Thursday, April 17, 2008

True to form:

In October 2000, with the withdrawal of Israel from Joseph's tomb in Nablus, a Palestinian mob attacked the site and destroyed it, burning thousands of Jewish prayer books. Within a week, a 1000-year-old synagogue near Jericho, entrusted to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo agreement, was burned down. Other synagogues and cemeteries have been targeted in the area.

What they cannot revise with their declarations and printed word, they will destroy by fire and demolition.

Here is a story that will not make any headlines in Western press:

Seven ancient synagogues in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have been destroyed by local authorities.

The synagogues were in the Oudlajan suburb of Tehran, where many Iranian Jews used to live.
"These buildings, which were part of our cultural, artistic and architectural heritage were burnt to the ground," said Ahmad Mohit Tabatabaii, the director of the International Council of Museums' (ICOM) office in Tehran.


"With the excuse of renovating this ancient quarter, they are erasing a part of our history," said Tabatabaii.

Let me remind people that we know how this logic worked in the past: first they come for the ideas, then they come for the books, and then they come for the buildings and then they come for the people.

I see a direct line of thinking, sentiment and behaviour connecting the Iranian Regime to Palestinian aspirations for whatever it is they aspire to. They both use the same kind of rhetoric and tactics to bring those aspirations about.

I have to wonder, why they chose now to burn down those synagogues?

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