Feb 12, 2012 -- 1:57PM, Roodog wrote:

I have also read on Yahoo that Iran had blocked internet access to 30 million of their citizens, another play lifted from the play book of WW2 Germany, when occupied Europe had to turn in their radios.

The Iranian Government is the worst offender.Haman now is king.

Roodog,

Iran is not an Arab country, thus not the subject of this thread.

Iran also has the largest Jewish population of any Middle East country, outside of Israel.

Who is Haman? I never heard of him?

Sherri

Ken,

Iran is not committing genocide against Jews, if that is what is being implied by Roodog's comment, they are not even persecuting their Jewish population. My husband lived in a community with a Jewish population, Broujerd, for the first approximately 25 years of his life,  Jewish and Muslim children went to school together. Jews were accepted members in the community, in numbers then the second largest group after Muslims, in the village he lived in.  Jews even have representation in the government, in Iran. Christians are also accepted in society, the largest group of Christians there are Arminians.

www.answering-islam.org/authors/katz/ham...

As for human rights abuses in Iran, human rights groups primarily address issues regarding political prisoners and persecution of Bahais and Sufis. The persecution against those last two groups is substantial. And human rights abuses against political prisoners are also extensive.

I know of no Anti Semitism in Iran. Issues they have with Israel relate to opposition to the Occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A number of Rabbis in the US have traveled to Iran, at the invitation of the government there, including US Rabbis.

www.payvand.com/news/08/apr/1309.html

Sherri 

Feb 12, 2012 -- 3:09PM, Miraj wrote:

Feb 11, 2012 -- 7:44PM, JAstor wrote:

The first step in creating a society that will tolerate and eventually perpetrate a genocide of the scope of the Holocaust is the deligitimization of its intended victims. By portraying them as liars, criminals, sub-humans, always guilty of the most nefarious schemes against world order based on the just principles of current political correctness, it becomes not only desirable but necessary to destroy this people, nation or country. 

Zionism, the philosophy followed by the founders and the current leaders of Israel, do the same as above to the Palestinians on a daily basis.  

That is crap and you know it.  There was and is nothing in Zionism which demeans, denies, or disenfranchises anyone. 

If anyone would like actual information about Zionisim, let me know.

From the days during the creation of Israel when they began loading up Arabs on trucks and removing them from their homes, business and confiscating their property, to the fervant PR effort to deny or distort their history on the land and as a people, Zionists have been hell bent to destroy the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause.

You also are well aware that had the Arabs not rejected the partition plan (which gave them even more of the Jewish national homeland - because lets face it 2/3's just wasn't enough) and invaded Israel in an attempt to destroy Israel and commit genocide (and that, as you are also well aware, was the plan), there would have been absolutely no population dislocation. Of course, the population dislocation of the Arabs is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the dislocation (of and death) of the Jews of "Palestine" and the rest of the Arab world.    

I remind you that this was the official and implemented Israeli policy at the time of independence:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

Which of course is in direct opposition to the Arab call to "Kill all the Jews"  (a position which you and opthers, even to this day seem to believe is right, proper and godly) 

. .

 Laws have been passed to discourage the commemoration of the Nakba, to facilitate housing discrimination, to allow further confiscation of privately owned Arab property, to separate Palestinian spouses, and that's not all.

The only laws against commemorating the so called farcical Nakba is a law which restricts government funding of the commemoration. Something which I support, just as I would support a similar law here in the US which denied government funding to celebrate the Confederate cause. 

And let us be frank, the so called Nakba was the absolutely best thing ever to happen to the Arab Palestinians was the Arab defeat. It is after all the one and only reason there is such a thing as an Arab Palestinian, it is the one and only reason why the Arab Palestinians, at least in Israel and the disputed territories, are better educated, better governed [and predominantly self governed - with 98% of the Arab population of the territories under the direct governance of the "elected" - ha ha- PA government] longer lived, healthier, better fed, and better employed and have more civil rights and freedom of movement than their counterparts in some other Middle Eastern nations. Heck some Palestinian Arabs even got to come to the US with all their wealth and become even even more successful while maintaining their Israeli citizenship and ability to spout whatever nonsense they wish.   

Feb 12, 2012 -- 11:39PM, LeahOne wrote:

Only a minor holiday, it's still one of my favorites. 

Actually, the rabbis of the Talmud say that in the future after the Messiah comes Purim will remain as the single, most important holiday. There are lots of reasons for this, but part of it is that it has many historical elements that are understood to be paradigms of what the future pre-messianic times will look like. 

Feb 13, 2012 -- 10:58AM, SherriMunnerlyn wrote:

JA,

Migration from Iran after the Revolution was widespread and present in all populations, as were losses of private property by Iranians.

My husband and I know many Iranians in the Los Angeles area, who left after the Revolution, and lost property in Iran. Most of them were Muslim, not Jewish. After the Revolution, common people took over businesses, seized farm lands, and the government would not intervene to protect the rightful owners' property rights. Ultimately, and many years later, deals would be made between the rightful owners and the persons who took property, as the unlawful takers of the property desired to have legal title in their names. That is what happened with land owned by my husband's grandfather, that was physically taken possession of by workers leasing the land after the Revolution.  In other cases, wealthy business owners feared the new government and left. Years later, many returned and were able to get some of their property back. Of course, returning has its risks. We see that some Iranians who have moved elsewhere and return just for visits end up arrested, there are news stories about these incidents. My husband's cousin used to travel to Iran yearly, but a few years ago he was taking pictures near a military site and was detained and interrogated, and had his phone and camera taken. He meets his family now in Turkey every year.

For the approximately 60,000 Jews who left and never came back it was a total economic loss. The reason total economic loss was preferable to returning and regaining what they lost was that life for them in Islamic Iran with money (assuming they even got it back) was worse than life with nothing anywhere else. That tells you a little something about the persecution they really felt and still feel. 

But beyond the economic loss, there are other reasons Jews left and never came back, including religious persecution under Sharia. In the previously linked article, Pooya Dayanim, president of the Iranian Jewish Public Affairs Committee, described the discrimination against Jews in Iran feel as a result of Sharia:

The Jews suffer from official inferior status under Iranian Law and are not protected by police or the courts. The amount of financial compensation a Jew can receive from a Muslim in case of murder or accidental death of a relative is equal to one-eighth of that which would be paid if the victim was a Muslim.

In practice this means that a life of a Jew in Iran has very little value. In addition, since Iranian courts routinely refuse to accept the testimony of a Jew against a Muslim, most cases of this sort are not even prosecuted and the police do not even investigate such claims. As a result of their legally inferior status, Jews find themselves outside the protection of the courts and police. This is not simply a perception on their part, but rather, sadly, a harsh reality. In none of the cases of the murder of Jews in Iran has a perpetrator ever been found, much less prosecuted. 

Jews in Iran also have reduced employment opportunities as a result of discrimination and anti-Semitism:

Ayatollah Khomeini's edicts concerning the Jews, published in his book "Tozieh Almasael" (Explanation of Problems), state clearly that while there is no Islamic law prohibiting a situation in which a Muslim may work under a Jew, this is a shameful situation for a Muslim to be in. These edicts still carry the force of law in Iran, and as a result, Jews have been barred from any position in which they would be superior to Muslims. 

Jews are excluded from most government positions. Virtually all government entities (most sectors in Iran are government-owned) have a "Muslim only" policy and they print this requirement in their job notices in newspapers. This formal exclusion of Jews from large areas of employment is badly damaging to the Jews.

Most private companies, thanks to the anti-Semitic media campaign in Iran, do not hire Jews either. Most Jews are forced into self-employment, but due to general public prejudice, few buy anything from them. The US State Department Religious Freedom Report of 2001 confirms that Jewish businesses have been targets of vandalism and boycotts. 

There are other problems for Jew in Iran, such a restrictions on reliigous freedom:

Judaism is one of the recognized minority religions in Iran. Jews, therefore, are allowed to conduct religious services and give religious education to their children. The privileges of religious education, can, however, be suspended it is thought by the authorities that such an education may prevent Jewish children from converting to Islam once they group.

Many informed observers believe that one reason that Jewish rabbis and teachers were arrested in Shiraz was the fact that they were instructing in the spirit of Orthodox Judaism...

The form that this monitoring has taken is either sending agents posing as Jews to synagogues or forcing Jewish communal leaders to inform on the activities of the Jewish community. This situation has created an atmosphere of terror and mistrust in the Jewish community. Many Jews who flee Iran relate that they told no one of their plans to emigrate, not even friends or relatives in fear of an unknown collaborator informing authorities of their plans. 

In short, the huge exodus of Jews from Iran is only partially a result of theft. For Jews, it includes that plus anti-Semitism, inferior status in Sharia, limited employment possibilities and lack of religious freedom.