Iran's Jews reject Israeli Bribes

Israel and its allies reacted with predictable fury to the International Conference on the Holocaust, held in Tehran in December 2006. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was already hated in Israel for his uncompromising defiance of Zionist imperialism, but his decision to host the conference was striking at the very heart of the myth which has sustained Israel for more than half a century.

President Ahmadinejad was thus confirmed as Zionism's 'Public Enemy Number One'.

His challenge to the historical basis of the Auschwitz gas chamber story, regarded by Israel as the "holy of holies", led to the Iranian President being accused of plotting a new "Holocaust".

Zionist demonstration explicitly links Iranian defence
policy to the alleged "Holocaust"

The biggest problem for Israel's campaign of slander against Iran has always been the existence of a 25,000-strong Jewish minority within Iran - the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside Israel - which has a Jewish MP in the Iranian Parliament and has never complained of persecution.

Following the Tehran Conference, Israel attempted to resolve this propaganda problem in its traditional manner, through buying the loyalty of Iran's Jews.

A special fund was established by wealthy Jews - encouraged by the Israeli government - which offered Iranian Jews £2,500 each to resettle in Israel, in addition to the standard package of financial assistance which Israel offers to all Jews "returning" to their promised land.

When this failed to attract a single Iranian Jew, the offer was doubled to £5,000 per person, or £30,000 per family. A special internet site was set up in Farsi to publicise the bribes, which were also broadcast on Israeli Radio's Farsi language service.

A report in the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv (originally in Hebrew and only for an Israeli readership but fortunately available in translation at this US Jewish website) admitted that:
Israel is trying to find new ways of encouraging immigration from Iran in the wake of a lack of desire on the part of thousands of Iranian Jews to leave.

The Ma'ariv report also acknowledged that:
According to reports, many of [the Iranian Jews] are comfortably off and free to practise their religion and provide religious education for their children. Given that, most are not interested in leaving Iran.

Yet again the offer has been contemptuously rejected. The Society of Iranian Jews said:

The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money. Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran's Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.

Iran's Jewish MP Maurice Motamed echoed these sentiments and condemned the attempted bribe:

Iranian Jewish MP Maurice Motamed

It suggests the Iranian Jew can be encouraged to emigrate by money. Iran's Jews have always been free to emigrate and three-quarters of them did so after the revolution but 70% of those went to America, not Israel.

Kosher butcher Hersal Gabriel told the BBC:

Whatever they say abroad is lies - we are comfortable in Iran - if you're not political and don't bother them then they won't bother you.

The freedom and security of Iran's Jews contrasts with the persecution of any Jew in the supposedly free West who dares to speak out against Zionism.

The most notable recent victims of such persecution are the rabbis of Neturei Karta, who dared to attend the 2006 Tehran Conference. In January this year Neturei Karta's New York headquarters was destroyed by fire, while its representatives in Europe have been subjected to repeated vandalism and harassment.

Neturei Karta demonstrates against Israel (above);
resulting in the destruction of the group's New York headquarters (below)

Elsewhere on this site Jewish jazz musician Gilad Atzmon contrasts the statesmanship of President Ahmadinejad with the warmongering of Blair and Bush.

While the appointment of Tony Blair as peace envoy for the Palestine "road map" is discussed here.