October 03, 2009
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past
Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat in The Daily Telegraph:
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.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.
Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 02:26 PM | Permalink
Comments
I'm sorry if this is utterly juvenile, but I can't help thinking of the Harry Potter series' Lord Voldemort...
Posted by: Erin | Oct 3, 2009 3:59:21 PM
Will Ahmadinejad /Sabourjian be allowed to migrate to Israel based on his ancestry, in case the Iranian elections are overturned and he finds life in Iran a bit uncomfortable?
Posted by: Ruchira | Oct 3, 2009 4:45:50 PM
Whereas Iran's Nuclear weapons program was well under way before Mr Ahmadinejad came into power, his anti-semitic rhetoric has highlighted it as never before, and have created a climate in which western powers feel compeled to act. Now everyone's going to believe he is a Mossad agent! But if he were, then why waive his pasport around? Complicated !
Posted by: aguy109 | Oct 3, 2009 4:48:38 PM
Ruchira: FTW
aguy109: FTW
A Tie!
Posted by: Carlos | Oct 3, 2009 5:00:33 PM
Well now we know his pathology includes self loathing. And according to his own beliefs, he doesn't have the right to exist.
Posted by: David Thall | Oct 3, 2009 5:45:36 PM
"his anti-semitic rhetoric has highlighted it as never before, and have created a climate in which western powers feel compeled to act"
So, these Sisters of Mercy, the Western powers, feel 'compelled' to act against Iran's nuclear program because of Ahmadinejad's anti-semitic remarks? Does that mean that if Ahmadinejad weren't the president of Iran then these nice western powers would let Iran pursue its nuclear aspirations in peace? You gotta be kidding me....
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 3, 2009 6:41:53 PM
I wonder about the logistics of pushing one's self into the sea.
Posted by: Phil Cantor | Oct 3, 2009 7:31:03 PM
Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Russian) and he are in the same club.
http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2006/07/inform_the_jewi.php
The Haaretz link is gone but I grabbed some of it for a post.
http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/07/vladimir-zhirinovskys-story-best.html
Posted by: John Ballard | Oct 3, 2009 8:50:54 PM
All this crap about his anti-antisemitism (foul and damnable as it is)
totally misses the geopolitical point.
One of the very few thinkers/social scientists in the world today who is able to see the forest above the incidental trivia is the great Immanuel Wallerstein.
He has published a recent op-ed peice in the New York Times;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/opinion/02iht-edwallerstein.html?hpw
Posted by: John Milton XIV | Oct 4, 2009 12:47:59 AM
Second opinion: according to well reputed experts from Israel's Farsi broadcasting service, his former family name Sabourjian is not Jewish at all and means "road sweeper", and no Jews have lived in Aradan for centuries. So this is probably a red herring.
Posted by: aguy109 | Oct 4, 2009 2:30:32 AM
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has NEVER said that israel should be "wiped off the map"!! It's amazing that a mis-translation of his comments have been eaten up by the western press and happily replayed by these buffoons in the media. If this world ends it will not end because of aggression or jingoism...rather because of an age that produced the dumbest, stupidest most uneducated group of people in the world- the ameriKKKan right wingers.
Posted by: Bob | Oct 4, 2009 2:37:59 AM
Ok, Bob. He said they should be pushed into the sea.
Posted by: william | Oct 4, 2009 7:37:44 AM
No, William...he didn't say any of that (and if anybody is being pushed into the sea, it's clearly the Palestinians). He has denied the Holocaust (which, if you ask me, is a pretty damnable thing to do, but it's not-or shouldn't be- a crime), but that's about it. He said the the Israeli state, in its present form 'should vanish', which I think anybody sincerely concerned for human rights should agree with. That our Western media is continually twisting what this man said without issuing a correction and repeating a false story just tells me how shitty our Western media is. His anti-semitism is being used as an excuse to deny Iran their nuclear aspirations by those who have plenty of nuclear bombs of their own, including Israel itself.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 8:56:33 AM
Ok, he didn't say any of that? Mr. Ahmadinejad DID say he wished Israel to be "wiped off the map" and, by your own words, the state "should vanish." It makes little difference, the derivations of his expressed death wish for Israel.
Posted by: william | Oct 4, 2009 10:52:52 AM
aguy 109: Do you have a link to the Israeli Farsi service's analysis? My co-blogger sent me a link to a 2005 Guardian story which confirms the name Sabourjian (another spelling) but makes no allusion to a Jewish heritage. However, the Guardian story too traces the roots of the name to weaving (thread painter) and not street sweeping. Do you think that Israel may not wish to acknowledge the Jewish ancestry of a man who is now the world's best known anti-Semite and that it may not all be a red herring?
Posted by: Ruchira | Oct 4, 2009 10:59:53 AM
Vanish as in 'not existing in its current form' (and possibly adapting another, fairer shape). Let's be clear, a state which labels itself a "jewish democracy' is by definition based on discrimination of other ethno-religious group. It corresponds more to the concept of "democracy" prevalent in the XIX century than to a democracy of our time. A state like that should 'vanish'. And I'm not even addressing its by now evident embrace of ethnic cleansing.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 1:57:03 PM
"Mr. Ahmadinejad DID say he wished Israel to be "wiped off the map""
Wrong. See above.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 1:58:21 PM
"http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html"
From well-known expert Juan Cole:
"Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini's determination and success in getting rid of the Shah's government, which Khomeini had said "must go" (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.
The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time."
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 2:02:11 PM
In the Kruschevian sense. As in Dustbin of history; we will bury you. That sort of thing. Certainly nothing ominous or threatening in any way.
Posted by: Carlos | Oct 4, 2009 3:36:44 PM
In any case, not worse than those who euphemistically say they will keep "all options open" when asked if they are planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Funny thing with history is that, as anybody with a little bit of acumen knows, those who yell the loudest about being threatened are those who commit the worse crimes and atrocities. Consider those who attacked Vietnam, Iraq and Palestine.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 4:08:36 PM
I'd rather consider Gengis, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, & Pol. They were complaining of being threatened?
Posted by: Carlos | Oct 4, 2009 5:17:28 PM
Why would you rather consider those? Apart from the fact that the cases I mentioned are all relatively recent, the human toll in Vietnam alone reached 4 million people. So, except for the discomfort that some might experience when confronted with the crimes committed by their own side, I really don't see the reason for bringing up somebody else's crimes.
Isn't it more damning when the crimes in question are perpetrated by entities that claim to be democratic? Arguably, the citizens of democratic states share much of the blame for what their elected officials do. I would expect that, out of simple decency they would just shut the fuck up and stop pointing fingers at others. But of course that will never happen.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 5:42:42 PM
Pepito,
You're obviously lying to yourself. You can't believe that Israel and the West are the cause of all this fighting. Let's make a list of where most of the action is: Iran, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia (much of northern Africa), parts of South Asia. What do you think all these countries have in common?
Now, how do account for all of the intra-Islamic fighting going on inside of each of these countries? Shiite vs. Sunni, Islam vs. Ultra-Islam, any of these "up and coming" branches of Al-Qaeda.
The point is, it is easy to see that it doesn't matter whether or not Israel is on or off the map, in or out of "the pages of history." The extremists will find something on which to blame their problems.
There are plenty of things you can do with your time that are more productive than defending the world's most prominent anti-semite. For example, coloring or ice-skating. Grow up.
Posted by: michael star | Oct 4, 2009 6:36:00 PM
There will always some imbecile trying to oversimplify a perfectly sensible argument and accuse others of 'obvioushly lying to themshelves'. Most of the 'action' is exactly in places where U.S. saber-rattling is on the increase or where they already destroyed a country.But no, of course it's just 'the big bad muslims' who just can't stop fighting. We just want to help them, no?
And as usual, the whole point is lost because pointing out western hypocrisy becomes a 'defense of the world's most prominent anti-semite'. Israeli ethnic cleansing, which happens to be the real crime going on in that area goes unacknowledged. I have already grown up, just not to be a turd who defends an ideology of supremacy and colonialism.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 6:57:14 PM
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20051114/ai_n15839574/
Israel "wiped off the map" quotation is there. Is it a stretch to think Mr. Ahmadinejad, a denier of the Holocaust, is being misinterpreted?
Posted by: william | Oct 4, 2009 7:58:43 PM
Why would you rather consider those?
Well because you said this:
…and the ones I listed are those who have committed the worse crimes and atrocities. I also assumed you would be willing to defend your statement without cherrypicking the field. Now if you were a bit more forthright and said USA is evil look: Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine, you would have had an easier argument.
I'm a bit surprised you can man up enough to remain here, but I respect you for your fortitude, knowing as you must that every dollar in taxes you pay to the evil empire is another soul snuffed out overseas.
Posted by: Carlos | Oct 4, 2009 8:01:32 PM
First off, I made no connection between your bashing of America and your support for the Iranian President... you did. Second, The US is hardly involved in Africa and South Asia, where some of the worst fighting is actually going on.
Israel is a free country. You are allowed to practice any religion you wish. You are hardly forced to live your life by religious law. I never accused the Muslim religion of anything. It's the extremists in those areas (which happen to be Muslim) who are hurting everyone around them. What's the difference between Israel and all of the other countries we are talking about? Israel actually does something to fight extremism, instead of harboring it. Israel's free society is one of the factors hurting it most. The fact that Israel has free press (at least when compared to most any of the Islamic countries) means that everything she does is out for the world to see. Let's take Iran (which is so much less extreme than most of it's neighbors) as an example. During the election protests, the government cut out so many forms of communication; even social networking websites like facebook were offline. This is a situation where the government controls its citizens with raw power. This doesn't happen in the west and it doesn't happen in Israel.
And you're right, your support for Ahmadinejad is perfectly legal. It's also disgusting. You're supporting a man who stole an election and than ordered military/militia to do his dirty work while HIS country's citizens were being killed for... freedom.
You're done.
Posted by: michael star | Oct 4, 2009 8:12:49 PM
Carlos:
I tend to dislike the use of the word 'evil' as it confers a childish quality to any argument that resorts to it. We're not 5th graders anymore, I hope.
"I'm a bit surprised you can man up enough to remain here, but I respect you for your fortitude, knowing as you must that every dollar in taxes you pay to the evil empire is another soul snuffed out overseas."
That's neither here nor there. I'm here because of family issues, if you must know. But your little sarcastic remark neither addresses nor undermines my argument. I could perfectly be anywhere else on earth and it wouldn't change the fact that most American citizens are proud of the crimes committed by their country.
And I'm not cherrypicking the field, Carlos. My point here is the monstrous hypocrisy of what calls itself the West. The fact that the most notorious crimes of aggression in the last two decades have almost always implicated the U.S., who has the gruesome tendency to lecture those whom it carpet-bombs should give its citizens pause. That's my argument, in a nutshell. Now please go back to your 'metaphysical contradictions' or whatever you want to name your defense of superstition. We're talking real life and death here.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 8:34:19 PM
"Is it a stretch to think Mr. Ahmadinejad, a denier of the Holocaust, is being misinterpreted?"
I don't know what is exactly that drives news organizations to willingly or unwillingly misinterpret the people they demonize. Why don't you ask them?
But this is again, not the point. Ahmadinejad is, evidently, a real bastard. So was George Bush. Why are they treated so differently? Ahmadinejad, after all, hasn't been responsible for the death of 1 million people or the forced displacement of 4 million of them (at least, not yet). I guess what you say matters much more than what you do. And the fact that nobody is addressing this is the responsibility of the media.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 8:41:49 PM
So I take it you are not going to defend your thesis after all?
I thought not, but it's ok. I do know where you're coming from.
Posted by: Carlos | Oct 4, 2009 8:54:35 PM
To those who defend Israel in every circumstance I just want to say that I'll respect 'Israeli democracy' the day it gives all its citizens equal rights, no matter what religion or ethnicity they belong to. Otherwise it's nothing more than a shitty little 'ethno-theocracy'. At least in the Arab countries that surround it nobody is under the illusion they're living under anything else than a dictatorship.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 4, 2009 9:04:19 PM
"At least in the Arab countries that surround it nobody is under the illusion they're living under anything else than a dictatorship."
How cynical is that?! I would have dropped the "at least" and inserted an "even" after "nobody." From somebody otherwise so compassionate, this remark comes off as desperate.
Isn't it clear that governments, whether elected or not, do evil things? And that populations, whether democratically represented or not, are guilty to a certain extent of compliance? Isn't pointing fingers and accusing sides of being the greater evil exactly the attitude that's kept the Israeli-Palestinian cauldron of misery hot for so long? Isn't the best attitude to see the situation as a big, dreadful knot and to try to unravel it for the sake of everyone?
Posted by: Barkely | Oct 5, 2009 5:58:36 AM
Pepito, I don't want to come off too critical of you. But don't you think it is legitimate to be concerned about the prospect of someone who denies the Holocaust also trying to underhandedly acquire nuclear weapons? "Never again?" So is it really correct to see concern expressed by Americans as hypocritical "lecturing?" Certainly the US has done horrible things, but should it really "butt out" in the face of that? For all of our sake, I'm not sure that's moral.
Posted by: Barkely | Oct 5, 2009 6:47:47 AM
Barkely:
It's ridiculuous to think that, even in the case Iran were ruled by a group of a raving lunatics (which it isn't, although you wouldn't know that from reading the press in the West- I actually think they are as rational as Obama or anybody else in the West is-they would not be still in power if that weren't the case) its eventual acquiring a nuclear weapon would signify a significant danger to either Israel or the U.S (Israel alone has about 200 nuclear weapons of its own,that by the way, it acquired by arrogantly violating international law with the connivance of its best buddy the U.S.). What it would mean, though, is that the West wouldn't be free to readily impose conditions on or bully a country that intends to be a regional power. At least they would not attack it without careful thinking. I don't know what your position might be on this, but I don't think the West has the right to promote as regional powers (in a region which is clearly not their turf) only countries that are friendly to its interests.
"Certainly the US has done horrible things, but should it really "butt out" in the face of that? For all of our sake, I'm not sure that's moral."
And that's exactly how U.S. liberals go about supporting all of their country's wars. They appropriate the language of human rights (very selectively, I might add) to justify their country's agressions over and over, and it's the reason I don't consider myself a liberal. Do you think this argument hasn't been made before? I would bet you it's most likely the only argument that has been consistently made by the leadership of the U.S. to get its citizens to support its wars of aggression.
"Isn't pointing fingers and accusing sides of being the greater evil exactly the attitude that's kept the Israeli-Palestinian cauldron of misery hot for so long? Isn't the best attitude to see the situation as a big, dreadful knot and to try to unravel it for the sake of everyone?
"
Actually no, it isn't. You make a gross mistake in considering both sides equally guilty for the situation. The closest equivalent that comes to mind is the colonization of the United States. Would you say the Native Americans were equally guilty as the colonists for the violence that ensued while they tried to defend their land?
And lest you might assume I 'defend' the Middle East dictatorships with my cynical and 'desperate' language, I just want to add: the Middle Eastern dictatorships and theocracies are absolutely dreadful. Yes. But the change has to come ONLY from within. Even if the typical citizens of the West were driven to butt in only by compassion, their governments would use their goodwill to promote their own cynical interests, which are usually (although not always) of a commercial nature. Don't shoot the messenger for pointing it out.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 5, 2009 2:21:38 PM
"Isn't it clear that governments, whether elected or not, do evil things? And that populations, whether democratically represented or not, are guilty to a certain extent of compliance?"
Not in the same degree, Barkely. If they were, then the concept of Democracy itself would be rendered pointless.
Posted by: Pepito | Oct 5, 2009 2:28:30 PM
Whether Israel, Iraq or other parts of the world would burn in nuclear fire if Iran got weapons, I don't know. I'm no expert on the government of Iran--no surprise considering how secretive they are and how poor the quality of news is outside of that country.
I think you're defining "liberal" a bit narrowly, though. I think most liberals would be more likely to argue against interventionist stances of that sort, particularly in terms of military. I would have described you as liberal based on what I've read by you on this thread, but I'd rather let people categorize themselves. Most liberals are strongly opposed to the US' aggression, particularly when it smacks of imperialism.
The mass genocide committed by US colonists was certainly an example where each side was not "equally evil"--most definitely. But that's a separate incident. I suspect the situation in the Middle East is a bit more complex. All the same, I don't really want to get into that debate...
"Not in the same degree, Barkely. If they were, then the concept of Democracy itself would be rendered pointless."
Not sure what you mean here. Since democracy is not perfect (strictly speaking, we in the US do not even really have one), there will be exceptions in both directions: some actions are committed primarily by the government, such as the Manhattan Project, which was kept secret from the public. So the people cannot always be blamed for everything a country does. Likewise, even in dictatorship, as the majority, there may be some compliance committed by the people (think Nazi Germany, for example). So you can't always blame the government either. My point was to dislodge the simplistic characterization of nations as homogeneous, singular agents. As though the people who decided to go into Iraq were the same, or even were somehow driven by the same abstract mechanism (consciousness across millions of people and many generations) as was the initial de-population of much of North America. People talking about the US that way often fall into that trap, I think, both as critics and fans. Forget the Uncle Sam cartoons--the US ain't a person.
Anyway, you make some good points, and I agree with a lot of it. Thing is, I also agree with the guys you are arguing with a fair amount. So I think you guys might be arguing past each other to a large degree...
Posted by: Barkely | Oct 5, 2009 4:33:15 PM
This story appears to be silly propaganda: "Professor David Yeroshalmi, author of The Jews of Iran in the 19th century and an expert on Iranian Jewish communities, disputes the validity of this argument. "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name," he stated in a recent interview. In fact, Iranian Jews use the Hebrew word "tzitzit" to describe the Jewish prayer shawl. Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also went on to dispute the article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he stated.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/05/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-jewish-family
I suggest removing it, or at least posting a retraction.
Posted by: X | Oct 5, 2009 8:20:14 PM
Post a comment