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A.P. photo/ Mujahadeen -- protests inside
Iran blackmails foreign Iranian dissidents. It warns them that their relatives back in Iran are like hostages. It arrests or warns some of those relatives.
This is part of a global crackdown, now extending beyond domestic protesters and their Internet communication. The harsher Iran’s minions become, the more that the Iranian people shift from demanding new elections to demanding an end to the clerical regime in which unelected clergy overrule the elected parliament.
The government detects who, abroad, has Facebook and might be using it to stir domestic protest. Foreign or ex-patriate visitors to Iran have to submit their Facebook passwords at the airport. Iranian agents photograph people present at rallies, though some in the crowd attend out of curiosity more than out of dissidence.
Germany has detected such agents. Iran has asked Germany to stop the protests (Farnaz Fassihi, Wall St. J., 12/3, A1).
The question is, why hasn’t Germany expelled those Iranian agents and asked Iran to stop sending them? Will it reach the stage of Iranian agents liquidating Iranians abroad, as Syria and the USSR were believed to have done?
One of my readers insisted that Iran is a democracy. But you see, Iran uses totalitarian methods.
(For a piece on human rights within Iran, click here
Comments
Were you upset when you wrote this piece? The whole thing sounds a bit unsteady somehow; it is choppy, without nuance, and probably questionably sourced on some points. You even swipe at one of your readers towards the end, as if noting that Iran "uses totalitarian methods" entirely discredits the assertion that Iran is a democracy (I myself think it has significant democratic elements but also powerful anti-democratic elements).
Maybe I am wrong to hope for a nuanced view from a rather biased "Israel Conflict Examiner" who grieves about the freeze on settlements (and, by extension, a slowing of the ethnic cleansing project). Militant, irredentist hyper-ethnocentrism is hardly in line with modern American values, and even appears to compromise the quality of the work. Be humble, and have a good day. Thank you,
Ahimaaz, my article was written soberly, but your comment brings emotion in, personalizes the issue, and makes vague, irrelevant, and even a wild, unexplained accusation of an "ethnic cleansing campaign." Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria do not displace other ethnic groups. Where is the nuance in your comment?
Nuance can bee temporizing. Iran's democratic elements are being crushed by the totalitarians, who put supreme religious leaders over elected ones, whom the religious leaders vet before letting them run.
What does "modern American values" mean? My values are knowledge, truth and justice, not relativistic ethics. You should check my series on "The big lie technique in the Arab-Israel conflict."
Tomorrow I will publish a piece on recognition in international law of Jewish title to Palestine. I suppose you would call that "militant, irredentist hyper-ethnocentrism," though it is on law, fact, and history. But the Muslim Arabs start wars; like their irredentism?
Sir,
Many international, and even Israeli, human rights groups have repeatedly noted the violation of Palestinian Arab human rights caused by the settlements. In recent months settlers have even been caught in downright vicious behavior against Palestinians. Overall, the settlement projects have been noted for destruction of Palestinian farmland, disproportionate use of water by settlers, expropriation of Palestinian property, and a variety of other attacks on Palestinian livelihood. Displacement is the goal and the practice. How can you care not about those who lived on the land before Zionism, yet you are sensitive to violations in Iran?
By "modern American values," I mean that we've been through very much to condemn favoritism of whites and promote equality; Jews have been leaders in this effort. I call it a 'redeeming factor,' and I hope Israel will someday no longer be an ethnic state, and will instead respect all groups equally. Alas, the ethnocentric basis gets in the wa
My earlier articles disproved all your points. So it is not that I do not care about Arabs, but that they are oppressors, not victims. Ethnic cleansing was the Arab goal in 1947 (and 1967); thousands of Jews were forcibly displaced. Then Arab states expelled most of their Jews. Did you not know that?
I report oppression and mass-murder of Arabs and other Muslims by Arabs and other Muslims, but most anti-Zionists don't express any interest or acknowledgment of that. Makes one wonder about their purported interest in humanitarianism.
Amusing, your point that "even" Israeli human rights groups fault the Jews in Judea-Samaria. You make the ethnic-based assumption that Jews usually have solidarity. But those groups serve an anti-Zionist agenda that my articles have shown slant their messages. See my articles on Peace Now and international groups, ideological rather than factual.
All Arab states established Islam. Hypocritical to denounce Israel over identity, and not the Arabs
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