Just in case you thought anti-Semitism was overblown...

...Ahamdinejad gives a speech that could have been written a hundred years ago by any classic anti-Semite. Jews are humiliating the world financially? Zionism is the most racist of all political movements? Somebody has been reading their Protocols of the Elders of Zion...(I heard that in a television interview last night, not sure where to find it... But clearly he was gearing up for his talk today.)

He knows his audience well, I'll give him that. I am sure that he feels he scored a victory as the Europeans got up and left the conference...

"And in fact in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

"They sent migrants from Europe, the United States ... in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine."

How do people get doctorates

...and still believe that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true?

Tehrangeles: Starbucks, sushi, and Chabad House

I was hanging out with a 22 year-old Iranian-Dutch woman who was telling me about her summer trip to LA to visit cousins. (Raise your hand if you have cousins in LA. I know I do, and I’m not even Iranian.)

“You wouldn’t believe it,” she told me, “My cousin drove for an hour to buy sweets so she wouldn’t have to buy them from the Jewish baker. She said, ‘I want my money in the pocket of a Muslim, not of a Jew.’”

Part of me was appalled, and part sympathetic. After all, when I was growing up, we bought from Jews whenever we could. That was the rule. My father still complains about certain university types who did not understand the importance of supporting Jewish merchants and would buy from anyone. “They just don’t understand how hard it is to earn a living,” he says.

Irangeles, apparently, is starkly divided by religion: Iranian- Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Bahai’s divided by semi-strict borders. “Even the coffee shops,” my young friend says. She told me of her cousin’s dismay when a group of Jewish 20-somethings dared to step foot in the coffee shop they were visiting. “They have their own. What are they doing here?” When my friend expressed her disgust with her cousin’s attitude, she was met with a blank stare. “We just don’t do that kind of thing in Amsterdam.” To be fair, Iranians in the Netherlands are pretty divided by political lines. It is true, however, that the 20-somethings are more likely to blur those lines than their parents.

--

Starbucks, sushi, Chabad House. Starbucks, sushi, Chabad House. A little Spanish, a lot of Persian, some Hebrew. That’s what Kamran and I experienced when we visited LA last Spring.



In a Persian restaurant in Westwood, a young Baha’i told us how disheartening it was to try to bring the Irangeles community together. He confirmed our Iranian-Dutch friend’s experience of the strong religious divisions in the community. Another man we met told us that when young Iranians arrive in Irangeles, they are comfortable crossing the borders between the religious communities. “They don’t seem to care at all about religious divisions at all. They’re just so much more relaxed than those of us who grew up in this community.”


--

Yesterday Kamran and I had lunch with some friends who live in Iran. “Do you think anti-Semitism is growing among Iranians?” I asked. (An article in the Washington Post had been haunting me since I read it.)

“Do you mean anti-Zionism?”

“No. I mean anti-Semitism.”

They told me that the young people born after the revolution to parents who lived most of their lives with the current regime had, in fact, become more susceptible to the message of the regime. “I mean, my friend’s younger sister has no problem throwing off her hejab and wearing a bikini in public, but when she talks you are surprised to hear her echo the message of the regime.” She’s not unique, just specific.

Harry's Place Censored

The UK's libel laws seem to have put the fear of legal fees into the server that hosts Harry's Place. Via Mick Hartley, we can read the last post at Harry's Place:

Harry's Place may be removed (or rather have it's DNS disabled) after a 'complaint' to the company that our domain name is registered with.

We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this 'complaint' originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

We would like to assure readers of Harry's Place that we are doing everything we can to prevent a disruption, but that - of course - we will not concede any ground. We have posted nothing defamatory, and we stand by the information we have supplied.

ISPs often run scared of UK libel law and malicious complaints are thus common. Sadly, it is a well known - and usually successful - way of censoring websites which publish truths that they'd rather not be generally known.

We ask our readers and supporters in the meantime to publish this information as widely as possible. The disgraceful tactic of dishonest and malicious complaining should not be allowed to succeed.

Those on the UCU list, please also make this know there.

Please spread the word.

If we go down, email us at harryblog at gee mail dot com for updates.

At Zionation, the author writes:

Most interesting perhaps, is the supreme irony that the people who rant about the "Zionists" muzzling criticism are quick off the mark to shut down a Web site that dares to tell the truth about them.

Read about UK libel laws at The Guardian.

Oh, and interestingly enough, both David Dook (purposely misspelled) and the prez of Iran feel the need to remind us that they have PhDs. Because, as we all know, smart people need to keep telling us that they are smart lest we forget. ;-)

Separated at Birth

Which do you think is funnier? Al Jazeera’s depiction of Iran’s gathering of holocaust deniers, KKK kingpins, orthodox Jewish separatists, and varied crackpots as “scientific” [from last night's broadcast where they also misidentified the US as one of the countries that forbids holocast denial]or this infographic from the Onion (miraculously unfiltered!):

From The Onion




References:
Tehran Times explains it all to you

The BBC reports

Holocaust Denial is No Joke

Holocaust deniers unite! You have nothing to lose but your dignity! From the NYT

Who is attending

From the Drudge Report (filtered here)

Update: additions to the references list

Thomas Erdbrink, NRC journalist, on the conference (in Dutch)

Angus McDowall, with the Independent, discusses the conference's "so-called" neutrality (take that! Al Jazeera)

At the Dorf on Law blog Paul Horwitz specualtes about whether or not it would be valuable to attend the conference

Al-Safadi criticizes Ahmadinejad

Perhaps Iran's foray into the world of international conspiracy theorists won't be a love-in after all:

From The Independent: Iran's denial of Holocaust harms Arab cause, Palestine activist tells president
By Angus McDowall in Tehran

However, Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned on the eve of the conference by Mahmoud al-Safadi, who was sentenced to 27 years by Israel for throwing Molotov cocktails during the 1988 intifada. In an open letter to the Iranian president, he says that Mr Ahmadinejad's stance is a "great disservice to popular struggles the world over".

"Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians," he writes. "Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.

Mel Gibson Makes it Big in Iran

Now starring in his own tv spot on Iranian tv: Mel Gibson whose slurs during his drunken driving arrest are being embraced by the Iranian regime! Bombs in Lebanon interwoven with oscars in Hollywood: Mel's the hero of the moment.

He joins a fine tradition of western protestors who burn the American flag and effigies of Bush and Blair. Listen, I love free speech. I crave free speech, but I wouldn't want my protests hijacked by the Iranian regime or any other authoritarian regime. In dissent, I urge people to use symbols of freedom rather than symbols of authoritarianism -- unless, of course, you *do* want to align yourself with the authoritarians.

Closing Time

All over Iran, businesses are closing early again today for a chance to say farewell to the world cup team. Keivan predicts a 3-0 loss for Iran. “Don’t say that,” Mohamad protests. “Everything you’ve said has come true.”

“It’s all Keivan’s fault,” I respond.

---

Was in a meeting with some Iranian businessmen. One was telling us that he went to Dubai to buy some hardware for his business. “They didn’t sell it to me. They won’t sell to Iranians.”

“Sanctions?”

“No, it’s not sanctions. They just won’t sell to Iran. The Arabs do not want to sell to Iran.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t sanctions?”

“I’m sure. They said to me: we won’t sell to Jews. I said, hey, I’m a muslim. My name is Mohamad, how can I be Jewish? They kept telling me they don’t sell to Jews.”

All of the men laughed. That was the end of that.

I was left thinking of the Brooklyn Mullah. He appears on Iranian tv every once in awhile and lectures on scripture. He has a really thick Brooklyn accent that shifts into what sounds to me like perfect Arabic when he needs to quote something. Last time I saw him he was speaking of the sheitan (devil) and identifying his works. It’s all so disorienting for me: the accent, the sermon, the black turban: I keep thinking he is a rabbi, but then what’s all this about hadith?

I think it was Lenny Bruce who said that all New Yorkers are Jewish. I guess the Brooklyn Mullah is no exception.