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The US mainstream media chose to ignore a meeting that took place at the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) gathering of world leaders between Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi and an Ultra-Orthodox organization of anti-Zionist Jews called Neturei Karta.

The meeting was obviously not in any way newsworthy for any of the mainstream media networks based in the United States, but several Israeli media networks covered the story including

The Jerusalem Post who published what Raisi had said in the meeting and that was that Iran has no issues with the Jewish people or its faith “I have heard that there are anti-Zionist Jews here and this is a great thing,” said Raisi.

“We always reiterate the fact that we have no issue whatsoever with the Jewish faith, with the Torah, and in Iran, the Jews have freedom of religion. Our only issue is with the Zionists.” 

Raisi applies the same standards to Zionists and as he did with the US-backed terrorists known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) throughout the Middle East as he “stressed that he is against “oppression,” regardless of whether it comes from Jews, Christians, or Muslims.

“That’s why we never recognized the members of ISIS as Muslims” he continued “Today the Zionists wish to discredit the Jewish faith but we draw a clear distinction between Zionism and the Jewish faith and your work in which you announce that ‘we are Jewish, yet we are against Zionists’ that is something to be commended.”

Raisi and the Iranian government had always known that the creation of the Islamic State (ISIS) was funded, armed, and trained by the US and its allies in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and to an extent, Turkey for some time.  Professor Tim Anderson, a senior lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Sydney explained how the Islamic State was created and why Syria was a target of the US and Israeli political establishment in his book ‘The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance’ said that it all began with “Proxy armies of Islamists, armed by US regional allies (mainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey), infiltrate a political reform movement and snipe at police and civilians. They blame this on the government and spark an insurrection, seeking the overthrow of the Syrian government and its secular-pluralist state.”

Anderson also said that this was part of a long-term agenda to recreate the Middle East. We must also add that this agenda can also help Israel expand its territory in the process as Arab countries become chaotic in the midst of these US sponsored wars led by the Islamic State, “This follows the openly declared ambition of the US to create a ‘New Middle East’, subordinating every country of the region, by reform, unilateral disarmament, or direct overthrow. Syria was next in line, after Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.”  Many terrorists came from warzones such as Iraq and Libya, and in some cases, many were recruited from countries who are close allies with Washington such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  “In Syria, the proxy armies would come from the combined forces of the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi fanatics. Despite occasional power struggles between these groups and their sponsors, they share much the same Salafist ideology, opposing secular or nationalist regimes and seeking the establishment of a religious state.” 

The Jewish Community in Iran

The unnamed members of Neturei Karta also told Raisi that “we found that throughout the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, they respected and protected the Jewish community till today and you’re only distinguishing that Zionism has nothing to do with the religion and the occupation is unacceptable.” The Jews of Iran say that they feel safe and respected, “the Iranian government allows thousands of Jews to worship in peace and continue their association with the country founded more than 2,500 years ago.” 

Nejat Golshirazi, a rabbi of a local synagogue said that “we have all the facilities we need for our rituals, and we can say our prayers very freely. We never have any problems. I can even tell you that, in many cases, we are more respected than Muslims.” Currently there are various estimates range from 9,000 to 15,000 or more Jews living in Iran.  There was a larger population of Jews living in Iran before the Islamic revolution in 1979, however many left due to fear of reprisal for being Jewish. 

The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture claimed that

“Before the revolution, Jews were well-represented among Iran’s business elite, holding key posts in the oil industry, banking, and law, as well as in the traditional bazaar. The wave of anti-Israeli sentiment that swept Iran during the revolution, as well as large-scale confiscations of private wealth, sent thousands of the more affluent Jews fleeing to the United States or Israel. Those remaining lived in fear of pogroms, or massacres.” 

So, the new atmosphere was propelled by fear for many Jews who decided to move to Israel or the United States

“But Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a ”fatwa” decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Similar edicts also protect Iran’s tiny Christian minority”.

In today’s Iran, Persian Jews still live in Iran and that angers Israel’s leadership and its pro-Zionist supporters.  In fact, it was reported that in 2007, “Iran’s Jews have given the country a loyalty pledge in the face of cash offers aimed at encouraging them to move to Israel, the archenemy of its Islamic rulers.”  But that backfired:

The incentives — ranging from £5,000 a person to £30,000 for families — were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel from among Iran’s 25,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel’s official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora.  However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as “immature political enticements” and said their national identity was not for sale. 

“The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money,” the society said in a statement. “Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran’s Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.”

It is obvious that the US political establishment, the mainstream media, AIPAC and the Christian-Zionists from the bible belt in the Southern part of the US never want the truth to be told about Jews living in Iran, because Iran is on the list with Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, and Syria for regime change and destruction because the US and European establishment and their closest ally, Israel want to turn Iran into another Iraq. 

However, the situation for Israel’s leadership becomes a little complicated because it is most likely that they do not want Iranian Jews to be killed or injured if they decide to move forward with a foolish military strike that can be armed with a nuclear warhead inside of Iran, which will mean not only having Persian blood on their hands, but also the blood of their Jewish brethren.    

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN