8 March 2012,
Dear Editor,
This is with respect to the ad/article published in your publication which compared Ahmadinejad to an Iranian King, while distorting the historic facts.
The Name of King Ahasuers, only appears in the mythic stories that was compiled by a Roman story writer and has no archeological or historical bases. The Old and New Testament has different relation to the Ahakhamenid and Iranian dynasties. This name has nothing to do with real Persian script that refers to the King Xerxes that appears in Old Persian history pronounced as Xšayarša.
Islamic republic of Ayatollahs is not comparable to any part of Iran’s history back into 2500 years. Purim is a tradition, a story that has no archeological proven fact. Most experts believe it was a Hellenistic novel written by someone familiar with Persian Court System.
The current issues of 2012, or some unresolved diplomatic problems, whatsoever, does not concern Iranians as whole, with their past history. Thus every nation may have some good or bad manners in short period of time.
Pre-Islamic Iran always had strong relations with Jewish communities as early as 9th Centuries Before Christ.
Cyrus the Great sealed that good relationship with his famous human civil rights decree and subsequent kings followed his path. Jews were often used as buffers against Arab invaders. The Jews were settled in Achamenid Military forts as well as part of Iranian foreign policies.
"The famous 1st century Jewish sage Rashbi, forced to go into hiding for criticizing the Romans, said "if a man saw a Parthian (Ashkanian) horse tethered to a gravestone in Palestine, he should listen for the footsteps of the Messiah."
Also Khosrow II Parviz conquered Jerusalem in 614 (when he also took the True Cross) and for a period of time there was a Sasanid Jewish Commonwealth created because of Iranians. Prior to that, the Romans had crushed Jewish rebellion in the region abolishing their hegemony.
The same is thought in most American and international universities.
The historic assistance of Iranians toward Jewish communities does not end in first century or 2000 years ago.
During WW II an Iranian Charge D’ Affair, residing in the Iranian Embassy Paris, France, issued Iranian passports to over 1000 of Jewish families, so they could escape from Nazi German Auschwitz.
During infamous Arab-Israel conflict back in 1973, where All Arab Oil producing countries banned business with the state of Israel only King of Iran (Shahanshah), despite being member of OPEC, decided selling OIL to the state of Israel. That endangered Iran in neighboring borders with Arabs and other fundamentalist Muslims states.
Such insulting, untrue advertisements, based on hatred, cannot be justified where as some Jewish communities may are mixed-up, and confused with a bunch of irresponsible states man occupying Iran’s governmental seats at the present time.
This Regime of Ayatollahs is not permanent, they are the result of some kind of International conspiracy, and their time is up, they will be over throne by the people of Iran, such temporary episode should not ruin over 3000 years of Iranian-Jewish relations.
It is not right approach if one comparied Mr. Benguiron with Al-Qaeda leader, Osame Ben Laden, thus that would be comparaison between Apple and Orange.
We in the Iranian community, think that your paper and the organization owes an apology to the entire Iranian nation.
Although the article is published as an ADVERTISEMENT, but where is the faire journalistic ethic? Therefore, please publish this short information to rectify the wrong doing.
Iranians around the world
CC: Minister of Foreign Affairs- Jerusalem/Tel Aviv
CC: Minister of Foreign Affairs- Ottawa, Canada
CC: Bnai Brith
CC: winnipegjewishreview
CC: Radio Israel
CC: White House, Canada PM, and some over 30,000 more recipients
Editor: I agree with you that there certainly have been times in recent history when the State of Israel and Iran were on much friendlier terms i.e. before the fall of the Shah of Iran. And you are also correct that Iran sold oil to Israel. There have also been significant periods of positive relations between Iranians and Jews. Let us hope that those days will return again soon.
In fact, I am in the middle of reading Michael Totten’s prize winning new book "The Road to Fatima Gate", where he writes as follows ( pp101-102):
"Virulent hatred of Jews was never a strong force in Persion culture. Before Khomeini overthrew him, the Shah had excellent relations with Jerusalem. And why shouldn’t he? Most Persians,just like most Kurds, were reluctant to side with their ancient Arab foes against Israel or anyone else. The Arab-Israeli conflict after all, was between Arabs and Israelis, not Mulims and Israelis. It was also more specifically, a conflict between Sunni Arabs and Israelis.
"The Islamic Republic did their damnest to change this, no doubt for sincere reasons, but also becasue it served them stratigically. They wished to be hegemons of the whole Muslim world, and they couldn’t achieve that without first dominating the Arab world of the Middl eEast. That wouldn’t be possible if they were allies with Israel. Iran’s alliance was a serious liability and had to be scrapped…
"The Iranian message to the Arabs, Amir Taheri explained in his book The Persian Night, was straightforward. "Forget tht Iran is Shia, and remember that today it is the only poer capable of realizing your most cherished dream, the destruction of Israel…
"…The Iranians needed credibility with Sunny Arabs if they wished to lead the Middle East ..