From Omnipotence to Impotence: A Shift in the Iranian Portrayal of the "Zionist Regime" by Ze'ev Maghen
...Attempting to defuse the diplomatic tension occasioned by newly elected President Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel’s destruction at the previous month’s “World without Zionism” conference, Khamene’i concluded his uncharacteristically moderate sermon with the following ringing remarks:
“We Iranians intend no harm to any nation, nor will we be the first to attack any nation. We do not deny the right of any polity in any place on God’s earth to exist and prosper. We are a peace-loving country whose only wish is to live, and to let live, in peace.”Without missing a beat or evincing even a hint of irony, the reporter who had covered the event continued:
“The congregation of worshippers, some seven thousand in number, expressed their unanimous support for the Supreme Leader’s words by repeatedly chanting: ...‘Death to America, Death to Israel!’”... This is not as strange as it sounds. Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel!” has been the way Iranians applaud for over a quarter of a century....
...What does such widespread and persistent indoctrination, imbibed ...(...with mother’s milk) and drummed by rote into the consciousnesses of the Iranian citizenry throughout their lives, mean for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic? What should it mean for Israeli foreign policy?...
...[according to 'Iran experts'] ... the answer to both of these questions is: nothing.
... they demand ... that we distinguish between image and reality, between ideology and strategy, between the fiery rhetoric of preachers and street-mobs and the sober goals of an eminently pragmatic regime. Indeed, they point out, even the purportedly impassioned chest-beaters of mosque and madrasa are only engaging in drone-like repetition of slogans that have long since lost all significance in their minds: they are just going through the motions.
... “Calls for Israel’s destruction,” maintains international relations expert Homayun-e-Esaghpour, “whether they emanate from the Iranian street or from the mouths of the political
elite, must not be taken at face value. They are weary old catechisms, nothing more.”...
...the analysts go on to emphasize that there is no rational reason for the eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel....Iran and Israel do not share a common border (this argument
continues), and their national and economic interests are in no manner opposed to one another....
In the same way that many have asserted that Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is, in the end, little more than a tool or bargaining chip, so with Iranian Israel-bashing: it is perceived
by these commentators as nothing but propaganda and posturing, which the Iranians themselves do not take seriously; why, then, should the Israelis take it seriously?...
...The analysts claim that the daily drill of Israel-damning in Iran has become a tired exercise, a formalistic ceremony that is no longer accompanied by genuine passion or serious intent – and they are correct. This understanding is even reinforced by our own opening anecdote: oblivious to the content of their own words, and of the extent to which those words contradicted the moderate message Khamene’i was striving to convey, the thousands of mosque-goers mouthed the demand for the demise of America and Israel for the tenthousandth time in their lives....
...But herein lies the rub: ..it is, in the end, often far more dangerous not to mean it than to mean it....the really horrific atrocities in human history – the enslavements, the inquisitions, the terrorisms, the genocides – have been perpetrated not in hot blood, but in cold blood: not as a result of immanent feeling, but in the name of transcendent ideology.
...What is true for Nazi storm troopers and al-Qa‘ida operatives is true for today’s fundamentalist Shi‘ites.
The Iranian tradition of condemning Israel is, for most of the population and even most of their leaders, little more than lip service: the hostility of the militant members of the Iranian population to Israel is never really the result of some current, identifiable, truly heinous act on the part of the Jewish state ...and such hostility is thus also in no way a function of immediate, genuine, blood-boiling rage. It is, unfortunately, far more durable and deeply implanted than that.
That Israel is the devil, the root of all evil, a criminal cancer that must be excised from the Muslim body politic ...are for Iranian Muslims eternal truths (not ephemeral feelings!) that have gradually, through endless tantra-like repetition, been installed down underneath the level of conscious meaning, in the place where basic instincts, automatic assumptions and ontological verities reside....
Conclusion
The accession of Mahmud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Islamic Republic has been accompanied by a sharp transformation in the Iranian attitude to, and depiction of, the State of Israel.
This change includes not only an amplification of the traditional hostility toward the Jewish polity, but also – and perhaps most ominously – a new conception of that polity as weak and unstable, an easy target for a united Muslim (or even just united Shi‘ite) offensive.
The prevailing opinion among Middle East experts and Iran watchers, however, is that the revised rhetoric ...harbors no significant ramifications for policy making in Israel, the region, or the world. Vociferous Iranian declarations about the need to erase Israel from the map are seen by such commentators as nothing more than a means toward achieving certain pragmatic goals, such as eventual détente with the West.
This essay argues that, on the contrary, Iranian-Islamist threats to Israel’s existence are sincere and constitute tenaciously sought ends in themselves. They must be treated by the Israeli government and by the West at large with the utmost seriousness.
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