In Roger Cohen’s latest column he defends himself from critics who have attacked his recent writing on Iran as being too soft on the regime currently running that country and as taking an excessively sanguine view of the situation of its Jewish minority.
With reference to the latter point and the ayatollahs’ intentions towards Israel he says,
Just how repressive life is for Iran’s Jews is impossible to know. Iran is an un-free society. But this much is clear: The hawks’ case against Iran depends on a vision of an apocalyptic regime - with no sense of its limitations - so frenziedly anti-Semitic that it would accept inevitable nuclear annihilation if it can destroy Israel first. The presence of these Jews undermines that vision. It blunts the hawks’ case; hence the rage.
It’s very good of Cohen to recognize that in earlier pieces he may have overegged his portrayal of the splendid life enjoyed by Jews in Iran. However, his second point is flat wrong. It’s long been obvious that the regime, for all its antisemitism, is willing to tolerate Jews who declare themselves to be anti-Zionist; hence its courting of the looney tune Neturei Karta sect and the relative toleration of Iranian Jews as long as they regularly say how much they hate the Little Satan.
What’s obvious to all except those - like Cohen - who try really hard not to see it, is that the present government of Iran loathes and abominates those Jews who wish to continue governing themselves in their own independent state, is currently doing all in its power to harass and weaken that state through support for its deadly enemies to the south and north and it is determined to acquire the means to obliterate it entirely.
The ayatollahs are willing to put up with tame Jews - tame either because that’s the way they like it or because they have decided to act tame in order to survive in a hostile environment - but the mere idea of Jews demanding and exercising the same national rights as everyone else enrages them.
I have no idea what risks the Iranian regime might be willing to take to destroy Israel and every Jew who lives there but to deny that they seem determined to do this is to condescend to them and fail to take them with the seriousness they deserve.
The point is that Mr. Cohen could have made his point, i.e. he could have pushed his view that Iran poses no regional or worldwide threat, without cynically using the remaining Iranian Jews as puppets to support his politically correct worldview. What a cynical petty ploy on his part, and his failure to acknowledge the error, the cruelty of what he did, overrides whatever political viewpoint he holds.
Bruce:
Arguing that Iran isn’t a regional threat based on fact is an impossibility. Iran contributed substantially to the bloodshed in post-Saddam Iraq and is considered a threat by its Arab/Sunni neighbours. Iran’s patronage of Syria also contributes substantially to the instability in Lebanon, which has at least as much to do with internal Lebanese politics as it does with Lebanon’s proximity to Israel and ownership of the Shabaa farm. Consequently, Cohen resorts to using Iran’s Jewish community.
The Forward, as it happens, carries news of a meeting between R. Cohen and some ex-pat Iranian Jews and Bahais living in California who take issue with Cohen’s whitewash:
http://www.forward.com/articles/104011/
I was born to a secular Muslim family in Iran and lived there until I was fourteen. I still have family back there. And I will say that the current regime in Iran makes life absolutely hellish, not just for Jews, Armenians, and Baha’is, but for all Iranians. To minimize the IRI’s Islamist brutality — especially from those who should know better — is simply inexcusable.