Iran: Montrer que si nous sommes antisionistes, nous ne sommes pas antisémites (Mullahs use TV series based on Iranian Schindler story to push their antisemitic agenda)

Se référant à l’attitude humanitaire de Cyrus le grand qui avait libéré en 500 avant JC les juifs retenus captifs à Babylone, Sardari n’avait aucun doute que Shah et le gouvernement iranien confirmeraient sa décision après la guerre. Fereydoun Hoveyda (ex-ambassadeur d’Iran à l’ONU sous le Shah et neveu de Sardari, New York December 1997)

Le meurtre des juifs innocents pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale est aussi ignoble, triste et choquant que le massacre de femmes et enfants palestiniens innocents par les soldats sionistes racistes. Hassan Fatthi (auteur-réalisateur de la série)

Ce jour-là, la stratégie de l’Ouest sera caduque, car une unique bombe atomique a le pouvoir de complètement détruire Israël, alors qu’une contre-attaque israélienne ne peut causer que des dégâts mineurs au monde musulman. Rafsanjani (« Journée de Jérusalem », le 14 décembre 2001)

Après la récupération de la religion, puis du nationalisme, y compris les ruines de Persepolis qui avaient été longtemps condamnées pour leur association avec le Shah … le régime des mollahs s’attaque maintenant à l’histoire pré-révolutionnaire!

Et, via une série télé de 22 épisodes commencés en avril dernier, à celle d’un Schindler iranien, qui, sous le régime du Shah sauva des centaines de juifs en leur fournissant de faux passeports via l’ambassade iranienne à Paris …

Et les médias occidentaux, l’idiote utile du Figaro Delphine Minoui en tête, de s’extasier devant la propagande des mollahs visant à suggérer la diversité d’opinion supposée des membres du régime et le prétendu retour, après les positions radicales d’un Ahminejad, à une prétendue modération.

Sauf que, comme ne se lasse pas de le rappeler Iran-Resist, la distinction antisionisme-antisémitisme est purement formelle et que bien avant Ahminejad, l’ex-président prétendument modéré Rafsandjani (accessoirement sous mandat international pour le plus grand attentat anti-juif depuis la Shoah au centre culturel juif de Buenos Aires en 1999) avait déjà appelé à l’annihilation nucléaire d’Israël.

Sans compter qu’en plus de s’attribuer des actes d’un régime qui fut le premier Etat musulman à reconnaître Israël et eut jusqu’au bout de bonnes relations avec lui (le régime du Shah père et fils), on triche sur les chiffres puisque ce serait, selon Iran-Resist, quelque 38 000 juifs qui furent sauvés par le gouvernement du shah et non 1 000 comme il est dit partout.

Mais surtout on en profite pour marteler la ligne officielle selon laquelle la création d’israël ne répondait pas à un souhait millénaire de retour à leur terre ancestrale de la part des Juifs mais n’était qu’une idée européenne pour s’en débarrasser à bon compte.

De plus, comme le rappelle, un site juif-iranien de Los Angeles, les faits et les juifs n’y sont pas toujours respectés ou présentés sous leur meilleur jour, comme par exemple le fait que le diplomate iranien ne demanda jamais d’argent mais, comme le rappelle le Musée des Justes Yad Vashem de Jérusalem, suivait simplement les consignes de son gouvernement et…l’exemple millénaire d’un certain autre grand sauveur de juifs perse, un certain Cyrus !

Iran : Exploitation malhonnête d’un fait historique concernant l’Holocauste
Iran-Resist

02.11.2007

Delphine Minoui a encore frappé en écrivant un article qui permet aux mollahs d’exploiter selon leur convenance un fait historique flamboyant de l’histoire iranienne : l’aide apportée par les ambassades du Chah d’Iran aux juifs persécutés en Europe par les nazis.

Actuellement le régime des mollahs diffuse à la télévision iranienne une série relatant ces faits. C’est une occasion toute trouvée pour Delphine Minoui de participer à cette exploitation malhonnête du régime des mollahs et en ajoutant sa touche personnelle.

Le téléfilm entend prouver que le régime des mollahs ne confond pas l’anti-sionisme et l’anti-sémitisme et Minoui est là pour en rendre compte ! Elle fait réellement bien son travail de l’attachée de presse du régime des mollahs. De plus, il ne s’agit pas d’un scoop, elle l’avait sans doute ficelé à l’avance pour le 1er novembre, période creuse où selon son analyse il ne se passerait rien sur l’Iran (comme ça elle pouvait aussi faire le pont avec cet article prêt à l’avance). En fait l’Orient le Jour avait déjà publié une dépêche sur cette série télévisée le 9 octobre 2007 et la dépêche avait été reprise par de nombreux sites ou journaux le 10 octobre.

Dans cette première dépêche, on pouvait lire : « Le thème est rebattu, une histoire d’amour sur fond d’Holocauste, mais son utilisation dans une série télévisée iranienne fait un tabac dans la République islamique. La série de 30 épisodes, diffusée dans un pays dont le président Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a appelé à la destruction d’Israël et a mis en doute la réalité de l’Holocauste, conte l’histoire d’une juive sauvée des camps par un diplomate iranien. Son succès doit beaucoup à l’attention portée à la reconstitution des décors de l’époque, que ce soit l’Europe de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ou l’Iran du chah Reza Pahlavi (le père du Chah d’Iran) ».

Il est vrai que les Iraniens sont avides de l’époque des Pahlavi, qu’ils regrettent à plusieurs titres. De ce côté, Minoui assure le service minimum, et passe vite sur les faits historiques pour se concentrer sur la série et ses producteurs liés au régime des mollahs.

Minoui écrit : « Elle (la série) raconte comment le héros, Habib, jeune étudiant iranien à Paris dans les années 1940, sauve sa dulcinée d’origine juive, Sara, des camps de concentration nazis grâce… à la complicité de l’ambassade d’Iran en France qui accepte de lui fournir un faux passeport. Cette production télévisée fait référence à un événement historique rarement mis en avant par la République islamique, car appartenant à l’époque prérévolutionnaire : l’aide d’Abdol Hossein Sardari, ambassadeur iranien en poste à Paris à l’époque du Shah, à plus de 1000 Juifs. Pour sauver leur peau, il fit falsifier des papiers et leur accorda la nationalité iranienne. »

Minoui réduit le nombre des juifs sauvés à 1000 et l’affaire à une histoire d’amour et de faux papiers ! Il ne suffit pas des sentiments d’un étudiant amoureux pour qu’un Etat décide d’aller à l’encontre de la puissante Allemagne nazie. En fait Delphine Minoui emploie son énergie à réécrire l’histoire aux côtés des cinéastes malhonnêtes du régime des mollahs car ce sont 38,000 juifs européens qui ont été naturalisés iraniens pour échapper à des déportations.

Il s’agissait d’un acte politique courageux décidé par le Chah d’Iran et non d’une simple histoire de romance. Les termes employés par Minoui sont délibérément humiliants : faux papier, passeport falsifié, sauver leur peau. L’acte politique décidé par le Chah a été réalisé bien avant la création d’Israël et il a été réalisé avec l’aide de nombreux diplomates iraniens. Par la suite, le Chah n’a même pas essayé d’exploiter ces faits humanitaires à des fins politiciennes dans ses relations avec la communauté juive ou avec Israël. Sous le règne de cet ami de l’Occident, l’Iran fut le premier pays musulman à reconnaître Israël et à établir des relations étroites qui durèrent jusqu’en 1979.

Les iraniens ne sont jamais descendus dans la rue pour contester ces choix philosémites des rois de la Dynastie Pahlavi ! La raison en est que le racisme antisémite d’origine européenne n’a jamais eu de répercussions politiques en Iran. De ce fait, il n’y a pas lieu de greffer sur ces faits historiques remarquables un discours politique contemporain qui distingue l’anti-sémitisme et l’anti-sionisme.

Minoui sait bien que cette distinction n’existe pas, mais elle se prête au jeu des mollahs pour diffuser ce message particulier en France. Pour y arriver, elle utilise uniformément, les mots « les iraniens » pour parler des spectateurs, des diplomates iraniens sous l’occupation nazie ou encore des mollahs actuellement au pouvoir ! Il y a une volonté d’établir une confusion, afin de faire attribuer la gloire de ce choix historique aux actuels dirigeants de l’Iran, les mollahs qui ont pris le pouvoir pour justement mettre un terme à ces choix.

Exemple : Après avoir énuméré les propos anti-israéliens d’Ahmadinejad (au passage, elle a oublié des propos similaires de Rafsandjani ou Khomeiny), après avoir cité les caricatures anti-sémites ou anti-israéliennes diffusées par les mollahs, et la conférence négationniste organisée par le régime, Minoui parle de paradoxe « iranien » en évoquant le succès de la série auprès « des iraniens » !

Minoui se permet même d’écrire que l’association juive iranienne a salué la série. Ce qui lui permet d’affirmer que les juifs iraniens sont actuellement bien lotis en Iran. « Ils sont libres de prier dans leurs synagogues, de faire leurs courses dans des épiceries kasher. »

C’est un texte digne d’un service de propagande. Minoui a oublié de rappeler que les juifs d’Iran il y a peu ont été contraints par le régime de saluer la destruction d’Israël !

Au passage, elle affirme que le régime des mollahs respecte toutes les minorités. Minoui ignore sans doute que depuis 1979, les sunnites iraniens n’ont pas droit d’avoir leur mosquée et que le régime fait fouetter les chrétiens convertis et traite les Bahaïs avec une dureté non égalée. Mais dans son article, Minoui n’a pas cité les Bahaïs : les mollahs ne les reconnaissent pas comme des êtres ayant des droits et elle n’en souffle mot.

Delphine Minoui est réellement l’attachée de presse du régime des mollahs, prête à falsifier le passé comme le présent pour en faire le support de toutes les propagandes du régime des mollahs.

C’est bien regrettable que le Figaro garde dans ses services cette femme sans scrupule qui laisse quand même entendre dans son article (via un témoignage bidon) que le peuple iranien serait en accord avec le volet anti-sioniste du régime des mollahs. Il est regrettable que le Figaro publie de tels papiers qui insultent le peuple iranien.

Quand la télévision d’État iranienne défend les Juifs
Delphine Minoui
Le Figaro
le 01 novembre 2007

À Téhéran, une nouvelle série télévisée s’intéresse à la question peu médiatisée des quelque 1 000 Juifs de France sauvés par l’Iran du génocide allemand pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Et en profite, en même temps, pour faire délibérément la différence entre la position du gouvernement iranien sur le judaïsme et son attitude envers Israël.

Les appels répétés de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad à « rayer Israël de la carte » et ses mises en doute de l’ampleur de la Shoah ont fini par se muer, vu d’Occident, en un sinistre feuilleton. Mais à Téhéran, les Iraniens ont droit, depuis la rentrée, à un feuilleton d’un tout autre genre : une série télévisée, diffusée tous les lundis soirs sur la première chaîne étatique, et qui s’intéresse, elle, au génocide juif pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale et à la cause des victimes du nazisme. Surprenant dans un pays où les cris de « mort à Israël » rythment tous les vendredis la grande prière hebdomadaire ? « Non », insiste Hossein Bechekoucheh, le producteur de cette nouvelle série grand public. « Il s’agit, au contraire, de montrer que si nous sommes antisionistes, nous ne sommes pas antisémites. »

Intitulée Virage à degré zéro (« Madar-é sefr daradjé »), la série de 22 épisodes cherche, d’une certaine façon, à clarifier la position des autorités iraniennes, en faisant la distinction entre la question du judaïsme, qui est acceptée par les leaders religieux au pouvoir, et celle de la création de l’État d’Israël, régulièrement condamnée. Elle raconte comment le héros, Habib, jeune étudiant iranien à Paris dans les années 1940, sauve sa dulcinée d’origine juive, Sara, des camps de concentration nazis grâce… à la complicité de l’ambassade d’Iran en France qui accepte de lui fournir un faux passeport. Cette production télévisée fait référence à un événement historique rarement mis en avant par la République islamique, car appartenant à l’époque prérévolutionnaire : l’aide d’Abdol Hussein Sardari, ambassadeur iranien en poste à Paris à l’époque du Shah, à plus de 1 000 Juifs. Pour sauver leur peau, il fit falsifier des papiers et leur accorda la nationalité iranienne. « À l’étranger, on accuse l’Iran de faire pression sur les juifs. Mais dans ce feuilleton, on montre justement que dans toutes les religions, il existe des bons et des méchants », note Hossein Bechekoucheh.

Grande première : l’association juive d’Iran, qui avait fermement condamné, il y a deux ans, les propos d’Ahmadinejad sur la Shoah s’est empressée de faire l’éloge de la série. La thématique abordée par Virage à degré zéro tranche, en effet, avec l’image véhiculée par Téhéran au cours de ces deux dernières années. En comparant, dès son élection en 2005, Israël à une « tumeur » qu’il faut « effacer », le président iranien s’est rapidement mis à dos la communauté internationale, qui s’inquiète, en parallèle, des ambitions nucléaires iraniennes. Plus tard, l’organisation d’un concours de caricatures, puis celle d’une conférence sur la « réalité » et le « mythe » de la Shoah, en présence de grandes figures du négationnisme, dont le Français Robert Faurisson, n’ont fait qu’empirer les choses.

Et pourtant, paradoxe mis en exergue par la série, la communauté juive iranienne, la plus importante du Moyen-Orient en dehors d’Israël, se trouve plutôt bien lotie. Ses quelque 20 000 membres disposent, à l’instar de la minorité chrétienne et de la minorité zoroastrienne, d’un représentant au Parlement iranien. Ils sont libres de prier dans leurs synagogues, de faire leurs courses dans des épiceries kasher. Ils possèdent leurs propres hôpitaux, leurs écoles et peuvent consommer de l’alcool pour le besoin de leur culte. « Tant qu’on ne se mêle pas de politique, on est relativement tranquille », souffle Joseph, un commerçant juif de la capitale. Il n’a pourtant pas oublié l’arrestation, en 1999, à l’époque du président réformateur Mohammad Khatami, de treize Juifs de Shiraz et d’Ispahan, accusés d’espionnage au profit d’Israël. « Mais c’est une tactique également utilisée par les forces conservatrices contre des intellectuels iraniens musulmans pour étouffer les voix qui se prononcent en faveur de la démocratie », reconnaît-il.

«Cette série a l’avantage de mettre les points sur les» i * et d’éviter les amalgames », explique Kambiz, un médecin iranien de 38 ans, spectateur assidu. « Elle permet de rappeler qu’au-delà des slogans provocateurs de façade, les Iraniens n’ont jamais tué de Juifs, et que au contraire, ils les ont sauvés, par le passé, de la brutalité des Allemands ». Le succès de Virage à degré zéro, tourné entre Paris et Budapest, tient également, concède-t-il, « à la qualité cinématographique de son réalisateur, Hassan Fathi », connu en Iran pour ses fictions historiques. Dans un pays où de nombreux films occidentaux sont bloqués par la censure, les gros moyens utilisés par Hassan Fathi permettent aux spectateurs de découvrir des paysages européens et d’apprécier les tenues féminines à la mode dans les années 1940. Et tranchent donc avec les voiles obligatoires et austères des speakerines de la télévision iranienne.

La réussite de ce programme vient d’ailleurs d’inspirer le tournage, par un autre réalisateur, Hossein Samieizadeh, d’une nouvelle série intitulée Gilad, narrant l’histoire de Ben Hur, un jeune homme juif qui émigre en Iran à l’époque nazie. En parallèle, la télévision d’État ne manque pas de poursuivre son autre objectif, celui de « dénoncer le sionisme », en diffusant, à l’occasion de chaque regain de tension avec Israël, ses fameux spots publicitaires appelant la population à ne pas consommer de « Pepsi », acronyme, disent les autorités iraniennes, de Pay Each Penny to Save Israel (littéralement : « Payez chaque penny pour sauver Israël »).

Cette approche à double vitesse est, en fait, récurrente en République islamique d’Iran. En 1987, le grand cinéaste Massoud Kimiaï s’était déjà intéressé à la différence entre « antisionisme » et « antisémitisme ». Son film Sorb racontait l’histoire de Daniel et Munes, un couple juif iranien de Téhéran, cherchant à émigrer vers la « Terre promise », en 1948. Leur demande est rejetée à cause de l’oncle de Daniel, Yaghoub, accusé « d’activités antisionistes ». Ce dernier sera finalement tué par des « agents » d’Israël… Vingt ans plus tard, Virage à degré zéro reste sur la même longueur d’onde. Sauvée par Habib le musulman, la belle Sara ne manque pas de décliner l’offre de mariage d’un cousin. Raison avancée : il préconisait la création d’Israël.

2007-10-19
TV: Iran’s ‘Zero Degree Turn’ flips facts on Holocaust
Karmel Melamed

A popular Persian-language drama on Iranian state-run television dealing with the Holocaust contains anti-Semitic and anti-Israel themes, Los Angeles Iranian Jewish activists have revealed.

News publications, including The Wall Street Journal, have hailed the new show, « Zero Degree Turn, » as sympathetic to the plight of Jews during the Shoah, but Jewish experts fluent in Persian have analyzed the program more closely and have come to a different conclusion.

« This TV program lists in its credits a man named Abdollah Shabazi, who was an ideological strategist for the Iranian government, and he gave this idea to make this propaganda film to show that Iranians are ‘good with the Jews,' » said Bijan Khalili, a Los Angeles-based Iranian Jewish activist and Persian-language book publisher. « But in reality, this man is the author of many anti-Semitic and anti-Bahai [Persian-language] books. »

The show focuses on an Iranian Palestinian Muslim man who, over the course of 22 episodes, helps his French Jewish lover and her family escape Nazi-occupied France by providing them with forged passports. Khalili and other L.A.-area Iranian Jews say the program is laced with blatant historical inaccuracies and messages of hate for Jews and Zionists.

« One of the objectives of this program is to show that Jews are corrupt, because they are shown as both giving bribes and accepting bribes, » Khalili said. The story includes a character called Homayoun Talab, an Iranian diplomat, who accepts bribes in order to provide false papers to Jews.

Talab, Khalili said, is loosely based on Abdol Hossein Sardari, Iranian ambassador to German-controlled France during World War II, who forestalled the deportation of 200 Iranian Jews living in Paris at the time.

Fariborz Mokhtari, a professor of Eastern studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., recently completed a book on Sardari’s life. He said « Zero Degree Turn » egregiously misrepresents Sardari, who never accepted money for giving Jews in France Iranian passports.

« Sardari was duty-bound to look after the interests of Iranians. Whether they were Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish or Muslim was not very important to him, » said Mokhtari, who is Muslim and has been researching Sardari since 2002. « As he was quoted having told his inquiring nephew, ‘It was his duty to his country and to God.' »

In April 2004, Los Angeles Jewish organizations, including the Wiesenthal Center and Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills, posthumously honored Sardari for saving several hundred Iranian Jews and European Jews who were living in Paris during World War II. The late Ibrahim Moradi, an Iranian Jewish survivor aided by Sardari, attended the 2004 ceremony at Nessah and told of how Sardari had helped him and the other Jews escape the Nazis without requesting any money.

Western media outlets first learned of « Zero Degree Turn » several months ago, when English-subtitled episodes appeared on YouTube. In those shows, the existence of the Holocaust was not questioned. For this reason, the series has generated substantial attention, in part as a contrast to the repeated Holocaust-denial statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Frank Nikbkaht, an Iranian Jew and director of the L.A.-based Committee for Minority Rights in Iran, called « Zero Degree Turn, » with its elaborate sets, expensive foreign location shoots and actresses appearing without the state-mandated Islamic dress code, part of a larger public relations campaign by the Iranian government.

« Powerful forces within Iran have decided to erase or whitewash Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust statements out of fear of losing even more in the propaganda war aimed at European and American audiences, » Nikbkaht said. « They’re probably thinking that if Ahmadinejad won’t correct himself, or if he cannot retreat, then ‘we will do it for him.' »

At the same time, other Iran experts dispute allegations that « Zero Degree Turn » is a publicity stunt, because the program is both fictional and was produced a few years before Ahmadinejad began making his Holocaust-denial statements.

« Criticizing a fictional story for inaccuracy may not be entirely justified, unless the inaccuracies are flagrant, » Mokhtari said. « I would refrain from passing judgment on the program until I see more of it. »

Yet according to online English translations of the series’ second episode, prepared by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, Zionist Jews in the program go so far as to kill an Iranian rabbi in Paris and collaborated with the Gestapo in order to compel Jews to immigrate to Palestine.

One character in the show, an anti-Zionist rabbi named Menuhin, is asked whether fanatic Jews killed an Iranian rabbi. His response is, « It is more likely the work of the Jewish Agency. They don’t mind presenting life here as scary and unsafe in order to convince as many Jews as possible to emigrate to Palestine. »

Khalili also said that other episodes of « Zero Degree Turn » make repeated references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which are historically out of place, because the issue was not prevalent in the 1940s. Likewise the Jewish characters in the series are shown in a poor light, because they speak an improper form of the Persian language, as compared to the Muslim characters, Khalili said.

« We have a responsibility as Iranian Jews living outside of Iran to reveal to the rest of the world how anti-Israel and anti-Semitic the Iranian government is through this program and others like it, » Khalili said.

While the show’s writer-director Hassan Fatthi, who is based in Iran, did not return calls from The Jewish Journal for comment, he told The Wall Street Journal last month that his intention is to make a political statement about the Middle East, more than to create an entertainment piece based on some historical facts.

« Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists, » Fatthi said in the interview. « The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers. »

According to reports from within Iran, « Zero Degree Turn » has become one of the country’s most popular and watched television series since it began airing earlier this year.

Translation of a « Zero Degree Turn » episode by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) :
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD171507’_edn1

To view a clip with subtitles (MEMRI) visit:
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1565.htm.

Yad Vashem considered honoring Iranian diplomat
Etgar Lefkovits

THE JERUSALEM POST

Sep. 18, 2007

Yad Vashem has been considering bestowing its highest honor on a diplomat known as the « Schindler of Iran » for saving Jews during the Holocaust, but tentatively decided not to due to « inconclusive documentation » on the risk he took, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority said Monday.

Deliberation over whether to confer upon Abdol Hossain Sardari the title of « Righteous Among the Nations, » which was last taken up by Yad Vashem in 2005, would be reopened should new information arrive, a Yad Vashem spokesperson said Monday.

Sardari, who headed the Iranian consular office in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1941, saved many Jews during the Holocaust by issuing them blank Iranian passports.

His story is the subject of an Iranian state-run TV series on the Holocaust. It is seen as a government attempt to differentiate between Israel and the Jewish people, and to moderate its anti-Semitic image after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the Holocaust as a « myth » and repeatedly said Israel should be « wiped off the map. »

The issue over whether to posthumously bestow the title on Sardari, who died in 1981, has been taken up twice by Yad Vashem, most recently two years ago. But it has been tentatively turned down due to a lack of evidence that the Iranian diplomat acted at personal risk to himself, a key criteria for the award.

« Thus far, the documentation is inconclusive insofar as the criteria for recognition as Righteous Among the Nations, » a Yad Vashem spokesperson said. « Should material arrive that would shed more light on the case, it will be re-referred to the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nation. »

Yad Vashem said it was clear that Sardari had helped Jews living in Paris during the Holocaust who held Iranian citizenship, but it was not clear if he did so at any risk.

« This is admirable conduct, but it appears he acted in compliance with his [government] instruction, » the spokesperson said.

Due to the involvement of a diplomat, it appears that Iranian Foreign Ministry archives would offer historians the clearest picture on the case.

« After a profound exploration of the case and the historical circumstances, the commission decided then that based on the information at hand, it was unable to bestow the title on Sardari, » the spokesperson said.

Sardari sent a letter to Yad Vashem in April 1978, setting the process in motion.

« As you may know, » he wrote, « I had the pleasure of being the Iranian consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews. »

In 2004 the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center posthumously awarded Sardari for his actions during the Holocaust. The award ceremony was attended by Ibrahim Moradi, an Iranian-born Jew who Sardari saved. The award was presented to Sardari’s nephew, Fereydoun Hoveyda, who served as Iran’s ambassador to the UN in the 1970s, Wiesenthal Center associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper said Monday. Moradi was saved from the Nazis by a passport that Sardari provided, he said.

Moradi, who has since passed away, noted at the ceremony that Sardari acted without getting any money in exchange, Cooper said. That contradicts the Iranian TV series, which depicts the diplomat giving out the passports for cash, he added.

According to Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel director, the Iranian TV show indicated that the situation in Iran was not as monolithic as some might think.

« On the one hand we have the president of Iran who denies the very existence of the Holocaust, and on the other hand we have a flagship project of Iranian TV which presents the Holocaust as historical fact, » he said Monday.

The Wiesenthal Center’s criteria for honoring Holocaust heroes is less rigorous than that of Yad Vashem. It has also honored Khaled Abdelwahhab, a wealthy Tunisian landowner, for his actions during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem is considering the case.

A future decision to honor Abdelwahhab, who passed away in 1997, would make him the first Arab awarded Yad Vashem’s top honor.

Nearly 22,000 non-Jews have been recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

Editor’s Notes: Global amnesia
David Horovitz

THE JERUSALEM POST

Sep. 12, 2007

At the start of his monumental history of Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer quotes a variant of the philosopher George Santayana’s remark, « Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. » It is a measure of the current global amnesia that Iranian state television seems more prepared to recall the Holocaust – albeit with a pernicious modern subtext – than the world body that is ostensibly committed to preventing its recurrence.

As first reported in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Iranian TV is currently screening the most costly drama it has ever produced, Zero Degree Turn, improbably centered on the romance between a French Jewess and the Iranian-Palestinian Muslim who saves her from the Nazis. The writer and director, Hassan Fatthi, has said he was inspired by reading about the activities of Iran’s World War II-era head of consular affairs in Paris, Abdol Hussein Sardari, who saved numerous European Jews from the death camps by issuing them with Iranian passports.

Part of the drama’s thrust is to distinguish between Jews, who are officially permitted to practice their faith in Iran, and their sovereign state of Israel, which official Iran reviles. Thus while humanizing Jews, the series subtly delegitimizes Israel and those who support it. In one scene described by the Journal, for instance, a rabbi opines that it is « a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands »; in another, the French Jewish heroine rejects an offer of marriage from a suitor-cousin who supports the establishment of Israel. Writer Fatthi, meanwhile, used the platform of an interview with the Journal to try to parallel genocidal Nazi behavior with Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. « The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers, » he said.

Nonetheless, the lavish series, which was researched with input from Iran’s Jewish Association, stands strikingly at odds with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s position on the Holocaust. While Zero Degree Turn features a local heartthrob moved to heroism by his love for a Jewish woman threatened by the Nazi mass-murderers, and makes role models out of Iranian diplomats saving Jews, Ahmadinejad would have his countryfolk, and the rest of the world, doubting that the Holocaust ever happened. Monday night after Monday night across Iran, Fatthi is broadcasting an unmistakable challenge to his own president’s efforts at historical revisionism. State TV is essentially telling Ahmadinejad to shut up.

Contrast that 22-part act of subversion with the pusillanimous attitudes and actions of the United Nations. Established in the bitter aftermath of World War II, the UN’s prime stated aims include preventing war and safeguarding human rights, and its Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is binding on all ratifying countries (of which there are 137 to date, including Iran).

Yet the United Nations has not merely made no serious effort to punish Ahmadinejad for his strategic effort at rewriting the history of genocide against the Jews, it also determinedly refuses to use its own mechanisms to thwart his t the start of his monumental history of Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, ongoing march toward a planned new genocide against us.

Week in, week out, the Holocaust-denying president of Iran stridently denounces Israel, predicts its destruction, and urges accelerated progress toward the nuclear capability with which he would hope to achieve this ambition. And year after year, the United Nations cheerfully opens its doors to him and provides him with a stage.

As things stand, this year will be no different. Ahmadinejad is set to fly to New York later this month for the UN’s General Assembly session, as he did last year and the year before that. There will be no effort to begin the process of indicting him for conspiring to commit genocide in flagrant breach of the UN’s Genocide Convention. And the United States, as of this writing, has made no move to put his name on a watch list or taken any step toward denying him entrance.

Such global amnesia and disrespect for international law is certainly not confined to the UN and Ahmadinejad, of course. After 12 years of footdragging and corruption in the investigation of the 1984 bombing of the AMIA Buenos Aires Jewish community offices, the Argentinean state prosecution last year formally determined that the bombing, in which 85 people were killed, was « organized by the highest leaders » of the Iranian government.

Last November, Argentina issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president who was recently elected to head its powerful Assembly of Experts, « for his involvement in the AMIA bombing. » Argentina urged Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for him. The response to date of the international community: Silence. UNFORTUNATELY, ISRAEL is not immune to dangerous bouts of amnesia either, albeit often with the best of intentions.
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09.10.07
‘Zero Degree Turn’: An Iranian soap opera

The protagonists: A young Iranian and his lover, a French Jewess; Location: Paris at the end of WWII; Twist in the plot: An Iranian diplomat helps the Jewess and her family flee the Nazis. This is the plot of a new Iranian soap opera which has caught Iran by storm
Smadar Peri

Even when talking about a soap opera, this story sounds somewhat bizarre: An Iranian man meets up with a young Jewess in Paris during the Second World War, he is captivated by her charm and falls head over heels in love with her. When the two decide to consummate their relationship, the Jewish woman is forced to go underground in order to flee the Nazis. That’s when our Iranian guy decides to take action: He contacts a senior diplomat at the Iranian embassy in France, and pleads for his loved one’s life.

The diplomat named Abdol Husseini Sardari, takes upon himself to save the woman along with her family. He issues fake passports which specify their country of origin as Iran. Hence the young man, his Jewish lover and her family board a plane in Paris after which they land at an airport whose name they had only heard of in the context of Queen Esther and Achashverosh.

The story is fictional, however the character of Abdol Hussein Sardari is real, as are the rumors about the Jews he saved during the Holocaust – rumors that have not been officially substantiated, but which sparked the imagination of Hassan Fatthi, a famous Iranian film director. After Fatthi encountered the story he decided to turn it into a TV series called « Zero Degree Turn » which is currently a highly successful TV show in Tehran.

A scene from the soap opera

In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Fatthi maintained that Iran saved thousands of Jews from the gas chambers, and that Sardari ran a covert industry (known to the Iranian authorities) which issued fake passports to thousands of Jews who fled to Iran.

He wasn’t the only one to be intrigued by the story; the Iranian people are too. For the past three months they have been glued to their TV sets during peak broadcasting hours. Incidentally, the story of the enamored couple is broadcast on state-run TV. It received the approval of Ali Khamenei, who is not only responsible for Iran’s nuclear development plans, commander of the security arms and the dictator of the harsh dress code; he is also in charge of Iran’s state-run TV channels.

Meanwhile, the soap opera has managed to empty out the street of Iran’s large cities. « No matter where I am on Monday evenings or what my plans are, » says Maurice Motamed, the only Jewish Member of Parliament in Iran, « By ten o’clock I finish my business and run home to watch the program with my family. I haven’t missed a single episode of the intriguing series, » he says.

The production crew has reported that European and American TV channels are also taking an interest in purchasing broadcasting rights. Media reports say this is the most expensive TV production ever made in Iran. Fatthi refuses to divulge the amount but says that the persons involved are « pretty generous. »

After writing the script himself and handing it to the authorities for approval, Fatthi found no difficulty in recruiting the best cameramen and studio team. Some of the filming was carried out in Paris and Budapest.

Incidentally, the Jewish population cooperated in full with the production as heads of the community reconstructed items of clothing and helped the director become familiar with Jewish concepts.

A Jew living in Tehran said it was important for them to show where kosher meat could be purchased, where they pray and how wedding ceremonies, funerals and bar mitzvah’s are conducted.

Only one question remains unanswered: How does one explain the « positive message » emanating from the story, while in the background the anti-Semitic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists that the annihilation of six million Jews is a myth? The same president also encouraged the anti-Semitic cartoon exhibition, and doesn’t miss an opportunity to threaten the annihilation of Israel.

A lecturer at Tehran University said anonymously that: « Ahmadinejad more than anything is a big fool. The fact that our regime generously backed the love story between a young Iranian and a Jewess, and the mention of Iran’s aid in helping Jews flee the gas chambers is aimed at showing that there is a different Iran. »

The lecturer who followed the soap opera says the message is crystal clear: « Iran has no problems with the Jews or with the Jewish community living amongst it. Its problem is with the ‘little devil’ – the State of Israel and the Zionists. »

Since the fall of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran’s religious and political institutions make a clear distinction: The Jews are considered a « normal » matter, while the Israelis and Zionists are basically evil.

Many people were born into the Ayatollah age, explains the lecturer, and they have no idea about the magnificent ties Israel had with the Shah during his reign.

« Perhaps this is the secret to the high viewer ratings of the soap opera, » he says, and perhaps this is a small window aimed at sending a placating message to the administration in Washington. »

Politicians and decision makers in Tehran are prepared to swear, that the way to the Congress and the White House passes through the heads of the Jewish lobby. « After watching the soap opera, they are likely to adopt new ideas, » he concludes.

The show also pushes Iran’s political line regarding the legitimacy of Israel: The Jewish state was conceived in modern times by Western powers rather than as part of a centuries-old desire of Jews for a return to their ancestral homeland. In one scene, a rabbi declares it a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands. In another, the French Jewish protagonist refuses a marriage offer by a cousin, who is advocating the creation of Israel.

Iran’s Unlikely TV Hit Show Sympathetic to Plight Of Jews During the Holocaust
Draws Millions Each Week
Farnaz Fassihi
The Wall Street Journal
September 7, 2007

Every Monday night at 10 o’clock, Iranians by the millions tune into Channel One to watch the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic’s state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s costumes and European locations are a far cry from the typical Iranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.

But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.

The hour-long drama, « Zero Degree Turn, » centers on a love story between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland.

On the surface, the message of the lavish, state-funded production appears sharply at odds with that sent out by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth.

In fact, the government’s spending on the show underscores the subtle and often sophisticated way in which the Iranian state uses its TV empire to send out political messages. The aim of the show, according to many inside and outside the country, is to draw a clear distinction between the government’s views about Judaism — which is accepted across Iranian society — and its stance on Israel — which the leadership denounces every chance it gets.

« Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists, » says Hassan Fatthi, the show’s writer and director. « The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers, » he says.

Mr. Fatthi, 48 years old, is a well-known director of historical fiction for television. In the past, his work has focused on Iranian history. But he also dabbles in comedy, winning international critical acclaim two years ago for a hit feature, « Marriage, Iranian Style. »

He says he came up with the idea for « Zero Degree Turn » four years ago as he was reading books about World War II and stumbled across literature about charge d’affaires at the Iranian embassy in Paris. Abdol Hussein Sardari saved over a thousand European Jews by forging Iranian passports and claiming they belonged to an Iranian tribe.

Mr. Fatthi says he chose the title because the world at the time was in dire circumstances, offering few options for avoiding the terrors to come. Shot on location in Paris and Budapest, the show stars Iranian heartthrob Shahab Husseini and is so popular that its theme song — an ode to getting lost in love — is a hit, too.

« It’s captivating. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, on Monday nights I find a television set and watch the show. So does every Jewish person I know here, » says Morris Motamed, the lone Jew in parliament.

Mr. Fatthi enlisted the help of Iran’s Jewish Association, an independent body that safeguards the community’s culture and heritage. The association has criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad’s comments about the Holocaust but has praised Mr. Fatthi’s show.

Iran is home to some 25,000 Jews, the largest population in the Middle East outside of Israel. Iran’s Jews — along with Christians and Zorastrians — are guaranteed equal rights in the country’s constitution. Iran’s Jews are guaranteed one member of parliament and are free to study Hebrew in school, pray in synagogues and shop at kosher supermarkets. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statements, it isn’t government policy to question the Holocaust, and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn’t endorsed those views.

While Iran makes it no secret that it considers Israel an enemy, it has been extremely touchy about criticism of its treatment of Jewish citizens. The show is seen as an effort by the government to erase the image that it may be anti-Semitic — both at home among Jews and non-Jews, and abroad.

« In this show, you notice that a new method of political dialogue is being promoted that is more in line with the modern world, » says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former Iranian vice president.

The message appears to be grabbing the public. Sara Khatibi, a 35-year-old mother and chemist in Tehran, says she and her husband never miss an episode. « All we ever hear about Jews is rants from the government about Israel, » she says. « This is the first time we are seeing another side of the story and learning about their plight. »

The show also pushes Iran’s political line regarding the legitimacy of Israel: The Jewish state was conceived in modern times by Western powers rather than as part of a centuries-old desire of Jews for a return to their ancestral homeland. In one scene, a rabbi declares it a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands. In another, the French Jewish protagonist refuses a marriage offer by a cousin, who is advocating the creation of Israel.

Iran has long used TV to shape public opinion, where newspapers and the Internet are seen as media for the elite. The state’s control over radio and television is enshrined in the constitution. Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, is not only head of the armed forces and the judiciary, but also the national broadcast authority.

« The regime appreciates the fact that to appeal to the masses, both in Iran and the Muslim world, television is the most important outlet, » says Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

On any given day, the country’s seven state-run channels broadcast a mostly drab offering of news, sports, cooking shows, soap operas and religious sermons. Political propaganda is constantly fed into the mix. Dissidents such as students or reformers are routinely paraded before cameras to read confessions after stints of solitary imprisonment.

A slick documentary-style program recently aired long interviews with two Iranian-Americans who were detained on allegations of working to overthrow the regime. The interviews — in which the pair blandly admitted to meeting with Iranian scholars and dissidents, but not to attempting to topple the government — were intercut with provocative scenes of demonstrations in Ukraine, where the U.S. encouraged groups that eventually staged the successful Orange Revolution in late 2004.

In July, Iran launched a 24-hour English-language satellite news channel called Press TV, joining the ranks of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. Its Arabic news channel, Al Alam, has been broadcasting news with an Iranian slant in the Arab world for several years.

Episodes of « Zero Degree Turn, » broadcast in Farsi, can be seen outside of Iran on the Internet, either streaming live or downloaded at tv1.irib.ir/barnameha/sharhefilm.asp?code=00111090361062. It is also broadcast with English subtitles on the state-controlled Jameh Jam satellite channel, which is available on Europe’s Hot Bird satellite network. Mr. Fatthi also says Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has been contacted about selling the show to networks in other countries, but he doesn’t know which ones.