Monday, March 1, 2010

A Very Long Tale

Yesterday was Purim (in Jerusalem it's today). Purim, Judaism's jolliest holiday, starts from the story of Esther, queen to Ahasveros who may or may not have been Artaxerxes, and tells of a foiled plot to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire. There are various morals to the story, but the historical one is that the Jews and Persians go back a l-o-o-on-g way even if nowadays the Persians call themselves Iranians. Centuries before the Europeans ever met their first Jews, and more than a thousand years before the Arabs burst out of Arabia onto the world stage, the Jews and Persians were deep into their ups-and-down relationship.

Also yesterday, Purim, Ahmadinejad announced (again) that the Jews are the source of all evil:
"Supporters of the Zionist regime who are shouting slogans of human rights and anti-terrorism support systematic crimes of the occupying regime," Ahmadinejad said, adding that "everybody knows that the regime is seeking hegemony over the world." Israel is the "origin of all the wars, genocide, terror and crimes against humanity," he said, and a "racist group not respecting the human principles," IRNA reported. "With God's grace and thanks to the Palestinian resistance, the occupying Zionist regime has lost its raison d'etre," Ahmadinejad said. "The only way to confront them is through the Palestinian youths' resistance, and that of the regional nations."
Look's like we're in a "down" right now.

4 comments:

Barry Meislin said...

Lost its raison d'etre...

Sounds not that different from those friends of Israel (God bless them) who believe that Israel must be saved from itself....before it's too late!!!

Presumably, therefore, Ahmadinejad is also a friend of Israel....?

(And Israel, in her current state, can't have too many friends....or did I miss something, here?....)

Whatever...Happy (Shushan) Purim!!

Anonymous said...

how can you trust the Iranians' translations ...

- wait till our German super-linguists will have dealt with it - no doubt they will get all excited that A'jad attacks only the regime and not the people (and surely nobody with a sane mind can approve of your "regime" ;-)))

Last but not least people who fear that the Palestinian youths might get "a bit" out of hand when the "regime" does no longer restrain them, suffer undoubtedly from persecution complexes exaggerating vastly the dangers from stone throwing and rocket shops.

BTW those who argue like that are the exactly same people who would scold their own and any kids mercilessly if they ever caught them throwing stones in the approximate direction of a living being or trying to do research and/or improvements on fireworks.

Silke

Avigdor said...

Silke, you're indispensable :)

Anonymous said...

"thanks to the Palestinian resistance, the occupying Zionist regime has lost its raison d'etre"

Sometimes I feel like the Palestinian resistance is one of the most Jewish unifying forces that exist. Their leadership never fails to remind us that there are people who hate Jews just because they are Jews. Their attacks remind us we need a Jewish State to protect Jews.

Nycerbarb