 - My People, My People!

This article, “As tensions mount between Iran and Israel, an Iranian Jew is asked to pick a side,” was written by Ms. Roxana Norouzi and published by the Seattle Globalist (February 29).  It typifies the ambivalence and upset that ought to afflict every one of us when a war looms – no matter the justification that is put out for public consumption by one side of the other, each such conflict will mainly impact people who had no say in the decisions and who likely could live peaceably with one another if left alone:

“So are you on team Iran or Israel?”

A few days ago I walked into a coffee shop to meet my friend and that was the first thing she asked me.

A quick Google search revealed the headlines like “Iran Says Preemptive Strike on Israel Possible” “Israel Threatens to Strike Iran’s Nuclear Facilities” “Iran and Israel Accuse Each Other of Attack.” The decades-long feud that sits at the cross section of my identity has ignited once again, involuntarily placing me in the middle of a potential war.

As a native Seattleite of Iranian Jewish descent, the question she posed in such blunt terms has become the perpetual conundrum of my life. Each time politics between these two powerful Middle Eastern countries are ruffled, I somehow find myself forced to take a stance solely as a consequence of my contentious identity. Then comes the never ending list of questions from perplexed people trying to place me into a category. “Are you aligned with Iran’s politics or Israel’s?” which translates into “Do you feel more Iranian or Jewish?”

In 2005, when Iranian president Ahmadinejad declared that “Israel must be wiped off the map” [see my earlier post #34, AP) I felt protective of my Jewish heritage and the struggles of the Jewish people. But now, with an attack on Iran by Israel appearing increasingly imminent, my allegiances waver at the prospect of violence in a country my ancestors called home for centuries.

Last year, I spent 3 months traveling in the Middle East. Each day I feverishly vacillated between the two pieces of myself as I attempted to locate my identity among the mist of complicated political upheaval. I quickly learned that ‘taking a side’ was no longer a choice but a matter of survival.

During dinner with a powerful Lebanese hotel owner in Beirut, after learning I was Iranian he abruptly said to me, “I hope you are not one of them…the Jews.” Feeling like a guilty imposter, I lied and told him that I was a Shia Muslim which he instantaneously replied, “Good, I knew you were one of us.”

While crossing the border between the West Bank and Jerusalem I was held for 3 hours by an 18-year-old Israeli soldier who was convinced I was a terrorist due to my Iranian namesake. He was adamant that the Lebanese and Syrian stamps in my passport, in tandem with my Iranian heritage placed me in the enemy category. I had to resort to emphasizing my Jewish origins as a way to prove my innocence.

I resented constantly having to deny one piece of my identity in order to legitimately claim the other. As the trip went on I realized the only viable option was to let my Iranian and Jewish selves co-exist.

I’m not the only one who struggles with this. There are tens of thousands of Iranians living in Israel. And Iran is home to the largest group of Jews in the Middle East (outside of Israel). The connection between the two now combative nations is deeply rooted. Iranians in Israel still speak Farsi and maintain their cultural ties, while Jews in Iran still go to synagogue and practice Judaism.

Although now it’s hard to imagine a time that Israel and Iran were amicable, for the 30 years prior to 1979, Iran maintained gracious ties with Israel. During that time, Iran was one of the only majority-Muslim countries to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation. Like much of the Iranian Jewish community, my family enjoyed relatively good lives in Iran and never contemplated leaving. My parents share stories of feeling part of a country, culture and community that did not oblige them to ignore their religious roots.

After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran severed all ties with Israel,* marking the beginning of the rivalry between the two nations and driving many Iranian Jews, like my own family, out of their native country.

With a feeling of loyalty to both Israel and Iran, the current tension makes it difficult for Iranian Jews to embrace both homelands. We don’t have the privilege to distance ourselves from the controversy in the Middle East, because our very identity represents the forces that are fighting each other, implicating us without an escape route.

So what do you do when two things that you hold so close to yourself are in conflict in the outside world?

Iranian and Israeli politicians have traded aggressive rhetoric for years. But I’m living proof that there is nothing fundamentally at odds between the Iranian and Jewish people. Still, with war between the two countries looming, I may have no choice but to pick a team. I could never support war on soil, whether it be in Israel or Iran, that holds a piece of me and my history. So if I have to choose, I’ll choose against the side that turns words into deeds and strikes first to harm my people, whether they’re Iranians or Israel is.

* In fact, unbeknownst to most of us, there was a series of links, deals and collaborations between the two countries after the Islamic Revolution.  See Dr. Trita Parsi's book, "Treacherous Alliance:  the Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States."