The State of the Jews

There’s a lot of talk lately about a few Iranian nuclear scientists who may have defected – or who had defection thrust upon them – to the US.

The Iranian regime-run website Tabnak quotes Asharq Alawsat (cleaned up translation):

Asharq Alawsat quoted Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying, “We will present our complaint regarding the kidnapping of our nuclear scientists to international organizations.”

The London-based Arab newspaper added: “Mottaki believes that the four Iranian nuclear experts have been kidnapped and that they are presently being held by the US in a country of the US’s choosing.” Based on the report, an individual by the name of Shahram Amiri is believed by Mottaki to have been kidnapped last month in Saudi Arabia and so far has not been heard from.

Mottaki also claims that Alireza Asgari, former deputy defense minister, was also kidnapped in Turkey. The third individual, known only as Ardebili, is said to have been kidnapped in Georgia. The fourth nuclear scientist allegedly kidnapped is Nasrollah Tajik, the former Iranian ambassador to the UK.

Asharq Alawsat also claims that these four were the source for the discovery by Western intelligence of the second uranium enrichment installation near Qom, and that the Islamic Republic is extremely upset by this development. Though the news of Shahram Amiri’s kidnapping has been previously discussed by a Mottaki spokesman, it is the first time anything has been publicized about Ardebili.

On September 8, the Kayhan news service quoted the government-controlled Press TV about one of the missing scientists:

Saudis Not Cooperative on Missing Pilgrim

TEHRAN (Press TV) – Iran said on Monday that it has not received any clear response from Saudi Arabia’s officials regarding a missing Iranian pilgrim.
“We have provided Saudi Arabia’s police, security officials and Hajj Organization with all information and documents regarding the pilgrim (Shahram Amiri) who went missing in the Saudi land,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.
“But, we have not received any clear response from Saudi Arabia’s officials regarding the case,” he went on to say.

And finally, Meir Javedanfar wondered yesterday about the significance of these media stories:

In the current war of intelligence between Iran and West, distinguishing between rumors and real genuine breakthroughs is sometimes difficult. The case of Mr. Amiri and Ardebili are a perfect example. The West could have scored major victories, if they are nuclear scientists. However at the same time, it may at the end be proved that both were innocent cases which received excessive media coverage.

If you read this blog, then you’re newsy enough to have seen the report that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might have been born Jewish.

As the Telegraph reported yesterday:

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

So what to make of it? Does it matter that Ahmadinejad, who wants to destroy the last major Jewish enclave in the Eastern Hemisphere in the name of his Shi’ite messianism, was born a Jew?

In my opinion – not at all.

It isn’t Ahmadinejad’s possible hidden Jewish past that matters, but the fact that he must hide it. It isn’t the father’s alleged abandonment of Judaism that matters, but the son’s plan to murder the rest of them. If Ahmadinejad is Jewish, the significance is not his personal psycho-drama, but the baggage that the word “Jew” carries in his world and in large swaths of the Muslim world generally.

A day after the Telegraph report on Ahmadinejad, Pakistan Daily, an English-language Pakistani paper, published another Muslim-who-is-really-Jewish story about the Saudi royal family. The paper blames Saudi oppression on the secret history of the Saudi family, which it claims descended from a murderous, cheating Jew who usurped the legitimate tribal leaders of the Arabian peninsula through lies. Wahhabism itself, the paper claims, is a Jewish invention.

Give it a read. It’s a real hoot:

Their hideous Jewish family has, in fact, done all that kind of atrocities in the name of their false religious sect (the Wahabi), which has actually been invented by a Jew so as to sow the seeds of terror in the hearts if people in towns and villages. This Jewish Dynasty has been committing such brutal atrocities ever since 1163 A.H. They have named the whole Arabian Peninsula after their family name (Saudi Arabia) as if the whole region is their own personal real estate, and that all other inhabitants are their mere servants or slaves, toiling day and night for the pleasure of their masters (The Saudi Family.)

…

That was and still is the system of this regime of the Jewish family) (Saudi Family). All its goals are: plundering the wealth of the country, robbing, falsifying, and committing all kinds of atrocity, iniquity, and blasphemy-all are executed in compliance with their self invented Wahabi Sect which legalizes the chopping of the heads of their opposing subjects.