Yesterday (Thursday 14th July 2011) I attended the 28th Jerusalem Film Festival and saw two movies, both about life in Iran.
The first one was “Gold and purple” a film about a thief with a conscience who finally kills himself after killing the man he has robbed. The second was “The green wave” about strong arm tactics of the Iranian regime against its opponents during the elections of 2009. **
The young Iranian demonstrators were amazed that it was the Basij, the youth they admired for being devoted to Islam and volunteering to protect the morals of the Iranian people, who cruelly beat them to death for demonstrating.
Shouting “Allah Akbar” didn’t help them. The Basij considered them unbelievers, enemies of the Islamic republic and therefore could be killed or badly beaten up and tortured as if they were unbelievers.
The cry of “kill the unbelievers” that had rallied the Iranian People to rebel against the Shah has now become the order of the totalitarian regime against their opposers.
The People’s rallying cry has become the regime’s and anybody who opposes the regime is an unbeliever.
As long as “Allah Akbar” was the People’s rallying cry it was good. Now, when the regime has made it their’s it is very bad.
Unlike those who demonstrated against the Shah who were rallied to the call of “kill the unbelievers” now the demonstrators faced the opposite, namely, a government of “believers” tyrannizing the Iranian People who are accused of being unbelievers.
How does a religious person, as most Iranians are, deal with a religious government who is governing them with cruelty contrary to democratic ideals?
He should he shout “Allah is dead” long live democracy. But will he do this? No way. His religious belief would never allow him to do that.
The regime has made itself Islam. It doesn’t only follow the principles of Islam, it makes following and supporting it a principle of Islam.
In this situation the regime can be as tyrannical as it likes and the people can’t do a thing about it because they are also religious and supporting Islam they must support the regime.
All the Moslem tyrants know this; whether in Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco etc. wherever Islam reigns it reigns supreme as long as the general population follow Islam. These tyrants will only begin to totter when the people no longer believe in Islam and this isn’t likely to happen in any Moslem ruled country today.
Israel has two defenses against the sort of tyranny carried out in Moslem countries; it is a democracy and the population is mostly Jewish.
Unlike in the Moslem countries, in Israel being Jewish isn’t a requirement for supporting the Israeli government and supporting the Israeli government isn’t a requirement of Judaism in the way that supporting the Iranian government is a requirement of Islam in Iran.
This also explains why there can be Jews who oppose the state of Israel. They’re not accused of being unbelievers because of their opposition of the state of Israel or some of its laws. Judaism simply doesn’t have any laws requiring a non believer to be punished for his unbelief.
One finds both Jews and non Jews among anti-Israel activists all over the world because, on the one hand the Moslem anti-Israel demonstrators are thereby strengthening their identification with Islam and the Jewish anti-Israel demonstrators aren’t endangering their status as Jews.
But anti-Syria or anti-Egypt activists are always careful to declare that they’re Moslem. The demonstrators in all the recent demonstrations against their governments always cry of “Allah Akbar”. They believe that they’re religious Moslems but the regimes they oppose see them as unbelievers and therefore, according to Islam, it’s permissible to kill them. This is why Moslem regimes kill and oppress demonstrators with such violence.
Being anti-Israel, however, is a requirement of Islam and the more they’re accused of being unbelievers in the Moslem countries where they are demonstrating, the more they try to demonstrate being Moslem by being anti-Israel. So as the demonstrations are quelled we find more and more demonstrations against Israel.
In fact being anti-Israel unites Moslems and the regimes they oppose in their countries with Jews all over the world, Anti-Semitism also does this. Jews and Moslems who are anti-Israel or anti-Jewish activists join the ranks of other anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activists. A world united by hate.
In this way anti-Israel demonstrations strengthen the totalitarian power of those regimes. They don’t even need to really topple Israel. The demonstration alone serves their purposes. They are successful simply because of the publicity they get and because the increased numbers of anti Israel demonstrators might eventually make the existence of Israel a subject of debate in democratic forums like the United Nations and perhaps an issue in future elections in democratic countries.
Naturally totalitarian regimes cannot survive in the midst of a democracy but rallying cries of “Allah Akbar” and “down with Israel” or “Jewish traitors” can bring more people with totalitarian ideas in democratic governments.
It is not undemocratic to oppose a state or a group of people because democracy allows and even encourages freedom of speech.
A democratic state won’t arrest anti-Israel or even anti-Jewish demonstrators. The Islamic movement needs these activists who don’t understand that they are playing into the hands of the totalitarian Islamic regimes.
*Excerpt from Leon's No Newsletter 177
Jerusalem Thursday, July 14, 2011
**On Tuesday 3rd October I attended the Haifa Film Festival, only 4 days before the massacre by Hamas, at the settlements around Gaza. I saw the film 7 Winters in Teheran about the execution of a young girl for killing the man who tried to rape her. As the shocking true story came to an end the thought came into my mind that a regime that can carry out such injustice has no chance of surviving and no right to survive in a modern civilized world. Then the massacre took place and it is clear that it was carried out under the orders of Iran an planned by Iran.
Comments