WHAT IS AN "AS A JEW"?
“As a Jew” is a tongue-in-cheek term Jews use to describe fellow Jews who weaponize their Jewish identities to excuse, minimize, justify, or deny antisemitism.
As in, “As a Jew, this is not antisemitic because so and so…”
WHAT IS THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?
The Islamic Republic is the fundamentalist Islamist, ultra-conservative, warmongering regime that has been ruling Iran -- and oppressing its population -- with an iron fist since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Many Iranians call the Islamic Regime an “occupying force” because it is culturally foreign to Iran.
According to Iranian-American policy analyst Karim Sadjapour, the three ideological pillars of the Iranian regime are “compulsory hijab, death to America, and death to Israel.”
After the Islamic Republic came into power, over 80% of Iran’s ancient Jewish population fled the country. Today, the 8,500 Jews still living in Iran are subject to second-class citizenship and are constantly under the suspicion of the regime, for which they must tread carefully, never openly criticizing the regime’s implementation of Sharia Law.
THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC IS A GENOCIDAL THREAT TO JEWS
Given the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the “destruction of Israel” -- where around half of the world’s Jews live -- it has spent decades establishing proxy terrorist militias around the Jewish state. Among the Islamic Republic’s proxies are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar Allah, and its most important proxy, Hezbollah.
But the Islamic Republic’s targeting of Jews extends far, far beyond the Jewish state. In other words, no, the Islamic Republic isn’t merely “anti-Zionist.”
The Islamic Republic has planned and carried out terrorist attacks and massacres of Jews everywhere from Thailand to Kenya.
The Islamic Republic’s deadliest attack on Jews in the Diaspora was the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which took 85 innocent lives. Before the October 7 Hamas massacre, which killed 1,200 Israelis, predominantly civilians -- another attack that was planned and funded by the Islamic Republic -- the AMIA bombing was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly dabbled with Holocaust denial. The Islamic Republic’s leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has consistently talked about the Holocaust’s “exaggerated numbers.” Most infamously, in 2006, the Islamic Republic hosted an international Holocaust denial conference in Tehran.
THE TRIED AND TRUE PROPAGANDA PLAYBOOK
Though the Islamic Republic government is deeply conservative, it started exploiting the well-intentioned progressive types to accomplish its nefarious goals before it even came into power.
The rule of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was characterized by the most horrific human rights violations. He was no liberal and no progressive. He was not anti-imperialist either, hoping to establish an empire of his own. In fact, he believed that “establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong(s) to the great goals of the revolution.” He spoke of conquering the whole world under the banner of Islam: “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.”
In 1964, the then Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, exiled Khomeini and banned his books. As such, the vast majority of the Iranian population was unfamiliar with his more extremist beliefs. While in exile in France, Khomeini downplayed his fundamentalism, presenting himself to the west merely as a fierce opponent of American neo-imperialism and influence in Iran. It was in this manner, for example, that he was able to manipulate Iranian leftists to join him under his banner. In reality, Khomeini despised leftism, and soon after he came to power, many left-wing organizations had to flee Iran. Others were executed.
Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the saga of the mandatory hijab. During the Iranian Revolution, many Iranian women wore the hijab as a symbol of opposition to the Shah’s policies of westernization. Soon after Khomeini came to power, the hijab was made mandatory. Shocked, liberal and leftist women took to the streets; they had not expected the hijab to become mandatory. In response, Khomeini quickly began suppressing and eliminating all leftist and liberal political groups, figures, and parties, and to this day, hijab remains mandatory in Iran, and women who refuse to wear it face arrest, torture, and even death.
WHAT IS NIAC?
The National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, is the de-facto lobby of the Islamic Republic in the United States. In other words, they lobby on behalf of the Islamic Republic, its policies, and its interests.
Just as Ruhollah Khomeini did in days past, NIAC has spent years latching onto “progressive” Jewish groups to pursue their nefarious interests...and shield the Islamic Republic from accusations of antisemitism.
Of course the Islamic Republic wants to disarm Israel...because their open goal is to destroy the Jewish state. They couldn’t care less about the suffering of anyone in Gaza.
To the left is Rabbi Abby Chava Stein, who is a member of the “Jewish” Voice for “Peace” rabbinical council. Here she is meeting with the current president of the Islamic Republic.
Press TV is a propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic.
THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC AND THE NETUREI KARTA
You probably recognize these guys, present at pretty much every pro-Palestine protest in New York City. They are the Neturei Karta. The Neturei Karta is a Hasidic Jewish sect with about 1,000-5,000 members. They are religious anti-Zionists, rejecting political Zionism on the religious basis that they believe no Jewish state should be founded prior to the arrival of the Messiah. While some other Jewish branches, such as the Satmar, hold this position, only the Neturei Karta have gone so far as to establish close relationships with those who wish Israeli Jews dead...particularly with the Islamic Republic.
In 2005, after then-Islamic Republic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews to Germany or Austria, the Neturei Karta issued a statement defending Ahmadinejad.
In 2006, the Neturei Karta attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. For this, the Satmar, who are also religious anti-Zionists, condemned the Neturei Karta, calling on Jews worldwide to “to keep away from [the Neturei Karta] and condemn their actions.” The Satmar (along with Chabad, who are not anti-Zionist) also issued a cherem (i.e. censure; almost like the Jewish version of excommunication) against the Neturei Karta.
THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK
How do you deflect legitimate accusations of genocidal antisemitism? You “befriend” Jews, of course. As in: “how could I be antisemitic?! Look at all these Jews who support me!” Three historical examples:
(1) Leading up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the United States Olympic Committee was under tremendous pressure to boycott the Games, given Nazi Germany’s horrific treatment of Jews. The head of the US Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, was a Nazi sympathizer, who convinced Germany to allow one German Jewish athlete to compete to give the impression that Jews in Germany were being treated fairly. In other words, the Nazis needed a token Jew. They proceeded to select a Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer, to the German Olympic team. Mayer placed second and gave the Nazi salute on the podium.
(2) In the 1920s, the Soviet Union shut down virtually all Jewish cultural, social, and religious institutions using a Jewish group, the Yevsektsiya, as a cover. According to historian of Soviet history Richard Pipes, “In time, every Jewish cultural and social organization came under assault.” The fact that the Yevsektsiya was “Jewish” was central to its purpose. After all, the Soviet regime couldn’t be accused of antisemitism when those shutting down all Jewish cultural and spiritual life were Jews themselves.
(3) Likewise, in the early 1950s, notorious Soviet dictator Josef Stalin conceived a plan for the mass deportation of Soviet Jewry to prison camps, all under the guise of “anti-Zionism.” Though the plan never ultimately came to pass, given Stalin’s sudden death, Stalin had made preparations to publish a letter to be signed by Soviet Jews “denouncing” Zionism and Zionist Jews. In the letter, Stalin’s “anti-Zionist Jews” would then urge the Soviet state to “take action” against the traitorous Zionist Jews. Jews would be deported en masse to the Ural Mountains, where MGB would instigate discord between Jewish leaders. Later, they would kill the “elites” in the camps, and maybe even follow with the rest of the Jewish population.
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