Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
May 22 2006
What! Ten points for Armenia?
21 May 2006, Sunday
JTW Ankara
This week was such a mess and yesterday night was the crème of the
whole week. Eurovision song contest 2006 was a near-tragedy for
Turkey. Honestly, it was a tragedy. But there is a good news and a
bad one. Good news is we just gave 4 points to Greece and they gave a
miserable 3 points to us. That means we are still enemies, so my
columnist career can survive.
Bad news is, and it is really bad, we gave 10 points to Armenia. Read
it: Turkey has given 10 points to Armenia. What is happening? You
lazy Turkish viewers, learn something from the holy Armenians, don’t
you! No points to Turkey. That is the enemy spirit. Well done boys!
So how come Turks have given 10 points to their troublemaker
neighbors? Before analyzing that, I will try to find out the reasons.
First theory is, there are lots of Armenians living in Turkey, but
there are no Turks living in Armenia. In the past, two Turks to save
Armenian allegations have visited Armenia. One of them attacked, the
other one jailed. Actually they were secret Turkish agents to
manipulate the voting in Armenia. Our grand national strategy was to
accommodate them in Yerivan and let them vote for Turkey during this
year’s Eurovision final. But our plan has been disrupted by clever
and drunk Armenians.
Second one is, Armenian cell phone users can use Turkish mobile
operators, but Turkish cell phone users can not use Armenian
operators. Hmm, I have no idea about this theory, but this is the
beauty of being a journalist. If you have a reliable source, it
becomes news, if you do not have, it becomes newsiction
(news+fiction)
The third and the least likely one is, we love Armenians but they
hate us. Actually this is the opposite. Armenians need their
compassionate love for Turks to unite in the Diasporas or to
brainwash their kids with their unilateral view of the history. But
we do not need Armenians for defining our national identity. But,
they love us such that they build monuments around the world with
both our nations name on it: `Armenians & Turks’…. Not reaaally a
love…. we only have problems with the verbs on these monuments!
So, what made Turks vote for Armenia! If this was a question in the
Turkish secondary schools entrance exam, the likely answers will be :
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 3rd, none of them, all of them. The answer is
none of them.
Before writing some more nonsense about the Armenian entry, I would
like to say a few words about our song. `Superstar’, the Turkish
entry, was not really bad. But it was missing what Sebnem Paker and
Sertab Erener’s songs achieved. And that is something about Turkish
culture!. I do not expect doner&kebap and baklava there, but at least
there should be something related to Turkish music culture. We have a
rich culture and we should have made the best out of it.
Now back to subject. This year’s Armenian song and last year’s Greek
song were having more Anatolian sounds than the Turkish songs of
these years. Last year, the Greek song was popular in Turkey even
months after the Eurovision final. Don’t get surprised, if Armenian
song repeats that.
Nevertheless, there may be a political voting effect as well. In the
last three years (or more) Turkey has given at least one of its big
points to Orthodox world. The other one has gone to culturally close
friends. (Like Bosnia this year-12 points). But the
Anatolian-familiar sound was the dominant effect, I guess.
It is this familiar sound and Turkish people’s good intention -which
I lack because I was sleeping during the contest- that awarded 10
points to Armenia. Now reverse the previous sentence and it explains
the 0 points that Armenia generously gave to Turkey.
As a result, I am proud of my fellow citizens and not very proud but
fine with the Turkish song. Turks has something that most of the
world needs now. As (lazy) Turkish viewers demonstrated last night,
Turks have the positive attitude and constructive efforts that is
nearly extinct in this world. Maybe Turks are not good song writers
or performers, but still Turkish people have better intentions to
build a peaceful future for the next generations. That is what I was
proud of, this morning.

San Francisco Chronicle, CA
May 21 2006
History proves me right, says Saudi’s maverick prince
Son of kingdom’s founder still fights for social reform
Anthony Shadid, Washington Post
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — The coffee was served, then the dates. And at
that, Prince Talal, the son of Saudi Arabia’s founder and long the
ruling family’s bete noire, smiled wryly. “This is what we used to
live on,” he said, “dates and camel’s milk.”
It was his way of saying: To look ahead, sometimes we need to look
back.
Talal is 75 now, still tall and formidable, with a glimmer of
defiance as he smoked a cigarette, cautiously doled out by an aide.
But humbled by back pain, he is a shadow of the man once known as
Saudi Arabia’s “Red Prince.” The color represented his politics, a
leftist bent that as a young man turned him against the ruling Saud
family, shook the kingdom and led him into exile in Lebanon and
Egypt.
His voice is softer these days, mellowed perhaps by failure, but the
words about his family remain remarkably the same.
“Here, the family is the master and the ruler,” he said of his
brothers and cousins, as he sat at Fakhariya Palace. “This style
can’t continue the same way. There has to be change in the nature of
authority, if things are going to change in the kingdom itself.”
Talal is many things: for 50 years, the most liberal figure in a
family that remains the most conservative and traditional of the
Persian Gulf’s monarchies and tribal dynasties; a philanthropist who
brings a ruthlessness to business that he once saved for politics; a
glimmer of light for the kingdom’s liberals, many of whom acknowledge
that change in Saudi Arabia will probably only come under the
auspices of religion and its modernization, not through the secular
talk of civil society and individual rights.
Perhaps most compelling, though, is that Talal takes a debate about
democratic reform in the Arab world, defined lately by the Bush
administration, and illustrates a broader, more enduring context, one
that speaks to experience rather than promise. His calls for change
are little different from those in the 1950s and ’60s, when he was
dismissed as a communist sympathizer; he remains a critic of U.S.
policy, citing Iraq’s trauma as the latest example. To Talal, the
battle itself is not new, only the players.
“The world has changed, not me,” he said. “History has proved the
rightness of what I was talking about.
“Some of the members of the family were against those ideas,” he
said. “Now they’re talking about them.”
These days, Talal advocates a constitution that would bind an
absolute monarchy by law, “a social contract between the ruler and
those who are ruled.” The parliament, now an appointed, relatively
toothless body known as the Consultative Council, would be at least
partially elected, with the right to oversee the budget, monitor the
government and question ministers, he said.
Women? “Right now, we have more than 2 million female students,” he
said, shaking his head. “When they graduate, where are they going to
go? Either you close the schools and leave them to illiteracy or you
grant them an opportunity to work.”
He laughed. “Can you imagine, can anyone imagine, that women cannot
drive in Saudi Arabia?” he said.
His list went on: Progress is impeded by “the opposition of religious
extremists.” The religious establishment, long the allies of his
family, should stand aside as the country forges a division of power
— judicial, executive and legislative. Along the way, the kingdom,
he said, must determine the mechanism of passing the monarchy from
the aging sons of the country’s founder to their grandsons before
simmering rivalries between the branches of the House of Saud flare
into the open.
“The goal remains the same,” he said, “the participation of people in
forming opinions and making decisions.”
The same words, a different era: “Now we’re freed from the notion of
the Red Prince, the name the Americans gave me.”
Talal was reputed to be the favorite son of Abdel-Aziz ibn Saud, the
desert warrior who became king in 1932, eventually siring Talal and
35 other recognized heirs, the descendants of an array of marriages
that cemented his connections with the country’s fractious tribes.
Talal’s mother was a servant — some say of Circassian origins,
others Armenian — who, it is said, eventually became his favorite
wife.
Talal was among the savvier of the children, spending time in Beirut,
where he married Mona al-Solh, the daughter of Lebanon’s first
post-independence prime minister. (One of their children, Walid bin
Talal, is a billionaire Saudi investor.) It was an introduction to
the pan-Arab aspirations of the leading al-Solh family and a taste of
the cosmopolitanism that Beirut was forging.
The years after Abdel-Aziz’s death in 1953 were unsettled. Power was
inherited by his eldest son, Saud, a spendthrift more adept at
showering largesse on the tribes than administering the country. His
brothers soon contested his rule, and Talal navigated the rivalries
for influence. Early on, the present Saudi king, Abdullah, was an
ally, and in time as a minister, Talal began pushing for reform — a
constitution, elections, a parliament and free press. Together, he
and his allies became known as the “Free Princes,” a name taken from
the Free Officers who overthrew Egypt’s monarchy in 1952 and were
eventually led by Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
He admits now to moving too fast.
“We were too young,” he said. “We wanted 100 percent, but if we took
50, even 60 percent, we would have been blessed.”
King Saud rejected the idea of a constitution, and Talal bitterly
criticized the decision in statements to Egyptian and Lebanese
newspapers. When Talal went for vacation in Beirut in 1961, the king
moved against him, declaring him persona non grata.
He recalled the confrontation at the Saudi Embassy in Beirut as the
ambassador asked him and his brothers to turn over their travel
documents: “I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t have reasons, it’s the
order of King Saud.’ I said, ‘If the passport is the property of
Saud, go ahead. If the passport is the property of the kingdom, then
I have every right to keep it.’ And I gave him the passport.”
Talal and four brothers sought help in 1962 from Nasser, who had
electrified a generation with promises of Arab unity, the liberation
of Palestine and denunciations of regimes he deemed regressive, Saudi
Arabia among them. Unlike most of the Saudi royal family, Talal was
enamored with the Egyptian president as a leader — he feels the same
today, he said — but he feared being exploited.
“I said to Nasser, we came here just for the passports because we
want to go Lebanon. I didn’t want to stay with him. I knew his
policy. I knew his way of thinking,” Talal said. “He told me, ‘I’ll
give you 500 passports.’ ”
The passports didn’t come for two months. In the meantime, Talal
spoke on the Voice of the Arabs, a Cairo-based radio station that
often carried Nasser’s stentorian voice. The speeches — denouncing
Saudi Arabia’s rulers and calling for democratic reform — solidified
his reputation as the Red Prince.
It was another two years before he mended fences and returned to
Saudi Arabia.
For years, Talal remained silent, amassing a fortune and running a
philanthropy. But in recent years, he has begun pressing the issue of
reform again, often from Fakhariya Palace. To him, the family can
bring about change by redefining its role.
“In the 21st century, the king should be the guardian of the law, but
the laws and legislation should come from the people, and the people
should elect the members of the parliament,” Talal said, sitting next
to a rendering of the family tree.
He retains his suspicion of U.S. intentions. He traveled last week to
Egypt, speaking at the American University of Cairo. He was relaxed,
in a crisp, dark suit and maroon tie. At one point, he urged women in
the audience to ask questions. As he did 45 years ago, he tried to
distance his country’s needs for reform from U.S. policy in the
region.
“Does America want direct and transparent elections that allow the
people to make their own decisions in choosing who will be in power?”
Talal said, in reference to the success of Islamic activists in
recent elections in Egypt and the Palestinian territories. “Or are we
tailoring elections to the United States that serve American
interests?”
In the mercurial politics of the House of Saud, Talal’s role is
debated. He is a member of the family council, a body of 18
influential members drawn from Abdel-Aziz’s son and grandsons and
other branches. Some say he has the ear of Abdullah, and his son,
Prince Turki, says he talks to the king once a week.
Others discount any special influence, and in private, some princes
are especially venomous about Talal’s past.
Talal, these days a little hard of hearing, doesn’t claim influence.
At the end of his story, he posed for a picture. He decided to don
his headdress, reluctantly. Tradition still doesn’t sit well.
“I hate to wear this,” he said.

Salt Lake Tribune, Utah
May 21 2006
A tightly woven family tradition
Utahn keeps art of Armenian rug-weaving alive
By Brandon Griggs
The Salt Lake Tribune

George Aposhian Jr. and his daughter, Diane Moffat, display a rug.
(Danny Chan La/The Salt Lake Tribune )

As a structural engineer, George Aposhian Jr. helped design
buildings. As a rugmaker, he knots ornate wool carpets. Guess which
project takes more time.
“It doesn’t take as long to build a skyscraper as it does to make
a carpet,” says the Holladay man, whose first carpet took him nine
years to finish. “It takes a lot of patience.”
That patience will be on display this afternoon at the 21st annual
Living Traditions Festival, where Aposhian and his daughter Diane
will demonstrate the time-honored and time-consuming art of Armenian
rug-weaving. It’s a skill Aposhian learned from his father, who
learned it from his father.
The carpets are beautiful and functional, but to Aposhian they are
more than that – they are physical links to his Armenian heritage.
The first rug he made was based on a decorative pattern passed down
by his grandfather, who immigrated to Utah in 1909. Without his
carpets, the man may not have completed the journey.
The story, and it’s a good one, goes like this: Zadik Moses
Aposhian was a successful rug merchant in Turkey in 1898 when two LDS
missionaries gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon. He read the book
in three days, felt divinely inspired and, along with his wife,
Catherine, converted to Mormonism three weeks later.
But the Aposhians’ new religion did not sit well with the other
Turks in their village, who shunned them and stopped buying Zadik’s
rugs. After a decade of persecution, the Aposhians decided to flee
with their seven children to Utah. It was an arduous journey that
took them from Turkey to Lebanon, to Egypt, to France and then to
England. Along the way they were robbed twice.
Their odyssey stalled in Liverpool, where Zadik was forced to work
as a laborer to support his family. To fund their trans-Atlantic
crossing, Zadik sold his two remaining carpets, which had been hidden
from thieves at the bottom of his trunk. But when it came time to
depart, their three oldest children accidentally boarded the wrong
ship. By the time their parents realized the mistake, the ship had
sailed.
The remaining six Aposhians traveled by boat to Montreal, and then
by train to Salt Lake City. On the train they bought several oranges
from a man who took Zadik’s last $20 and promised to return with the
change. He never came back. When the family finally arrived in Utah,
they were penniless. The couple finally got some good news when their
three oldest children were located in Mexico and reunited with them
in Salt Lake City.
In Utah, Zadik Aposhian found work in a silver mine and later in a
brick factory. He never sold his carpets again. But he continued to
make rugs for his family’s use, and passed along his skills to a son,
George Sr. George owned an automobile-repair shop but made a few rugs
in his spare time and eventually built a loom for his son, George Jr.
The elder George manned an Armenian rug-weaving booth at the first
Living Traditions

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festival in 1986 before turning it over to his son several years
later. An Aposhian has shown the family’s handsome rugs at the
festival ever since.
“It’s about preserving the family tradition,” says George Aposhian
Jr., 78, who thinks of his late grandfather every time he works on a
rug. “He was a man who made his living making carpets. I couldn’t see
not carrying it on.”
Like most Oriental rugs, an Aposhian carpet represents countless
hours spent meticulously knotting thousands of colored wool threads
into a pattern stretched vertically on a hand-made wooden loom.
Completing a horizontal row of knots takes about an hour, and each
carpet has hundreds of rows.
“People will watch me . . . and say, ‘How can you stand to do
that?’ ” says Aposhian, who works on a loom in his living room. “It’s
fun to watch the pattern grow. But the real satisfaction is cutting
[the finished carpet] off the loom and putting it on the floor.”
Aposhian made looms for each of his four children. But only one,
Diane Moffat, has kept the family tradition going. Moffat began
weaving on her own about 10 years ago, thanks largely to years spent
assisting her father at Living Traditions.
“I doubt I would have ever started if it wasn’t for the festival,”
says the Salt Lake City woman, who likes rug-weaving because she
feels connected to her Armenian ancestors. “Your fingers are doing
the same thing that their fingers were doing . . . back in history as
carpetmakers.”
Moffat and her father hope to give people a deeper appreciation
for the artistry and hard work that go into crafting a carpet. In an
age when machines can crank out a credible-looking Oriental rug in a
few hours, the Aposhians also hope to keep their family’s heritage
alive.

—
Contact Brandon Griggs at [email protected] or 801-257-8689. Send
comments to [email protected].

Dream weavers

George Aposhian Jr. and his daughter, Diane Moffat, will
demonstrate the art of Armenian rugweaving from noon to 7 p.m. today
in Canopy C on the grounds of the City-County Building, 450 S. 200
East, Salt Lake City. The crafts demonstrations are part of the 21st
annual Living Traditions festival, which celebrates Utah’s ethnic
diversity with food, crafts and live music. Festival hours today are
noon to 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Panorama.am
15:10 20/05/06

TRAMS WENT AWAY. DOES NOT YEREVAN NEED ECOLOGICALLY CLEAN TRANSPORT?
Armenian authorities sent trams to cemetery two years ago. Today they
disassemble the rails only, the only thing reminding about trams in
Yerevan today. Naturally, if there are no trams they don’t need rails
as well. They will pave the streets especially that they have got
another sum from Kirk Kirkoryan.
It’s amazing how we, or the authorities in particular, treat the
ecology and the air which we breathe. There is no air in Yerevan to
breath, in fact. To notice that we do not need research studies done
by professional centers. It will become more obvious when hot summer
starts.
There is nothing else to expect after the trees were cut in parks and
little forests in Nork, Zeitun and other places. To have a more
complete picture, they had to eliminate trams too. They brought
excuses that trams were outmoded and were not cost effective. Instead
of trying to modernize them, the decided to get rid of
them. /Panorama.am/

Peninsula On-line, Qatar
May 21 2006
Sparring over baklava spills over to Doha

By Ayse Alibeyoglu
DOHA – The battle over the famous traditional sweet dish baklava
between Turkish and Greek Cypriots in Europe has spread to the local
pastry shops in Doha, owned by baklava makers from Istanbul and
Lebanon.
Historically, baklava was baked only on special occasions, and
considered a food for the rich in Turkey, the top choice of pastry
amongst the Turkish Sultans. It is made with layers of thin dough,
with chopped pistachio in between those layers, added with honey
syrup, various spices, baked and cut into diamond shapes.
At the celebrations marking “Europe Day” last week, baklava, which is
itself a Turkish word, was asserted by the Greek Cypriots as theirs
and introduced as a Greek Cypriot pastry in a European Union (EU)
poster presenting this traditional sweet as the national dish of
ethnically Greek Cyprus alongside the flag of Cyprus.
As a result, the baklava war between Turkey and Southern Cyprus
intensified. Turkish baklava producers are protesting Greek Cypriot
claims that the pastry is their own national creation, with support
for their protest coming from State Minister and EU Chief Negotiator,
Ali Babacan, in the EU General Secretariat.
The owner of renowned baklava producer Haci Sayid Baklava, Halil
Dincerler, commented at a recent press conference on the situation:
“Baklava is Turkish, what the Greek Cypriots are presenting is just a
copy. We will go all the way to Brussels, and we will let the EU
Ministers taste real baklava,” reported a Turkish newspaper.
The President of the Baklava and Dessert Producers Foundation, Mehmet
Yildirim, also present at the conference, gave his opinion on the
international food fight, “it is time for Turkey to stand up and
claim its national treasures, Turkey brought baklava with them all
the way from Central Asia, there are official documents proving that
baklava rightfully belongs to Turkey.”
These comments were shared with the owners of a Turkish Pastry store,
recently opened in Doha. The baklava makers from Istanbul, told The
Peninsula: “Baklava is definitely more Turkish than Cypriot, the
Greek Cypriot version of the baklava does not taste or look anything
like the original.
`Their version of the Turkish delight, calling it Cyprus Delight, is
another factor that just adds to the increasingly sticky war. Our
Pashas and Viziers (rulers) owned the recipe, though it is made
differently throughout the region, in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria no
one can claim sole rights for baklava.”
A Lebanese “baklava” maker; told The Peninsula: “We had enough wars
in Lebanon and we do not want to start another one with Turkey and
Greece.
`However the Greeks stole our recipe, but even they cannot match the
Lebanese baklava, I support Turkey, they should showcase their
baklava to the EU and the rest of the world before it is hijacked by
others. However our pronunciation of the word baklava is the correct
one.” An Armenian baklava maker working on behalf of the Lebanese
pastry shop added “the Armenians invented and improved the recipe.”
The sticky and rather complicated ‘Baklava’ battle has ensued,
yesterday. Two hundred baklava makers demonstrated in Istanbul’s
historic Sultannahmet district, with banners proclaiming “Baklava is
Turkish” whilst others read “Baklava should unify us, not divide us.”

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
May 21 2006
Turkish MP Kocak Submits Bill on French Genocide of Algerian People
Print
Sunday , 21 May 2006
Source: Anatolian News Agency
ANKARA – Mahmut Kocak, a Justice and Development Party (AKP)
parliamentarian, has presented a draft law to Turkish parliamentary
Speaker’s office on Thursday [18 May] on genocide against Algerian
people.
The draft resolution proposes that the acts carried out by French
troops in Algeria shall be accepted as “genocide” and asks that 8 May
shall be declared as “commemoration day of Algerian genocide”.
The draft law also proposes that any denial of “this genocide” shall
be considered as a crime.
The draft law describes the inhumane acts which France did in several
Algerian cities on 8 May 1945 as “genocide”.
The draft resolution asks for punishment of individuals who reject
“genocide” in Algeria, with imprisonment terms and fine.
Kocak told a news conference that reciprocity principle was valid in
international relations, stating that the draft resolution was
prepared to “retaliate” [against] French proposal.
He said Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika also had a request in
this direction.
Last week, Motherland Party (Anavatan) parliamentarian Ibrahim
Ozdogan prepared a draft law envisaging three years of imprisonment
for individuals who make claims of Armenian genocide.
The draft requests imprisonment terms up to three years for
individuals who allege (through article, picture or cartoon) that
Turks committed
genocide against Armenians.
French parliament ended Thursday’s session on a draft law which
proposes “any denial of Armenian genocide to be considered a crime”
without bringing it to voting.
French parliament sources said that a possible voting on the draft
law would not be held until new legislation term began in October.

American Thinker, AZ
May 21 2006
Badging Infidels in Iran
May 20th, 2006
The Iranian Majlis or Parliament has reportedly passed (now
disputed) a law requiring that, `Jews would have to sew a yellow
strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would
wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.’
An outraged Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Institute
immediately responded to the provisions for Jews:
`This is reminiscent of the Holocaust…Iran is moving closer and
closer to the ideology of the Nazis.’
Such a comparison sprang to the minds of many.
But Rabbi Hier’s statement and this general view ignore the immediate
context – most glaringly, the simultaneous dress badge requirements for
Christians and Zoroastrians living in Iran – and more importantly, the
sad historical legacy of Shi’ite religious persecution of all
non-Muslims which dates back to the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy
in (then) Persia, under Shah Ismail at the very outset of the 16th
century.
A reflexive invocation of the Nazi era is ahistorical, and
symptomatic of a general failure to appreciate either Judenhass or
much broader anti-`infidel’ (i.e., in this case anti-Christian and
anti-Zoroastrian) motifs intrinsic to orthodox Islamic doctrine and
practice – both Sunni and Shi’ite. The Iranian Parliament’s legislation
reflects the profound influence of najis – a unique Shi’ite
institution – not Nazism.
Shi’ite Theocratic Rule in Iran: Najis and non-Muslims (especially
Jews)
Visceral, even annihilationist animus towards Jews is a deep-rooted
phenomenon in Shi’ite Iran, hardly unique to the contemporary
post-Khomeini Shi’ite theocracy, including the current regime of
Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadinejad. The Safavid rulers, at
the outset of the 16th century, formally established Shi’a Islam as
the Persian state religion, while permitting a clerical hierarchy
nearly unlimited control and influence over all aspects of public
life.
The profound influence of the Shi’ite clerical elite, continued for
almost four centuries (although interrupted, between 1722-1795 during
the period of Sunni Afghan invasion and rule), through the later
Qajar period, as characterized by the noted scholar E.G. Browne:
The Mujtahids and Mulla are a great force in Persia and concern
themselves with every department of human activity from the minutest
detail of personal purification to the largest issues of politics
These Shi’ite clerics emphasized the notion of the ritual
uncleanliness (najis) of Jews, in particular, but also Christians,
Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of inter-confessional
relationships toward non-Muslims.
The impact of this najis conception (based on a literal
interpretation of Koran 9:28) was already apparent to European
visitors to Persia during the reign of the first Safavid Shah, Ismail
I (1502-1524). The Portuguese traveler Tome Pires observed (between
1512-1515), `Sheikh Ismail…never spares the life of any Jew’, while
another European travelogue notes, `…the great hatred (Ismail I)
bears against the Jews…’. During the reign of Shah Tahmasp I (d.
1576), the British merchant and traveler Anthony Jenkinson (a
Christian), when finally granted an audience with the Shah,
…was required to wear `basmackes’ (a kind of over-shoes), because
being a giaour [infidel], it was thought he would contaminate the
imperial precincts…when he was dismissed from the Shah’s presence,
[Jenkinson stated] `after me followed a man with a basanet of sand,
sifting all the way that I had gone within the said palace’- as
though covering something unclean.
Mohammad Baqer Majlesi (d. 1699), the highest institutionalized
clerical officer under both Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) and Shah Husayn
(1694-1722), was perhaps the most influential cleric of the Safavid
Shi’ite theocracy in Persia. By design, he wrote many works in
Persian to disseminate key aspects of the Shi’a ethos among ordinary
persons. His treatise, `Lightning Bolts Against the Jews’ (pp.
216-220), was written in Persian, and despite its title, was actually
an overall guideline to anti-dhimmi regulations for all non-Muslims
within the Shi’ite theocracy.
Al-Majlisi, in this treatise, describes the standard humiliating
requisites for non-Muslims living under the Shari’a, first and
foremost, the blood ransom jizya, a poll-tax, based on Qur’an 9:29.
He then enumerates six other restrictions relating to worship,
housing, dress, transportation, and weapons (specifically, i.e., to
render the dhimmis defenseless), before outlining the unique Shi’ite
impurity or `najis’ regulations.
With regard to dress, Majlisi’s stipulations from the late 17th
century are consistent with the contemporary the Iranian Parliament’s
proposal (albeit the `color-coding’ differs):
it is appropriate that the ruler of the Muslims imposed upon them
clothing that would distinguish then from Muslims so that they would
not resemble Muslims. It is customary for Jews to wear yellow
clothes while Christians wear black and dark blue ones. Christians
[also] wear a girdle on their waists, and Jews sew a piece of silk of
a different color on the front part of their clothes.
But it is the latter najis prohibitions which lead Anthropology
Professor Laurence Loeb (who studied and lived within the Jewish
community of Southern Iran in the early 1970s) to observe, `Fear of
pollution by Jews led to great excesses and peculiar behavior by
Muslims.’ Again, according Al-Majlisi’s authoritative and influential
late 17th century text,
And, that they should not enter the pool while a Muslim is bathing at
the public baths…It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they should
not accept from them victuals with which they had come into contact,
such as distillates, which cannot be purified. In something can be
purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted,
they are clean. But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with
those cloths in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being
obtained. As for hide, or that which has been made of hide such as
shoes and boots, and meat, whose religious cleanliness and lawfulness
are conditional on the animal’s being slaughtered [according to the
Shari’a], these may not be taken from them. Similarly, liquids that
have been preserved in skins, such as oils, grape syrup, [fruit]
juices, myrobalan, and the like, if they have been put in skin
containers or water skins, these should [also] not be accepted from
them…It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would
establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days
when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure.
Professor Laurence Loeb’s seminal analysis of dhimmi Jews in Shi’ite
Persia/Iran (Outcaste- Jewish Life in Southern Iran 1977), documents
the social impact of najis regulations, beginning with the
implementation of a
badge of shame [as] an identifying symbol which marked someone as a
najis Jew and thus to be avoided. From the reign of Abbas I
[1587-1629] until the 1920s, all Jews were required to display the
badge
Loeb emphasizes, `Fear of pollution by Jews led to great excesses and
peculiar behavior by Muslims.’
Indoors/Outdoors and Wet/Dry
The enduring nature of the fanatical najis regulation prohibiting
dhimmis from being outdoors during rain and/or snow, is well
established. Examples include item 5 of Benjamin’s list (Eight Years
in Asia and Africa- From 1846-1855, Hanover, 1859, pp. 211-213) of
`oppressions’
(they [i.e., the Jews] are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it
is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet
of the Mussulmans),
and item 1 of Hamadan’s 1892 regulations for its Jews (From a letter
by S. Somekh, The Alliance Israelite Universale, October, 27, 1892,
translated and reproduced in Littman, D.G. `Jews Under Muslim Rule:
The Case of Persia’ The Weiner Library Bulletin, Vol. XXXII, Nos.
49/50, 1979, pp. 7-8.)
(The Jews are forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows
[to prevent the impurity of the Jews being transmitted to the Shiite
Muslims]),
as well as this account provided by the missionary Napier Malcolm
who lived in the Yezd area at the close of the 19th century:
They [the strict Shi’as] make a distinction between wet and dry; only
a few years ago it was dangerous for an Armenian Christian to leave
his suburb and go into the bazaars in Isfahan on a wet [rainy] day.
`A wet dog is worse than a dry dog.’ [Malcolm, Napier. Five Years in
a Persian Town, New York, 1905, p. 107.]
Moreover, the late Persian Jewish scholar Sarah (Sorour) Soroudi
related this family anecdote:
In his youth, early in the 20th century, my late father was
eyewitness to the implementation of this regulation. A group of elder
Jewish leaders in Kashan had to approach the head clergy of the town
(a Shi’i community from early Islamic times, long before the
Safavids, and known for its religious fervor) to discuss a matter of
great urgency to the community. It was a rainy day and they had to
send a Muslim messenger to ask for special permission to leave the
ghetto. Permission granted, they reached the house of the clergy but,
because of the rain, they were not allowed to stand even in the
hallway. They remained outside, drenched, and talked to the mullah
who stood inside next to the window.'[ from, `The Concept of Jewish
Impurity and its Reflection in Persian and Judeo-Persian Traditions’,
Irano-Judaica, Vol. 3, 1994, p. 156.]
Souroudi added this note, as well [p.156, footnote 36]:
As late as 1923, the Jews of Iran counted this regulation as one of
the anti-Jewish restrictions still practiced in the country.’
A more disconcerting 20th century anecdote from an informant living
in Shiraz, was recounted by Anthropologist Laurence Loeb [in
Outcaste, p.21]:
When I was a boy, I went with my father to the house of a non-Jew on
business. When we were on our way, it started to rain. We stopped
near a man who had apparently fallen and was bleeding. As we started
to help him, a Muslim akhond (theologian) stopped and asked me who I
was and what I was doing. Upon discovering that I was a Jew, he
reached for a stick to hit me for defiling him by being near him in
the rain. My father ran to him and begged the akhond to hit him
instead.
Finally, Janet Kestenberg Amighi. (in The Zoroastrians of Iran:
conversion, assimilation, or persistence. New York, NY: AMS Press,
1990, pp. 85) has argued that the Zoroastrians were perhaps the
lowest non-Muslim caste in Shi’ite Iran, and accordingly, subjected
to the most severe najis-related restrictions:
In Yezd and Kerman (through the early 20th century), Moslem pollution
prohibitions were strictly observed and extended to most aspects of
life. A Moslem would not eat out of a dish touched by a Zoroastrian
nor permit even his garment to be touched by a Zoroastrian.
Zoroastrians were forbidden the use of most community facilities such
as barber shops, bath houses, water fountains, and tea houses. Water
and wetness were considered to be particularly strong carriers of
pollution. Zoroastrians were not permitted to go to the market in the
rain. They could not touch fruit when shopping in the bazaar,
although the dry goods could be touched.
Far worse, the dehumanizing character of these popularized `impurity’
regulations appears to have fomented recurring Muslim anti-infidel
violence, including pogroms and forced conversions, throughout the
17th, 18th ,19th and into the early 20th centuries, as opposed to
merely unpleasant, `odd behaviors’ by individual Muslims towards
non-Muslims.
Respite and Recrudescence
Reza Pahlavi’s spectacular rise to power in 1925 was accompanied by
dramatic reforms, including secularization and westernization
efforts, as well as a revitalization of Iran’s pre-Islamic spiritual
and cultural heritage. This profound sociopolitical transformation
had very positive consequences for Iran’s non-Muslims. By virtue of ,
`…breaking the power of the Shia clergy, which for centuries had
stood in the way of progress’, Walter Fischel observed that Reza
Shah, `…shaped a modernized and secularized state, freed almost
entirely from the fetters of a once fanatical and powerful clergy’.
Regarding Jews specifically, Lawrence Loeb wrote in 1976 that,
The Pahlavi period…has been the most favorable era for Persian Jews
since Parthian rule [175 B.C. to 226 C.E.]…the `Law of Apostasy’ was
abrogated about 1930. While Reza Shah did prohibit political Zionism
and condoned the execution of the popular liberal Jewish reformer
Hayyim Effendi, his rule was on the whole, an era of new
opportunities for the Persian Jew. Hostile outbreaks against the Jews
have been prevented by the government. Jews are no longer legally
barred from any profession. They are required to serve in the army
and pay the same taxes as Muslims. The elimination of the face-veil
removed a source of insult to Jewish women, who had been previously
required have their faces uncovered; now all women are supposed to
appear unveiled in public…Secular educations were available to Jewish
girls as well as to boys, and, for the first time, Jews could become
government-licensed teachers…Since the ascendance of Mohammad Reza
Shah (Aryamehr) in 1941, the situation has further improved…Not only
has the number of poor been reduced, but a new bourgeoisie is
emerging…For the first time Jews are spending their money on cars,
carpets, houses, travel, and clothing. Teheran has attracted
provincial Jews in large numbers and has become the center of Iranian
Jewish life…The Pahlavi era has seen vastly improved communications
between Iranian Jewry and the rest of the world. Hundreds of boys and
girls attend college and boarding school in the United States and
Europe. Israeli emissaries come for periods of two years to teach in
the Jewish schools…A small Jewish publication industry has arisen
since 1925…Books on Jewish history, Zionism, the Hebrew language and
classroom texts have since been published…On March 15, 1950, Iran
extended de facto recognition to Israel. Relations with Israel are
good and trade is growing.
But Loeb concluded on this cautionary, sadly prescient note, in 1976,
emphasizing the Jews tenuous status:
`Despite the favorable attitude of the government and the relative
prosperity of the Jewish community, all Iranian Jews acknowledge the
precarious nature of the present situation. There are still sporadic
outbreaks against them because the Muslim clergy constantly berates
Jews, inciting the masses who make no effort to hide their animosity
towards the Jew. Most Jews express the belief that it is only the
personal strength and goodwill of the Shah that protects them: that
plus God’s intervention! If either should fail… [emphasis added].
The so-called `Khomeini revolution’, which deposed Mohammad Reza
Shah, was in reality a mere return to oppressive Shi’ite theocratic
rule, the predominant form of Persian/Iranian governance since 1502.
Conditions for all non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly
Bahais and Jews, rapidly deteriorated. Historian David Littman
recounts the Jews’ immediate plight:
In the months preceding the Shah’s departure on 16 January 1979, the
religious minorities…were already beginning to feel insecure…Twenty
thousand Jews left the country before the triumphant return of the
Ayatollah Khomeini on 1 February…On 16 March, the honorary president
of the Iranian Jewish community, Habib Elghanian, a wealthy
businessman, was arrested and charged by an Islamic revolutionary
tribunal with `corruption’ and `contacts with Israel and Zionism’; he
was shot on 8 May
The writings and speeches of the most influential religious
ideologues of this restored Shi’ite theocracy – including Khomeini
himself – make apparent their seamless connection to the oppressive
doctrines of their forbears in the Safavid and Qajar dynasties. For
example, Sultanhussein Tabandeh, the leader of a Shi’ite Sufi order,
wrote an `Islamic perspective’ on the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. According to Professor Eliz Sanasarian’s important analysis
of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic, Tabandeh’s tract
became
`…the core ideological work upon which the Iranian government…based
its non-Muslim policy.’
Tabandeh begins his discussion by lauding Shah Ismail I (1502-1524),
the repressive and bigoted founder of the Safavid dynasty, as a
champion `…of the oppressed’. It is critical to understand that
Tabandeh’s key views on non-Muslims, summarized below, were
implemented `…almost verbatim in the Islamic Republic of Iran.’. In
essence, Tabandeh simply reaffirms the sacralized inequality of
non-Muslims relative to Muslims, under the Shari’a:
Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the
shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is
not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is
execution…Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim
he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death
by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a
Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death
is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be
punished with the lash
Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and
conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim…then his punishment must
not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he
possesses is loftier than that of the man slain…Again, the penalties
of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are
augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social
duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has
disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in
general, and so must be executed
Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit
non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them. Since the marriage of a
Muslim woman to an infidel husband (in accordance with the verse
quoted: `Men are guardians form women’) means her subordination to an
infidel, that fact makes the marriage void, because it does not obey
the conditions laid down to make a contract valid. As the Sura (`The
Woman to be Examined’, LX v. 10) says: `Turn them not back to
infidels: for they are not lawful unto infidels nor are infidels
lawful unto them (i.e., in wedlock).
And Sanasarian emphasizes the centrality of this notion of Islam’s
superiority to all other faiths:
…even the so-called moderate elements [in the Islamic Republic]
believed in its truth. Mehdi Barzagan, an engineer by training and
religiously devout by family line and personal practice, became the
prime minister of the Provisional Government in 1979. He believed
that man must have one of the monotheistic religions in order to
battle selfishness, materialism, and communism. Yet the choice was
not a difficult one. `Among monotheist religions, Zoroastrianism is
obsolete, Judaism has bred materialism, and Christianity is dictated
by its church. Islam is the only way out’. In this line of thinking,
there is no recognition of Hindusim, Buddhism, Bahaism, or other
religions
The conception of najis or ritual uncleanliness of the non-Muslim has
also been reaffirmed. Ayatollah Khomeini stated explicitly,
`Non-Muslims of any religion or creed are najis.’
The Iranian Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri further elaborated that a
non-Muslim (kafir’s) impurity was,
`a political order from Islam and must be adhered to by the followers
of Islam, and the goal [was] to promote general hatred toward those
who are outside Muslim circles.’
This `hatred’ was to assure that Muslims would not succumb to
corrupt, i.e., non-Islamic, thoughts. Sanasarian provides a striking
example of the practical impact of this renewed najis consciousness:
In the case of the Coca-Cola plant, for example, the owner (an
Armenian) fled the country, the factory was confiscated, and Armenian
workers were fired. Several years later, the family members were
allowed to oversee the daily operations of the plant, and Armenians
were allowed to work at the clerical level; however, the production
workers remained Muslim. Armenian workers were never rehired on the
grounds that non-Muslims should not touch the bottles or their
contents, which may be consumed by Muslims.
Khomeini’s views were the most influential in shaping the ideology of
the revitalized Shi’ite theocracy, and his attitudes towards Jews
(both before and after he assumed power) were particularly negative.
Khomeini’s speeches and writings invoked a panoply of Judenhass
motifs, including orthodox interpretations of sacralized Muslim texts
(for e.g., describing the destruction of the Banu Qurayza), and the
Shi’ite conception of najis. More ominously, Khomeini’s rhetoric
blurred the distinction between Jews and Israelis, reiterated
paranoid conspiracy theories about Jews (both within Persia/Iran, and
beyond), and endorsed the annihilation of the Jewish State.
Sanasarian highlights these disturbing predilections:
The Jews and Israelis were interchangeable entities who had
penetrated all facets of life. Iran was being `trampled upon under
Jewish boots’. The Jews had conspired to kill the Qajar king Naser
al-Din Shah and had a historically grand design to rule through a new
monarchy and a new government (the Pahlavi dynasty): `Gentlemen, be
frightened. They are such monsters’. In a vitriolic attack on
Mohammad Reza Shah’s celebration of 2500 years of Persian monarchy in
1971, Khomeini declared that Israeli technicians had planned the
celebrations and they were behind the exuberant expenses and
overspending. Objecting to the sale of oil to Israel, he said: `We
should not ignore that the Jews want to take over Islamic
countries’…In an address to the Syrian foreign minister after the
Revolution Khomeini lamented: `If Muslims got together and each
poured one bucket of water on Israel, a flood would wash away
Israel’…
Professor Reza Afshari’s seminal analysis of human rights in
contemporary Iran summarizes the predictable consequences for Jews
of the Khomeini `revolution’:
As anti-Semitism found official expression…and the anti-Israeli state
propaganda became shriller, Iranian Jews felt quite uncertain about
their future under the theocracy. Early in 1979, the execution of
Habib Elqaniyan, a wealthy, self-made businessman, a symbol of
success for many Iranian Jews, hastened emigration. The departure of
the chief rabbi for Europe in the summer of 1980 underlined the fact
that the hardships that awaited the remaining Jewish Iranians would
far surpass those of other protected minorities
Conclusions
An ethos of infidel-hatred, including paroxysms of annihilationist
fanaticism, has pervaded Persian/Iranian society, almost without
interruption (i.e., the two major exceptions being Sunni Afghan rule
from 1725-1794, and Pahlavi reign, with its Pre-Islamic revivalist
efforts, from 1925-1979), since the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy
in 1502 under Shah Ismail, through its present Khomeini-inspired
restoration, since 1979.
Having returned their small remnant Jewish community to a state of
obsequious dhimmitude – including now, perhaps the full restoration of
discriminatory badging – Iran’s current theocratic rulers focus most
of their obsessive anti-Jewish bigotry on the free-living Jews of
neighboring Israel.
Former Iranian President Rafsanjani’s December 2001 `Al Quds Day’
sermon threatened, explicitly, the nuclear annihilation of this
largest concentration of autonomous Jews in history. Current
President Ahmadinejad has reiterated these threats repeatedly as
Iran’s nuclear ambitions near fulfillment. But Ahmadinejad has also
reportedly vowed, `To stop Christianity in this country’ [i.e., Iran]
, and his recent `letter’ to President Bush emulates the jihad war
precept (originally formulated by the Muslim prophet Muhammad) of
calling infidel powers – often Christian powers – to accept Islam, prior
to initiating a jihad war against them.
The Iranian regime’s words and deeds are authentic manifestations of
the hatred of jihad. Whether directed against internal or external
`infidels’ this is a potentially genocidal animus which must be
understood in its Islamic context without meaningless and distracting
invocations to modern Western forms of totalitarianism, like Nazism.
Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.

Zaman, Turkey
May 21 2006
Is There a ‘Seldon Plan’ we do not Know About?
MEHMET KAMIS
05.20.2006 Saturday – ISTANBUL 00:31
Today, I would like to tell you about a novelist and his book. Isaac
Asimov who died on April 6, 1992 is known as one of the greatest
science fiction writers of our age.
Asimov, born as the child of a Jewish family in Russia, migrated to
USA when he was three. He grew up in New York and started writing
science fiction stories before he is 20. The Foundation series, among
his several works big and small, are considered among the most
important works in the field of science fiction.
In his Foundation series, Asimov talks about an imaginary and distant
future. Events taking place tens of thousands of years later are told
in these series called a kind of history of the Knights of the Temple
as they come to the agenda at times. Differently from the common
sci-fi works, there are no aliens or strange creatures around. The
human being went to space and gradually spread all over the galaxy. A
big empire is founded and the whole galaxy is under the sovereignty
of this empire. Asimov finds himself a hero at this point. A young
mathematician, Hari Seldon, puts forward an interesting thesis he
will later call `psychohistory.’
This thesis asserts that the future course of human events can be
calculated with a very complex mathematics formula and can be changed
through interventions if necessary. The formula does not work on
human beings one by one but gives perfect results on huge masses of
people. As Seldon applies the data of the era he lives in to the
formula, a very interesting result emerges. Bad times await humanity.
The empire will collapse and an era of barbarism to last for
thousands of years will replace it. Seldon realizes he will not be
able to stop the fall of this empire but the revival of humanity can
be possible in a much shorter time with proper interventions.
Seldon prepares a plan he believes will be for the benefit of
humanity. He deceives the administrators and sends a group of
scientists to a deserted planet at the border of the galaxy in order
to set up the Foundation with an apparent mission of preparing an
encyclopedia. He also convenes another group as the real protectors
of the plan under the title Second Foundation, in an unknown place he
calls Star’s End. The real mission the First Foundation is not aware
of is that of establishing the empire again in the future. As for the
Second Foundation, it is made up of leaders who know about the Plan
and will protect and make it operate after Seldon dies. Though the
First Foundation seems to rise, the Real Masters are the Second
Foundation members behind the scenes.
The Second Foundation we can also call social engineers constantly
controls the First Foundation and makes necessary adjustments for
them to live in accordance with the Seldon Plan. The plan is based on
the principle of leaving a single choice for human beings pressured
by crises inside and outside the country and their following this
single way compulsorily. The Second Foundation is always vigilant in
order for the plan to function. It produces proper crises when
necessary and never lets the First Foundation act on its own. It
continuously reduces the choices and makes sure others remain loyal
to the big plan. Those who have read the series may ask why I do not
mention the Mule or R. Daniel. If I mentioned them, then I would have
done wrong to those who have not read the series, however, I intended
to do so but this column does not have enough space for them, either.
While narrating the Seldon Plan, I said that the basic spirit is
leaving one single choice for humanity pressured by domestic and
foreign crises. Now, I have a look at the very recent history…
Foreign troubles on the one hand…The events taking place in
neighboring Iraq, developments within the framework of Iran, our
European Union membership process, France’s efforts to enact the
so-called Armenian Genocide law…It is possible to extend the list.
Domestic troubles on the other hand…The tension in Semdinli, the
Counter-Terrorism Act and the debates that ensued, pressure imposed
on the sanctities of different groups in the society, tension at
universities, the sudden economic fluctuation in the past week and
the treacherous attack on the Council of State yesterday…It is
possible to extend the links of this chain, too. I wonder if there is
a Second Foundation and are we forced to follow a certain way within
the framework of a pre-determined plan unawarely? No, it cannot be
possible!
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Zaman, Turkey
May 21 2006
Greek Cypriots Choose Their New Deputies
By Foreign News Desk
Published: Saturday, May 20, 2006
zaman.com
Critical parliamentary elections will be held tomorrow in Greek
Cyprus; 495 candidates including a Turk will compete for 56 seats in
the parliament.
Many female candidates are joining this year’s elections, in which
Turks residing in Southern Cyprus can cast votes. One of these is
Nese Yasin, a Turkish Cypriot. Yasin will try her chances to enter
the Greek Cypriot parliament as a candidate of the United Democrats
Movement (EDI). Yasin’s party; however, is not expected to win a
single seat according to polls. Religious groups and independent
candidates have also entered the competition, in which 11 political
parties and blocs are taking part. The deputies to be obtained by
Maronit, Armenian and Latin groups will not have the right to vote in
the parliament, but will mediate and communicate the problems of
religious groups to the parliament. Preliminary results from the
elections will be obtained towards midnight. 500,606 registered
voters including 266 Turks will cast their vote at 216 centers.

Zaman, Turkey
May 21 2006
Ankara: We Hope Bill will not be Brought up Again
By Zaman, Ankara
Published: Saturday, May 20, 2006
zaman.com
Turkish officials in Ankara welcomed with cautious optimism the news
that the French bill designed to criminalize denial of the s0-called
Armenian genocide was `for the time being’ dropped off the agenda.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry focused attention on the need
to not bring up the bill for discussion a second time in the
parliament. It also appealed for approval from the international
community of a proposal from the Turkish government to `form a joint
commission.’
In Friday’s parliamentary discussions, the French government and
French foreign minister had an oppositional stance to the bill, the
statement read, `Now we expect to see that the bill will not be
brought up for discussion a second time in the French National
Parliament, and that a joint commission of Turkish and Armenian
historians will be allowed to make use of all documents -archived or
not – when they are assigned for an exploration of the 1915 events,
and that the international community, including France, will grant
its approval of a proposal from the Turkish government to share the
results with the whole world.’
France was thrown into discussion over the bill that received
opposition from French historians and public leaders, the statement
said.