July 03 , 2009
Israel and Iran: Tyrants Cling to Power
In Israel and Iran in the last week, the tyrants have roared their refusal to free the people they have held captive for decades. Netanyahu in Israel, and Khamenei in Iran, have both signaled that no real change will occur under their regimes, despite the demands of justice and the public opinion of the rest of mankind.
First with Netanyahu, the current Israeli Prime Minister. Some may find my casting him as a tyrant a bit off, as he is the elected Prime Minister of Israel. But it is not the Israelis that are subject to his tyranny, it is the Palestinians. Almost 5 million Palestinians are subject to Israeli rule, and they have been for over 40 years. 1.2 million live as second-class citizens of Israel, with outrageous restrictions on their ability to live and work where they choose, a system much akin to the oppression of blacks in the American South before 1965. Palestinian-Israelis are denied an equal share in government services, and they are also denied educational opportunities equal to Jewish Israelis. There is also a “gentlemen’s agreement” that bars Palestinian-Israelis from ever having a meaningful role in the government that rules them. But at least they have an Israeli passport and citizenship.
For the rest of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, aggregating 3.5 million, their lives have the legal status of slaves. They can be killed at any time under the pretext of Israeli national security. Hundreds were just recently murdered by the Israeli Army during its attack on Gaza, and their families have no legal recourse for their loss. Palestinian property can also be confiscated at any time. Many Israeli colonies (settlements) are built on stolen private Palestinian land. The Palestinians can build no institutions, conclude no treaties, create no trade links, and do nothing at all without the approval of the Israelis, which is never granted. They are living in a state that no other people on the planet are subjected to, which is why the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians is so uniquely intolerable. Add to that, it is paid for by our tax dollars.
There is no question that Israel operates a tyranny, and the chief tyrant, in response to American pressure, has totally rejected any possibility of peace. He completely refused to end the building of colonies, insisted that Jerusalem will always be totally Israeli-controlled, including East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods, and the Dome of the Rock, and the Al-Aqsa mosque. He also refused to negotiate unless the Palestinians recognize that Israel is the “Jewish state”. Why do the Israelis need the Palestinians to describe what Israel is or is not? And why should anyone in their right mind declare a state that is 22% non-Jewish, a “Jewish state”? It would be like demanding that Iran recognize America as a “White state” or a “Christian state”. These sorts of bizarre demands show quite clearly that Netanyahu, while mouthing the phrase “Palestinian state”, has no interest in anything other than maintaining the tyrannical subjugation of the Palestinians in perpetuity. While he has bowed to Obama’s demand to accept the idea of two states, in reality, Netanyahu has made clear his real goal. He intends to buy off Obama’s pressure with minimal rhetorical moves, while cranking up the bulldozers, destroying the lives and hopes of the Palestinians, and ensuring the expansion of Israel permanently into the West Bank.
In Iran, the election of the President was marred by massive vote-rigging. The hardline clerical regime, led by Ayatollah Khamenei, simply could not accept the defeat of their standard-bearer Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Mir Hossein Moussavi should have won the election, and the blatant stealing of the vote has led to an earthquake of mostly peaceful protest within Iran.
Moussavi was not a radical reformer by any means. The real liberals were not even allowed to run for election as the Islamic Republic of Iran prevents anyone from being on the ballot it does not approve of. But Moussavi was more liberal than Ahmedinejad, and the voters went for him as a way of registering their protest. When the regime nullified even that with vote-rigging, it ended up further alienating the people.
At this writing, the Iranian regime is using its heavy hand to bring the protests to an end. It will likely succeed. When a powerful and oil-rich government seeks to crush and buy off popular anger, it almost always succeeds. But it will come at the cost of a further drop in the legitimacy of the clerical rule that Iran has. Not now, but in perhaps 5 or 10 or 15 years, people will see this stolen election as the spark that pushed the system to ultimately change.
To overthrow the Shah, thousands had to die at the hands of his security forces. Estimates are that 30,000 people were killed as part of the revolution of 1978-1979. At that point, the Iranian security forces were just not willing to escalate their violence and shoot dead tens of thousands to keep the Shah in power. The current system has only killed 20 or so in the street. Are thousands of demonstrators willing to die? And how many dead would it take for the Iranian security forces to stop following orders to shoot?
If there will be a big change in Iran’s power structure it will not come from the street, but from within the clerical establishment. There needs to be a Gorbachev-like figure, someone with a reformist vision but with real power within the system to force change. There are many within the clerical community that are unhappy with the current situation, but will there be an internal clerical coup? This I see as the only real way for change to come to Iran. Comments can reach me at nali@socal.rr.com.
