Monday, September 29, 2014

Netanyahu's Speech Today At UN About Iran (Persia)

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

                           Ali Khamenei (1939-Present) age 75, 2nd and Supreme Ruler of Iran

Jews have had 2,400 years of history with the Persians, who are today's Iranians.  Are the Americans, led by John Kerry,  going to make concessions with Iran that will put Israel in harm's way?  What Iran wants to do most, as they have so often expressed themselves, is to be the ones to destroy Israel.  One must not take this as brazen rhetoric.  They are being very straight with this warning.  It's one thing that Muslims are expected to do; give warnings before they strike.  They want to put atomic weapons on missiles and hit Israel with them.  Netanyahu keeps on warning the world every year at the UN where many leave their seats empty instead of listening to him.  Today there was clapping, however, mainly from the left side of the room.

First, the Assyrians had attacked Israel in 721 BCE and had carried off slaves consisting of 10 of the 12 tribes.  Judah, the southerly kingdom which had divided itself from Israel, was able to stop the Assyrians in 701 BCE at the walls of Jerusalem, but the city and state succumbed to the Babylonians in 586 and large numbers of Jews were deported.

  For the next 2 centuries, both these Jews in exile in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and in their homeland living in Israel and Judah, though Judah 's last king, Zedekiah, died in 586 BCE, were now under Persian (Iran) rule.
It was while under Persian rule that their king Cyrus  encouraged the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE.  Many left to do that but many also stayed.  In many  Persian provinces, there existed local autonomy for these Jews.
                                                                     
Living under Persian rule meant that there was a lot of movement of populations from one part of this area to another.  In the Book of Esther we see that Jews were living throughout  the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire, so they were numerous and had influence in the capital of Susa (Shusha) at this time. So about from the 4th century BCE and onwards, Jews lived in considerable numbers in Persia proper as they continued to do when the area was controlled by Parthia from 250 BCE onward.  In the story of Esther, Haman, the chief adviser of King Ahashueros, wanted to kill all the Jews in the kingdom because he didn't like them.  Esther was married to the king and unknown to the king, was Jewish.  Through her, Haman's plot was stopped.  Otherwise it would have been a Holocaust.

It wasn't until the Arabs conquered Persia in 641 and 642 CE and introduced Islam that this country became Islamic.  The Mongols invaded and ruled the land during which Jewish life had its ups and downs from the 13th to 15th centuries.  Persian independence was back in vogue in 1499 under the Safavid dynasty.  The Shi'ite form of Islam from then on became dominant, and was highly intolerant in theory and practice.  The Jews were then treated worse than in other parts of the Moslem world.  All manner of restrictions were being enforced, and in the 17th century, there were widespread persecutions and forced conversions, particularly in Isfahan.
                                                                             
                                                    Nadir Shah (1687 to 1747) Ruled Persia for 11 years

Things got better in the 17th century under Nadir Shah (1736-1737) who tried to create a new religious synthesis. He was descended from the Afshars, a tribe of Tartars who were subservient to the indigenous high-ranking Persians.   He created a Jewish community at his new capital of Meshed where they had previously been excluded.  When he died, Shiite intolerance became supreme again.

Skipping again to this generation, from the 1960s to 1970s, many Jews moved from the provinces to Teheran, the capital.  They emigrated in 1948 when Israel was created.  The Khamenei revolution in 1978 did not persecute Jews, but many felt uncomfortable under the strict Islamic regime and left for Israel and the west.  The Jews had numbered 80,000 in 1978 and then in 1989 the number went down to 20,000.  Things must have been pretty bad for them, because my cousin's husband escaped from Iran on a camel as a teen ager with a group of other boys.  He eventually, after going to Europe, got to the USA and became a doctor.
                                                                             
The last Shah of Iran was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was overthrown and left in 1979.  He gave amnesty to Ayatollah Khomenei.  Pahlavi's son, Prince Reza,  has asked Netanyahu not to bomb Iran but to help the opposition, instead.  "From his home in Washington, he said  that bombing Iran would play into the hands of the regime. Instead, he appealed for help saying the Jewish state should put its “technological, financial and other resources at our disposal.”

Pahlavi’s father, the late Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, had close ties to Israel before he was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The clerical hierarchy is now headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pictured above.  

Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at the UN included the danger coming from Iran for not only Israel but for the rest of the world.  Iran's ideology is that they are of the Master Faith and that their fellow Sunni Muslims in the world are infidels.  In their government they have the Revolutionary Guards who practice terrorism.  They are out for an Islamic World Government just like IS is trying to create.

The biggest problem they present to the world is that of building atomic weapons.  There are 2 months of extended talks left to go to decide on certain issues that are either allowable or not to keep the world safe from their possible harm.

At the UN, "The 15-nation council voted 12 to 2, with one abstention, to approve a resolution that also freezes the assets of 40 companies, banks and government agencies, and bars the foreign travel of Javad Rahiqi, head of a branch of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Turkey and Brazil voted against it with Lebanon abstaining. "  "United Nations sanctions on Iran adopted yesterday by theSecurity Council include restrictions on financial transactions, a tighter arms embargo and authority to seize cargo linked to nuclear or missile programs."

The USA, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany are working on ways that Iran could keep its installed base of uranium enrichment centrifuges while disconnection some of their plumbing.  This isn't going to satisfy the nations most worried about them in the Middle East.  They might come up with the worst agreement for the countries that need to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  To avoid a Persian trap, this committee must slow down their concessions to Tehran and not be so eager to please.  They must gear the overall progress in the talks to supporting the IAEA in its efforts to resolve questions related to the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program.  This is a life and death situation that may never have a chance to be resolved if the deal doesn't protect the world from destruction.  

Re: The New Jewish Encyclopedia
CNN Newscast 9/29/2014 Netanyahu Speaking at UN
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-09/iran-sanctions-approved-in-un-council-vote-turkey-brazil-opposed-measure.html
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/09/28/west_desperate_the_iran_nuclear_talks
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Nadir_Shah.aspx
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1442787/jewish/The-Jews-of-Iran.htm
http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=590


3 comments:

  1. It is hard to believe that as the US attacks ISIS in Syria, it is still funding the Palestinian Authority as it stands in unity with Hamas. Today Netanyahu made the comparison of IS and Hamas being from the same branch. They are both terrorists.

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  2. Netanyahu must wonder what the US agenda is over Israel. Looking from the other side of the world it seems as if the US wants to please both sides. My mother is 92 years old and first the first time ever she has said a third world war is on the way.
    I hope she is wrong and that the western powers realize the danger of sitting on the fence, trying to please all. The Bible prophecy tells us that in the end days Christians and Jews will face mass destruction. But by who? you need to know who is your enemy, listen to who is calling for your destruction ?

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  3. I think Netanyahu has a pretty good idea of how Obama feels about Israel from working with him. I think you've got it right. That's just what Obama is doing; trying to please both sides. That is the Christian and Muslim religious teaching about the end of the world. We Jews don't see it exactly happening that way. I wrote an article about the 3 views in one of my blogs. The way things are right now, though, Israel has great reason to believe that Iran is trying to wipe them out. With atomic energy such as a missile/bomb it's more than possible. Israel is very tiny.

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