tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991467372007401147.post8116561955091335969..comments2011-05-23T08:47:29.985-07:00Conrad Woldringhnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991467372007401147.post-9755553195776080512011-05-23T08:47:29.985-07:002011-05-23T08:47:29.985-07:00I believe one should distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Israel behaviour, between government attitudes and those of the people and, especially, between pre- and post-Israel. I think that in Egypt and Morocco the governments are careful to protect their Jews but the people don&#39;t like us, neither Jews nor Israelis. In Iran, the people probably don&#39;t mind us very much and, historically, their government treated their Jews well; I&#39;m not sure about their government now. Prior to Israel, the Jews in Arab lands fared much better than did those in Christendom, after Israel the situation underwent a radical reversal. The reasons are clear. Europeans felt guilt because of what went on before and especially during WWII, the Arabs had no such guilt and felt they were being forced to pay the price. (Much of current Western antisemitism, because it is unacceptable in polite circles, is couched in anti-Israel terms.) You talk about rhetoric, but the blowing up of our Embassy in 1992 and the bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires on 18.7.94 with 87 killed and over 100 injured, are not signs of deep love. And these are well before the advent of that crazy Ahmadinejad, so I doubt whether relations will undergo a dramatic improvement after he exits the scene. That said, we will not miss his passing. Holocaust deniers are not popular here, and he is particularly vicious. (I would venture to say that, in this regard at least, he is probably an embarrassment to the Iranian government.)<br /> All this is rather condensed, because of the medium, and deserves a more ample discussion, but face-to-face. Perhaps on your next visit, since we seem to have abandoned science (much to my regret).<br />NGAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991467372007401147.post-60581194323311799072011-05-23T08:46:36.083-07:002011-05-23T08:46:36.083-07:00May 18, 2011<br />Dear Conrad,<br /> It is a big surprise to receive a letter from someone just back from Iran. No, I don&#39;t know much about that country, but many people here do, because of the long and close relations we had before the revolution. So perhaps your question is best phrased in terms of The Islamic Republic of Iran. Here too many of us are quite knowledgeable, but this time from a distance.<br /> I think Iranians don&#39;t hate the Arabs as much as they are contemptuous of them, and consider Iranian culture to be far superior to that of the Arabs (which, so I have been told, it is). Why did the Americans support the Iraqi Sunni in the war? Really! In the wake of the Islamic Revolution, on 4.11.79, the Iranians captured 63 American diplomats and functionaries (including 3 CIA agents) and held 52 of them hostage until the day after Reagan was sworn in (one of the reasons Carter lost the elections). That&#39;s why the Americans sided with Iraq (we did not). The US is a very insular country, and its people (at all levels) are very ignorant of the world beyond their borders. I doubt whether anyone in the White House at the time had any idea of the differences between Shi&#39;a and Sunni Islam. Saddam didn&#39;t need much encouragement. He felt that the Shah took advantage of his relative military weakness to extract an unfair agreement (unfair to Iraq, that is) concerning the Shat-el-Arb, using Iran&#39;s support of the Kurds as leverage. (In exchange, the Shah abandoned support for the Kurds and Saddam attacked them forthwith.) When the revolution came he was still smarting from that diplomatic defeat and decided to take advantage of the turmoil engendered by the upheaval to recoup his lost honour and lost territory. America played no part in all of this.<br /> I don&#39;t think there were Israeli settlers in Iran. As I recall, we had an agricultural farm as part of our cultural/economic exchange cooperation programme, like we do with many other countries. In fact, for a long while after the revolution we continued to hope that relations between our two countries would improve, would return to the way they were under the Shah. It took us a long time to relinquish that illusion. I think the nail in the coffin occurred in 1992 (17.3.92, to be exact), when Iranian agents blew up our embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding over 250.<br />(to be continued)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com