NYT's Roger Cohen Betrays Iranian Jews and the Truth

Mike Wallace's Disciple?

The New York Times columnist Roger Cohen’s continues to defend a series of columns he wrote over the last month on Iranian Jewry and how well the Iranian government treated him and the Jews he met. ["I'm a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran."] Even after meeting in Los Angeles last week with Iranian Jews who fled persecution in Iran and whose relatives were executed, Cohen argues, "Just how repressive life is for Iran's Jews is impossible to know."

His whitewash of Iranian intolerance of Jews and hatred for Israel actually has unfortunate precedence in the annals of American journalism. After visiting the Jews of Syria in 1975, CBS’ Mike Wallace reported on 60 Minutes that Jews were subject to special surveillance and restrictions, but “having said that all,” he continued, “it must be added that today life for Syria’s Jews is better than it was in years past.” Wallace also met with local Syrian Jews who claimed that assertions of mistreatment were mere “Zionist propaganda.”

In the case of Syrian Jews, almost the entire community of 4,500 subsequently fled the country.

Wallace also reported on Soviet Jews in 1987 and concluded, “One and a half million Soviets identified as Jews apparently live more or less satisfying lives.” Of course, more than a million Jews disagreed and emigrated the first chance they had. Wallace’s apparent motives were to swim against the currents of anti-Soviet and anti-Syrian attitudes in the U.S. in those times.

What is Cohen’s purpose in trying to kasher Iranian intolerance today? He explains that he seeks to mollify the concerns the West has over Iran's nuclear program and its leadership's call for Israel's destruction. "The hawks' case against Iran," Cohen claims, "depends on a vision of an apocalyptic regime — with no sense of its limitations — so frenziedly anti-Semitic that it would accept inevitable nuclear annihilation if it can destroy Israel first."

So Cohen is out to portray the Iranians as philo-Semitic.

Perhaps he should have read the State Department’s 2008 Report on International Religious Freedom which states:

“While the [Iranian] Government recognizes Judaism as an official religious minority, the country's Jewish community experienced official discrimination…. There was a rise in officially sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda involving official statements, media outlets, publications, and books. The Government's anti-Semitic rhetoric, along with a perception among radical Muslims that all Jewish citizens of the country support Zionism and the state of Israel, continued to create a hostile atmosphere for Jews. The rhetorical attacks also further blurred the line between Zionism, Judaism, and Israel and contributed to increased concerns about the future security of the Jewish community…. Anti-American and anti-Israeli demonstrations included the denunciation of Jews, as opposed to the past practice of denouncing only ‘Israel’ and ‘Zionism,’ adding to the threatening atmosphere for the community. Jewish community members continued to emigrate, partially due to continued anti-Semitism by the Government and within society."

From the 2008 State Department Human Rights Report: "The Iranian-American Jewish Federation reported that 11 Jewish men who disappeared in 1994 and 1997 remained missing. In 2007 witnesses claimed they saw some of the men in Evin Prison."

International protests against Soviet and Syrian treatment of Jews helped relax draconian restrictions and eventually secured their freedom. If there is no similar public call to save Iranian Jews today it is because of a fear that the Iranian government will use them as pawns. Cohen’s naïve portrait of life for the Jews of Iran plays into the Ayatollahs' hands and may actually endanger their lives and worsen their plight.

Recommended reading: Roger L. Simon's account of the Cohen meeting with Iranian Jews in Los Angeles.

Sphere: Related Content

Syria Is Key to Returning Israel's POWs and MIAs How Syria Can Get a Discount Ticket to International Legitimacy

Even as State Department and National Security Council officials were paving a new path to Damascus last week for “preliminary conversations” with the Syrian government, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Gregory Schulte, was warning of “growing evidence of clandestine nuclear activities in Syria."

Recently, some analysts and policymakers expressed the belief that engaging Syria’s President Bashir Assad could almost magically delink Syria from Iran, halt Syria’s assistance to Hamas and Hizbullah, and help bring the dawn of a regional peace in the Middle East. At the same time, however, there was a reminder of why Syria landed on the axis of evil membership list when an international tribunal convened in The Hague on March 1 to deliberate the evidence surrounding the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Top Syrian officials, including some close to President Assad, are believed to be involved in the plot.

Despite all the pollyannish rhetoric and analysis, it is correct and responsible to be skeptical of Syria’s leadership and their activities. And Israeli leaders and voters are very skeptical. After all, Hamas headquarters are located in Damascus, Hizbullah’s thousands of rockets and missiles are manufactured in Syria or transported through Syria from Iran, and Syria maintains an arsenal of long-range Scud missiles, many believed to be armed with poison gas warheads. International experts no longer doubt that a clandestine nuclear facility was under final stages of construction when it was destroyed by Israeli bombers.

But there is one way for President Bashir Assad to dissipate Israel’s mistrust, and it does not require the monumental Sadatian step of journeying to Jerusalem to declare an end of war. Syria can clarify the status of Israeli soldiers who are missing in action and believed by some to be sitting in Syrian prison cells.

Tzvi Feldman, Zachary Baumel and Yehudah Katz (from left to right) were soldiers missing in action after the June 1982 Sultan Yaqub battle with Syrian tanks in Lebanon. Various reports, including some quoting Syrian officials, suggest that they may still be alive 27 years later. Baumel was also an American citizen.

Guy Hever (right)was stationed at an Israeli base on the Golan Heights, near the Syrian frontier. In 1997 he disappeared, and no trace has been found. Did Syrian commandos grab him? Did he wander into Syrian territory?

Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad (pictured left) was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was captured by one of the Lebanese militias and reportedly “sold” to the Iranians. In those days, grass didn’t grow in Lebanon without Syrian approval. At some point, Ron Arad passed through Syrian hands and territory.

Gilad Shalit (right) has been held by Gazan militia forces for almost three years. Ostensibly, Hamas – not Syria – is responsible for his fate. But with Hamas headquarters located in Damascus, Syrian security forces have the ability to “encourage” Hamas to release the Israeli soldier.

Is there any chance that Israeli soldiers are still alive 10 or 25 years after their capture? Yes. Dictatorships are notorious for their decades-long imprisonment of POWs. In 1996 the Pentagon was still analyzing reports of American POWs held in North Korea since the Korean War. In 1998 Iran released some 5,600 Iraqis, many held for more than 15 years after their capture in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war. Iraq released some 380 POWs in exchange, including an Iranian pilot shot down at the start of the war.

If the Israeli MIAs are dead, then Syria could provide details to their families and begin the process of repatriating their bodies for burial. The Israeli nation would immediately take note of these steps. All of the American and French diplomats making pilgrimages to Assad should move the issue of MIAs/POWs higher on their priority list. There is probably no greater confidence-building step that Syria can take at this time.

Sphere: Related Content

Gaza and NATO’s Guidelines on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

The Rules 41 Nations Are Supposed to Abide By

“Militants deliberately target innocent civilians and it is they who must be held responsible. Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed. Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.”

The above quote is not from the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman’s office in the aftermath of the Gaza operation. It appears in an unclassified NATO document drafted in October 2008, available on the Internet. It is fascinating reading, and indicates that NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has to deal with the same kind of problems Israel faced in Gaza. But in the case of Afghanistan, various members of the media and the NGO community do not work in tandem with the Taliban to demonize NATO and ISAF. [Pictured: ISAF soldiers on the left; IDF soldiers right]

Entitled, “NATO in Afghanistan – Master Narrative,“ the document was prepared for spokesmen “who play a part in explaining the situation in Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force.” That force consists of some 56,000 soldiers from 41 nations.

Here are excerpts from the NATO/ISAF document:

* Militants deliberately target innocent civilians with suicide attacks and IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

* Militants forcefully oppose efforts to improve the life of the Afghan people and it is they who must be held responsible for bringing violence to the Afghan people.

* Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed by NATO/ISAF or coalition forces in order to undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the International Community.

* Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.

* Militants want civilians caught up in the fighting, because they think this will undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the international community and weaken the legitimate Afghan government.

* Civilian deaths caused by militants have escalated significantly, reflecting their increasing use of indiscriminate tactics such as suicide bombs and IEDs.

* ISAF Troop Contributing Nations make every effort to minimize the risk of any damage, injury or loss of life to civilians in the course of their operations in Afghanistan. However, ISAF reserves the right to protect its own personnel.

1. Airpower in Afghanistan is used:

- in support of ground forces, with specific need and in specific situations
on positively identified enemy firing positions

- upon request and approval by the ground commander.

2. Airpower is vital to the defence of Afghanistan because:

- it provides speed, maneuverability and range
- the terrain impedes maneuver of troops and supplies
- the remoteness of locations hampers the use of ground forces
- it provides the most precise power projection available.

3. Airpower is employed by ISAF under the strictest possible restrictions—if there is any reason to believe there are civilians present a strike will not occur.

Some Perspective Is Needed

In August 2008, an American C-130 gunship attacked a site in Azizabad believed to be the hideout of a Taliban leader and his men. The Pentagon announced that five civilians were killed, but subsequently, "an investigation by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that some 90 civilians, including 60 children, were among those killed during military operations in the strife-torn nation’s western Herat province.”

In July 2008, an air strike on a wedding party in Afghanistan left 47 dead including 30 children, according to the UN. In November 2008, an air strike in Kandahar Province killed some 35 civilians and injured a further 37. Some 2,100 civilians were killed last year, many at the hands of the Taliban and others because of errant bombs.

War is hell wherever it takes place, and innocent civilians are tragically killed. The “good guys” make the utmost effort to minimize the suffering of innocents.

Israel already demands of its army the highest standards to protect civilians in enemy territory. How well do the 41 nations in the Afghanistan force stand up to their standards? At the very least they should understand what Israel faced – and may face again -- in Gaza.

Sphere: Related Content

The Palestinians Should Get a State, But Do They Deserve One? Not Yet

Why Secretary Hillary Clinton Didn’t See What I Saw

I spent one day in 1996 in Ramallah visiting the nascent Palestinian state. I traveled the few miles from Jerusalem to Ramallah with a colleague to attend a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) – the Palestinian parliament. It was soon after the Palestinian elections, and the scene in the Ramallah parliament was effervescent. Lobbyists were busy plying their trade in the hallways. MPs were jumping up to object to one point or another. And my translator – the daughter of a moderate PLO official stationed in Europe who was assassinated by radical Palestinians – was practically shaking with excitement. The elected body (yes, it was stacked with many of Arafat’s hand-picked candidates) was debating civil service reform, and members kept referring with approval to how things were done “over there.” It was understood by all they were talking about Israel.

Those were the days. And they may never return.

The language of the debate in the PLC was different but the sense of democracy at work reminded me of the debates in the Knesset or the discussions in the corridor outside of the House of Representatives cloakroom.

At that point in history, the close contact between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza was almost 30 years old. Palestinian women’s groups had learned feminist culture from their Israeli sisters. Palestinian newspapers were publishing uncensored stories out of Jerusalem. Agricultural extension experts from Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture were working with their Palestinian counterparts to improve Palestinian agricultural and livestock yields.

Palestinian bankers, businessmen, doctors and nurses were studying Hebrew in the Israeli language school, Ulpan Akiva, so that they could apprentice in Israeli institutions in order to improve skills and facilitate joint projects. Fundamentalist Palestinian Gazans at the ulpan complained to me once that Israeli television broadcasts in Arabic were featuring clips of naked women to entice male viewers, so I introduced them to Israeli feminists so that they could together challenge the broadcast authorities. At the ulpan in Netanya I first met Dr. Ezzeldin Abu Elaish, the Gazan doctor who tragically lost three children during the Hamas-Israeli war in January.

We met with several Palestinian legislators in the Ramallah parliament building, including a young firebrand, Marwan Barghouti, the Secretary-General of Fatah. He was determined to fight Palestinian corruption and to push for independent Palestinian statehood. We thought that it was a positive sign that Barghouti was channeling his passions in the legislative body. But in 2002 Barghouti was arrested by Israeli troops as the mastermind of terrorist attacks against Israelis. He was convicted for the murder of four Israelis and one Greek Orthodox priest and is currently sitting in Israeli prison.

When Secretary of State Clinton travelled to Ramallah from Jerusalem last week she undoubtedly asked herself, “What went wrong?” What turned Barghouti into a murderer, or was he always a terrorist masquerading as a legislator? What evil force dispatched Palestinian suicide bombers into Israeli streets just a few years later? Why did Palestinian security forces, often trained by the CIA and armed by Israel, turn their guns on Israeli civilians and soldiers? What generated the winds of war that could only be blocked by the building of fences and walls separating Arabs and Jews? And now the Katyushas, Grads and Kassams fly over the fences by the thousands. Today, my meetings at Ulpan Akiva seem like fantasies, and in all honesty, I would not venture into Ramallah today for fear of being lynched as a Jew. That was the fate of two Israeli reservists who accidentally wandered into Ramallah four years after my visit.

What went wrong? Critics of Israel quickly respond that Ariel Sharon’s 2000 visit to the Temple Mount (Haram el Sharif to the Arabs) was the catalyst. But we know today that Arafat was planning the second “Intifada” months before Sharon’s visit, even as he met with President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak at Camp David in the summer of 2000. Some of Israel’s detractors would argue that the Israeli settlements led to Palestinian despair and violence. But settlements had existed since 1968; and already in 1997 Palestinian diplomats with whom I dealt were willing to cede 10 percent of the territories, including the settlements, to Israel.

The blame falls primarily on Arafat for poisoning the tentative but promising ties that were developing between Israel and the Palestinians. All cooperation was stopped after he arrived in Gaza in 1994. Local Palestinian leaders and heads of Palestinian government agencies were replaced by Arafat’s minions who accompanied him from Tunis. The “multilateral talks” established in the 1991 Madrid Conference to discuss the vital issues of water, environment, arms control, refugees and economic development were permanently shelved.

It became clear to American negotiators that Arafat was opposed to the two-state solution. “He was not interested or capable of doing an agreement that ended the conflict,” American negotiator Dennis Ross explained before Arafat’s departure from this world. “As long as [Arafat] didn’t have to make an irrevocable commitment, he was quite prepared to sign up to any agreement. Arafat is someone who will never close a door, never foreclose an option. He has to be able to say that he still has claims, still has grievances, and in light of that, the conflict at a certain level goes on....He doesn’t want to be the one that goes down in Palestinian history as the one who precluded a one-state solution [emphasis added].”

Frankly, the U.S. and Israel share some of the blame for covering up Arafat’s aggression. Palestinian newspapers, radio and TV amplified Arafat’s anti-Israeli line. The preachers in Palestinian mosques were appointed by Arafat and spewed forth anti-Semitism. And Palestinian children were poisoned by a toxic, anti-Semitic, bellicose curriculum even before Hamas gained its political power. While serving as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington in the late 1990s, I was instructed by Israel’s leaders not to circulate a video called Jihad for Kids, a frightening collection of anti-Semitic TV broadcasts recorded off of Palestinian TV. Israeli and American leaders did not want to endanger what remained of the peace process and chose to ignore the venomous pollution of the Palestinian grassroots.

Hillary Clinton came to realize the danger of the Palestinian incitement. While serving as Senator, she reviewed Palestinian propaganda and concluded in a Palestinian Media Watch press conference two years ago: “This propaganda is dangerous. You know, words really matter. Some people sort of downplay the importance of words. But words really matter. Because in idealizing for children a world without Israel, children are taught never to accept the reality of the State of Israel, never to strive for a better future that would hold out the promise of peace and security to them, and is basically a message of pessimism and fatalism that undermines the possibility for these children living lives of fulfillment and productivity.”

The United Nations Charter declared in 1945 that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” That declaration is the basis for many nations’ claim to statehood, including the Kurds, Chechens, Basques and the Palestinians.

Many Israelis believe that right of self-determination should apply to the Palestinians, and Israel proved itself ready to help the development of the Palestinians’ civil society toward that goal. But, after the Palestinians retreated from all forms of cooperation with Israel, choosing a path of confrontation leading to a judenrein one state solution, it was not surprising that a majority of Israelis signaled at the polls last month that they wanted leadership to put the brakes on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the near term. The UN Charter is applicable to “all people” as long as they do not seek the destruction of another. As long as the genocidal Hamas rules a large part of the Palestinian population and threatens to capture control of even more Palestinians in the West Bank and the teeming refugee camps of Lebanon, the Palestinian people will not deserve statehood.

The writer's visit to Ramallah took place when he headed the Jerusalem office of an American Jewish organization, not as an Israeli diplomatic official.

Sphere: Related Content