    Lobster for Iran
    By Israel Shamir

    “Iran’s biggest threat since Nazis,” said Israeli defence minister Shaul
    Mofaz, according to the Guardian; “The world must not wait! Since Hitler
    we Jews have not faced such a threat” as presented by Mahmoud
    Ahmadinejad who “further stirred international outrage by calling on
    Israeli Jews to be resettled in Europe” (...thus the Guardian).

    These guys are hard to please! In the 1930s, Hitler called for the Jews
    to be resettled outside of Europe, and they declared war on him. Now
    Ahmadinejad calls for the resettlement of Jews in Europe, and the Jews
    still respond with a war cry. That is, unless the Guardian missed the
    point in its report, and the outrage actually came from the Europeans
    who preferred the Palestinians to serve as unwilling host to these
    difficult guests.

    Anyway I beg to differ: President Ahmadinejad is the biggest threat
    since Gerard de Nerval, a flamboyant French poet, promenaded a lobster
    on a blue ribbon lead, just as one exercises a dog, along the Palais
    Royal gardens in order to épater le bourgeois. A truly poetic soul, an
    enfant terrible if ever there was one, Ahmadinejad aimed to wake us up
    from our over-long after-dinner nap. What can the Iranian do if ‘Jews’
    is the only magic word that awakens us from this slumber? Sexual
    innuendos would not bestir even a child fresh from his AIDS-awareness
    lesson. An attack of Christianity would be warmly applauded by the
    undeniable masters of European minds, Messrs Sauerkraut and Finkelrot.
    In this post-modernist age, when the Vagina Monologues have entered the
    matinee repertoire, it is not that easy to épater the increasingly blasé
    bourgeoisie. If Ahmadinejad would call for the resettlement of six
    million European Muslims outside of Europe, nobody would raise an
    eyebrow with the possible exception of Oriana Fallaci and M. Le Pen, who
    might object to his plagiarism. If he were to call for the erasure of
    France from the world map, the French would not sit up and pay
    attention: they think there is already a Brussels directive to this
    effect!

    I admire Ahmadinejad. Not as a politician: let the Iranians judge him on
    this merit. Not as a divine: I leave this to the Muslims. But as a true
    poet who unveiled our hypocrisy and slaughtered our last sacred cow.
    This is the only possible explanation of his deeds and words: Iranians
    have really no reason to care about the Jewish holocaust, one way or
    other. Nobody accuses them, not even Mr Yehuda Bauer of Jerusalem’s
    Holocaust memorial institute, who is prone to accuse the World and its
    niece for failing to save the Jews. The Persians from Cyrus to Hosroes
    to Mohammad Resa Shah were always good to Jews, and even in these mad
    days there is a large and flourishing Jewish community in Iran.
    Ahmadinejad spoke about the Holocaust like Hillary conquered Everest –
    because it presented a challenge!

    The innocent revisionist historians were so excited when he toyed with
    an idea of “finally discovering the truth”. They prepared their
    well-thumbed books and diagrams of gas consumption and body heat. But
    Ahmadinejad is interested in the hard facts of World War II about as
    much as Nerval was interested in exercising his lobster. Acceptance of
    Holocaust dogma is a sign of submission to the Tel Aviv–New York Axis, a
    sign of the new colonialism. Ahmadinejad refused it just as St Paul
    refused to accept the Noahide laws: not because St Paul wanted to
    partake of pagan sacrifices, but because he did not want to take his
    orders from the Jews.

    The European leaders, the docile supporters of patent war criminals, of
    George W. Bush, the murderer of umpteen Iraqis, Afghanis and sundry
    Arabs, of Shaul Mofaz, the murderer of an eight-year-old girl (among
    hundreds of others) he killed last week in besieged Gaza, all sat up and
    expressed their outrage. They did not object when Israel strafed and
    bombed defenceless Gazans. When Israeli politicians threatened to turn
    Iran into “radioactive desert”, they did not describe it as “a call to
    genocide”. By his challenge, president Ahmadinejad saved the honour of
    human race, as only a poet can do.

    I admire Iran, for the fiery crimson of their rose gardens and for the
    azure of its old mosques, for the ravishing beauty of its women, whose
    black eyelashes enhance the whiteness of their skin shining through
    their black chadors. I admire Iran for its marvellous painting that
    overcame the iconoclastic ravages. I admire Iran for the spiritual
    subtlety of its poets, who united their love to women with their
    adoration of God in one undivided chant just as the Song of Songs did.
    Their Rumi and Jami, Sa’adi and Ferdousi, Hafiz and Khayyam were of the
    most daring and sincere poets who ever graced our earth. Ahmadinejad is
    heir to their tradition, a daring mocker of our hypocrisy, a boy who saw
    through the emperor’s new clothes. Even if the ham-fisted Yank should
    flatten this daredevil, and burn the rose gardens of Shiraz just as he
    once incinerated the blossoms of Nagasaki, we may be proud of
    Ahmadinejad, our contemporary who dared to tread on the tiger’s tail.

    II

    The European and American reaction to Iran’s nuclear program was that of
    Uncle Tom’s slaveowner, Simon Legree, on learning of an escaped slave.
    How does this dusky dare to touch the white masters’ toys? Their empty
    talk of an “Iranian threat” is designed for the ignorant: Iran has
    never, ever attacked a European nation since the wars for Anatolia in
    the 5th century BC; whereas European imperialists have repeatedly
    occupied and controlled Iran, most recently in 1942, or by proxy in
    1953, when they deposed democratically-elected Mosaddeq and returned to
    dominate this ancient nation.

    Yes, the old colonialism is dead. England can’t rule over Iraq, nor
    France over Algeria, but the new collective colonialism, that of the
    imperialist Core of highly industrialised Western nations over the rest
    of the world, is hardly any better. The old masters have decided to pool
    their resources and powers to rule their erstwhile slaves together. They
    switched from the Athenian model where a citizen had his slave, to the
    Spartan model, where slaves belong to all Spartans. In this new
    collective imperialist universe, the US is the arm, the enforcer of this
    new colonialism, while the mind, the ideology is supplied by a vast
    syndicate that unites and coordinates the majority of newspapers and
    networks of both left and right from Madrid to Moscow and from Texas to
    Timbuktu, despite their pretensions of competition and rivalry.

    This syndicate is the real powerbase of what two American professors,
    John Mearsheimer of Chicago, and Stephen Walt of Harvard, (M&W for
    short) politely called ‘Israel Lobby in the US’, though this syndicate
    has other fish to fry beside that of the State of Israel’s. While fully
    approving of M&W’s endeavour, we should say: they minimised rather than
    exaggerated the problem, for it is a global, rather than a local (the US)
    phenomenon. The fearsome AIPAC is just the visible tip of iceberg
    below which are miles and miles of solid ice: media lords, chief
    editors, their pundits, Masters of Discourse, in short. As if by a magic
    wand, the Iranian crisis made it visible to the naked eye: they have all
    cried out in one mighty voice like the legion of demons in the Capernaum
    synagogue in response to Christ’s words.

    In his thought-provoking speech Ahmadinejad said: “The vast Zionist
    network has been at the service of the imperialists for decades.” This
    is open to an argument whether the Zionist network serves the
    imperialists, or the imperialists serve this network. It’s an example of
    Managerial Revolution: Jews were managers for the imperialists, until
    they took over the show, some would say. Oh no, they remained docile to
    their imperialist overlords, argue others. Whatever position we take,
    the Zionists and the Imperialists are surely integrated and intermeshed,
    and if one accepts the idea of the Iranian threat to Israel, one
    subscribes to this demonic network.

    The nations that refuse the Masters of Discourse are subjugated by
    force. A nuclear weapon serves as a great equaliser, as did the Smith &
    Wesson gun in the Wild West. In order to prevent too much equalisation,
    the American pioneers kept guns out of native hands. The same policy now
    drives the West in its attempts to keep nuclear power out of reach of
    Iranians.

    A few days ago I was invited to a live discussion on Russian TV Channel
    One, where the Moscow BBC bureau chief rhetorically asked why a peaceful
    Iran would need ballistic missiles, and he listed the Iranian missile
    arsenal. He could not answer the question of why a peaceful Britain
    would need ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons! Actually, why would
    anybody need one? But if England, with its long and bloody history of
    subjugating the Third World from Ireland to Japan, may have these toys,
    then it is likewise the duty of any important country willing to protect
    its populace from the Western masters’ whims.

    Yes, Iran is still working on a peaceful program of atomic energy, but
    if and when that country decides to build the bomb, we may support this
    decision, as it would enhance peace. Actually, few people did more for
    the cause of world peace than Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their
    associates Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs. These wonderful men passed the
    secrets of American-built nuclear weapons to Russia, and thus saved
    Moscow and St Petersburg from the fate of Hiroshima. Without their
    heroic deed, the colonial masters would have turned Russia into a
    radioactive desert. Joseph Stalin passed the know-how to emerging China,
    and this was a very good deed -- otherwise the Americans wouldn’t have
    hesitated to nuke Vietnam as they did Japan.

    The Russian nuclear shield is the only thing Gorbachev and Yeltsin did
    not break down in their destruction of the Soviet Union, probably
    because they did not expect the patriotic forces to ever return to power
    in Moscow. This shield allows the Russians to disregard the nagging of
    Frau Merkel, and gives them their freedom of choice: to sell their oil
    and gas to Europe or to turn the stream towards China. It allows the
    Belarus people to have the president they elected by huge majority:
    without it, Lukashenka would share the fate of Noriega and Milosevic for
    his steadfast refusal to sell the assets of Belarus to George Soros. Let
    Iranians, too, have this freedom of choice, and restore balance in the
    region.

    And to sincere well-wishers of our Israeli well-being I’ll say: Iran is
    no danger. The truth is, the Jews could live extremely well in
    Palestine. By making peace with the native inhabitants in 1948, we would
    have kept our common home, Palestine, as the hub of the Middle East with
    Iraqi oil coming to Haifa refineries and trains from Baghdad to Cairo
    flying by Lydda and Jaffa, with Muslim pilgrims coming to al Quds on
    their way to Mecca, with Christians walking in the footsteps of Christ
    from Bethlehem to Nazareth and with Jews doing their aliya (this word
    meant an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem like the Hajj, rather than a
    permanent immigration to Palestine as Zionists wont). We would prosper
    beyond our wildest dreams, as the prophets promised, if we were to kick
    the nasty old habit of separateness and dominance.

    It is not too late even now, sixty years and many deaths later. For this
    purpose, we may take the advice of Ahmadinejad: let the exclusive Jewish
    state be eliminated from the map of the region to be replaced by one
    state of all citizens of the land, Jews or not. “The right to govern
    belongs to all people of Palestine, be they Muslims, Christians, or
    Jews”, said Ahmadinejad, and by golly, only a Jewish supremacist may
    object to his words.

    When I said this at the TV discussion in Moscow, I was attacked by the
    Chairman of a Russian Jewish Congress and Director of a Zionist Middle
    East Institute, a greasy and spotty bully of a man with hanging belly, a
    living cartoon from Der Sturmer, with the fitting name Satanovsky.
    “Watch out, - told me Satanovsky after the show, - apparently you have
    never been beaten hard enough. Here in Moscow we know of no restraints
    of democracy, my Jewish lads will tear your balls off like they did to
    many men like you. Israel should remain a Jewish state forever”. Such
    Jewish Mafiosi are the real leaders of the Jewish Lobby and chief
    supporters of the Jewish state abroad. These sort of people lead the
    Jewish organisations in Russia, in America and elsewhere. They need a
    Jewish state to escape their lands in the hour of wrath, but we, the
    ordinary citizens of Israel, do not need it.

    However, the Mafia can’t rule forever. I take heart in the words of
    Ahmadinejad: “The young tree of resistance in Palestine is blooming and
    blooms of faith and desire for freedom are flowering. The Zionist regime
    is a decaying and crumbling tree that will fall with a storm. (Remember
    the parable of the barren tree? - ISH) Palestine is the meeting point of
    right and wrong. The destiny of the region will be decided in the land
    of Al-Qods and it will be a great honour to share in the victory of
    Palestine.” The victory of Palestine is our victory and we shall be
    happy to share in it.

    “Now, will there be a war?,” one is often asked. I have no full
    confidence of George Bush, he does not share his plans with me. But
    while the gatekeepers of the Left say that Oil is the reason for the
    war, in my view Oil can be the reason for peace. As the price of oil has
    now crossed the $70 threshold, President Bush must decide whether he
    will survive its hike above $120 -- whether his voters in the red states
    will happily accept the advice of an American Jewish Congress pundit and
    director of their Israel/Middle East Office Eran Lerman (previously of
    Israeli intelligence) to stop driving cars every other day. Bush has the
    power to steer the US away from its perilous course, and tell to the
    Jewish Congress pundits to shove it.

    And to my Israeli countrymen: I’ll remind you of our age-long tradition
    of friendship with Iran. Two thousand years ago, a picture of the
    Iranian capital city Susa was presented on the Eastern gate of the
    Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Mishna (Berakoth 9) called for being
    especially careful towards it: “never show disrespect to the Eastern
    gate!” According to Rambam, this was done so that they would have the
    fear of the king of Persia upon them. This tradition is worth
    remembering and carefully preserving.