A Root Cause Review of the Israeli-Hamas Conflict
November 30, 2023
Author Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur
Exclusive to Ekurd.net
The appalling carnage inflicted on the Israelis by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, and the ongoing disproportionate and excessive response by the Israelis on the Palestinian population has benumbed the humanity within all of us. It even debilitated the United Nations and its member states to stop it as the brutality and the promise of war rages on. Could this be the manifestation of the “Clash of Civilizations”, Samuel P. Huntington wrote about in the 1990s? Does this volcanic eruption of attack and counter attack, revenge and counter-revenge be just another temporary flaring of violence until it subsides and erupt again in a future time? Does it have its roots in the Hebrew Bible itself? Can answers be found in the deep annals of history? Should we be investigating the various conspiracy theories?
It is ironic that if the letter “s” in “Hamas” is replaced with the letter “n” we have the name “Haman”. He was an Amalekite Persian who lived in ancient Persia and was the arch nemesis of the Jewish people. Haman’s reversal of ill-conceived fortune is the reason for the instigation of the feast of Purim and is well documented in the Book of Esther. Haman was a Persian official absolutely bursting with hubris and a top advisor to an equally hubris king Xerxes. Haman had hatched a cunning plan to kill and exterminate all the Jews throughout ancient Iran by initiating a decree, influencing with lies the king of Persian empire, (historically and erroneously referred to as “Persia” which simply means land of the Guards with numbers reach 10,000 under Cyrus, inherited by the immortal guards during the Shah’s regime and today under the Islamic Republic of Iran known by the IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp).
In the conclusion of the Book of Esther, the Jews are saved from the attempted total annihilation by their Persian foes and mainly due to the charm, beauty and political initiative of their Jewish rescuer named Esther. It is also interesting enough to mention that the name Esther is a cognate of the Kurdish word “Astarah” which means star, which in turn is related to the Sumerian name of the goddess Ishtar, who was worshiped by the Akkadians and the Assyrians in later centuries. Esther’s tomb is located in Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat) East of the city of Kermanshah, near Hama-daan.
Just as the United States and its allies rescued the Jews from a similar threat posed by Nazi Germany leading up and during WWII, we are stepping up and assisting once again the Jewish people threatened by the regime of Iran to total annihilation. The scourge of antisemitism to this very date has not been eradicated and Nazism (national socialism) still exists in the mind of much of the world. Esther, although she liberated her people from an all-out genocide some 2500 years ago, there still exists an anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist sentiment among a large sector of present-day Persians and their leadership.
Persian society continues to drive the political agendas of Persian Religious-Nationalists who are running the present-day Iranian government. Persian nationalism is ancient, in fact it is two and a half millennia (2500 years!). This long-standing state of affairs, combined with the Shiite version of Islamic Jihadism and “Shiitism”, (Jihad & martyrdom), which began some 1400 years ago with the rise of Islam, is the ideological fuel that drives the engine of the current Persian-run government in Iran and its political apparatus. It is exactly why they are funding Hamas. If the Persians are the guards, the Jihadists are used as bandogs in an unprovoked attack of the Jews. The Iranian regime is only the tip of one hateful spear aimed at the Jewish state, while there are multiple other forces with the same intention to destroy Israel and to try once again to kill all the Jews.
The current Hamas-Israeli war is the outcome of this animosity and hostility with many innocent Palestinian civilians being the real victims of this ancient conflict. Iran’s policy toward Israel and the Jewish people can be summarized in one sentence “from Haman-to-Hamas, the Jewish state of Israel must be eliminated”. It was knowing that an abiding anti-Jewish sentiment existed among a sector of the Persian elite during Reza Shah’s rule which contributed to an emboldened Hitler. He touted the idea of the Persians being of the pure “Aryan’ race, so that he (Hitler) could recruit Reza Shah’s ideological and political alliances in support of his war efforts against the Allies in the Middle East. Besides Reza Shah, Hitler found an even a stronger ideological ally in Kamal Ataturk of Turkey.
In essence, the current ideological forces that drives the Religious-Nationalism policies of the current Iranian and their like-minded regimes in the Middle East can be summarized as follows:
1. First, the Persian Nationalism, built upon centuries of false historical claims and a non-existent glorious past that supposedly dates back the time of early Persian kings who were in fact not empire builders. The Persian empire was created by the usurping guards of the already established Kingdom of the Medes under King Cyaxarex (Kay-Sar) (according to genealogies in Bible, The Medes are a sister to the Faith and that of Judaic faith through Abraham’s wife Keturah). The Medes were early friends of the Jews, helping them come out from under Assyrian captivity.
To the hidden amusement and quiet laughter of many world leaders, the Shiites clergies and many Iranians at the behest of the Shah of Iran in 1971, the Persians announced a vainglorious event known as “the celebration of 2500 years of the Persian empire” aggrandizing Cyrus the Great, great grandson of Kay-Sar. The laughter lingers still due of the fatuous belief that Iran had absolutely no previous history prior to Cyrus, and that Iran is the same as Persia and all Iranians are therefore Persians. This event was in part to bolster Hitler’s message that Iran is the land of the Aryans, (They promoted that Iran is a form of the word Aryan that means land of the Aryans) and he, the Shah, is the Arya-Meher, (lover or the love of the Aryan race). This title was given to him by his own party right before he was deposed with full humility of a clown in 1979 by the religious opposition (Khomeini) and for his implementation of extremely racist and prejudice policies of Persian “supremacy” against the rest of Iranians (there are at least 12 distinct cultures and nationalities within Iran who are not Persian).
Today the Persian propaganda machine invites the Western tourist to visit Persia! a fictious land which never existed, except for a short period of time under the 10,000 guards during the Cyrus to the time of Alexander. At the present time being revived under the IRGC who are labeled by the State Department as an FTO group and by a die-hard monarchist living abroad. As it will be covered in the future articles “Who Are the Persian”, we shall find out that many Iranians believe that today’s Persian are no longer belong to the Iranian people. and due to many invasions by many outside invaders, they have lost their status as being of Iranian stock. The Shah’s extreme human rights violations against minorities and his opposition to human rights for all, didn’t matter as much as the importance of his ephemeral pro-West, pro-Israeli policies. What a dreadfully grave (and expensive) state of affairs it will be for Israel and for its allies in the West if a new “minimo-shah” is ‘selected’ if and when we see the collapse of Iran’s economy and inevitable, its regime.
2. Second, is the driving force of Persian Shiitism, a Muslim sect that came to power under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and birthed the current ideological identity of Persian Religious- Nationalists who are ruling Iran today. Just like Erdogan of Turkey who is vying to be the Caliph of the Muslim world (Sunni sect), the current regime in Iran considers itself to be the true standard- bearer of Islam. None of these two Islamic states were the founder, or co-founder of Islam, yet they have become the Nany whose love for the child far exceeds that of the mother state of Arabia where Islam was born. They are the converters to Islam, who now play a considerable role in the world of Islam. Especially over the Saudis and the rest of the Arab Gulf States, who the Persian and the Turks consider they have deviated from the original message of the Prophet Mohammad after his victory over the merchant tribes of Quraysh in Mecca at the Battle of Badr in 624 CE.
A post victory message put out by the new Muslims who won that battle over the infidels encouraged the harassment of some Jewish merchant tribes of Medina, who centuries earlier had fled Judea under the Greco-Roman occupation. This was in follow up to the persecution of Jews under the Roman occupation and start of Jewish Diaspora. These Jews who had been doing business peacefully with the defeated tribe of Quraysh now naturally became the new unwanted competitors. ‘The friends of my old enemy are now my new enemies” who were the merchant Jews who were considered as friends of the defeated Quraysh tribe. Prior to the Islamic victory under the Prophet Mohammad, the Jewish merchants in diaspora, along with the native merchant tribes of Quraysh, had thriving businesses trading goods by caravan between Gaza situated on the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of the Levant, including mainland Arabia and the rest of the Middle East.
With the victory by the sword, of the Muslims in 624 CE, the main trade routes from Gaza and Judea to the mainland in the Middle East fell in to the hands of the newly victorious and empowered Muslims. The role of the Jewish merchants was reduced to shopkeepers, local traders, grocers, bookbinders and money lenders, within the new and fast- growing world of Islam. The status of the Jewish population in the expanding Islamic world gradually improved since they were considered to be “People of the Book”, yet they were viewed with disdain and cast down by many in the newly formed Muslim communities and their leaders for never converting to Islam. The Jews who adopted a stoic life of pacifism, led a frugal and thrifty social existence by employing good business sense, loaning money with interest, and promoting scholarly culture for their children. They carried with them a copy of the Torah to guide them during times of despair.
These Biblical practices enabled them to accumulate not an insignificant amount of wealth, more than an average member of the Muslim community, and they kept it through remaining obedient to their faith and the political poser ruling over them. These qualities made them to be the to-go-to people by political leaders for economic advice and for borrowing money to finance their political plans. This loan was to be repaid with nominal interest along with the original principle. It is worth mentioning that after the rise of Islam, one of the early differences between the Jewish merchants and the newly empowered Muslim merchants was how much interest rate to be charged on borrowed money. Today, the Islamic economy and the Jewish economy both apply a charge for borrowed money but under different names.
In the Islamic economy, Muslims don’t call the charge interest (riba), since collecting riba (interest) is a sin and forbidden according to Islamic Shariah law. Instead, the interest-free appearing in Islamic banking system is based on the old concept of giving of yearly alms or a religious tithing (10%) which consists of Khamss (5% up to 20%) on properties seized in a religious campaign (Anfal) or business in service of Islam. It is based on conquest and gain. Zakat (2.5 to 20 %) on wealth, Sadaqha, an additional charity alms, is to be given voluntarily. Adding them all up, this interest- free banking as is it exists in Iran, reaches over 50% which matches that of some of the highest taxed and interest charging economies in the world. One might notice that the application of Sharia economic law in Iran has been utterly disastrous. Like the Gulf states, if it wasn’t for the massive oil revenue sold on the world market (oil-nomics), they would face a total economic and political collapse. Simply put, Iran is on the brink of collapse and war is good both, for business and for oppressing the minorities.
Since ancient times, and particularly in the last 1400 years with the rise of Islam, the Jews have lived in a state of diaspora, subjected to various forms of persecutions, genocides and expulsion from place to place. However, they have never given up the two most important aspects of their culture. First, they have carried with them the history of their people and their faith and observing an exceptional obedience. Second, they have refined their sophisticated mastery of money acquisition, of doing business, and of exquisite money management to the envy of the merchants of the lands from where they were persecuted or expelled. The rise of Hitler in Germany, and the holocaust was the apex of antisemitism and yet, thanks to the Jewish merchants of Europe like the Rothschild family (originally from Frankfurt Germany), whose financial resources and lending to the Allied forces made in part, the defeat of Hitler in WWII possible. Modern day Israel came into being after WWII in 1948, existing on the same land they are now protecting and believe it has belonged to them since the time of Abraham, Issac, Jacob (Israel) and the twelve tribes of Israel.
Sadly, and dangerously, these merchant battles between the children of Abraham continues today, not only in Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and throughout the entire Middle East, but it is also making its way to the cities in Europe and even America. Today, the Jews are being accused by countries like Turkey (look up history of antisemitism in Turkey) and by Iran, of controlling New York City, the financial capital of the world and the Federal Reserve of the United States and the gate valves of world’s money flow. Nothing will stop either Turkey nor Iran, especially Turkey, from attempting to eliminate the Jewish presence in the Middle East and their influence in the West’s financial centers. This Islamic bloc wants to replace the Jewish monetary system with their own financial, cultural and political influences and agendas.
The undercurrents of this political plan by the Turk- o-Persian alliance to unleash ISIS-Like Hamas on the innocent Israelis, and the unjustifiable, entirely out of proportion response by the IDF against the poor Palestinians, is just a part of the bigger game plan by the Turk-o-Persian alliance to also completely oust the United States from the Middle East. Change and Democracy in the region are frightening concepts to these old and corrupt ideological moss-backers. A clash of civilization which Samuel P. Huntington writes about is just about will the forces of tyranny now governing Iran and Turkey comes to the West, or will the forces of democracy changes Iran and Turkey, and ultimately the entire Middle East? The world recognizes the legitimate and democratic right of the Palestinians to a homeland of their own, but not on the Turk-u-Persian, ISI-Jihadist terms and conditions, but instead on the basis of Israel itself wanting to survive and live in peace with its Muslim neighbors and cousins and brothers. After all that is the spirit behind the Abraham Accord, to achieve economic cooperation, to dissemble the rivalry between the children of Abraham.
3. In Iran, from the time of Ayatollah Khomeini beginning in 1979 to president Ahamadinejad and onward to the time of Qasim Soleimani, by orders of the current supreme leader, and the IRGC leadership, leaders of Iran have all continuously called for the destruction of Israel. They are the reincarnation of the ancient Persian Haman in the Book of Esther, seen today in Hamas who are sacrificing the poor and the innocent Palestinians for their own long term political goals to defeat the West politically and economically, without wanting a war with Israel or with the United States and the West (Iran and Turkey are frightened and fearful of what happened in Iraq could happen to them!).
Seeing the danger of expansion of war with Iran, allegedly equipped with the A-bomb and backed militarily by Russia and China, for the first time, Iran’s president Raissi visited Saudi Arabia to prevent war with Israel. The purpose of his visit was not as much to provide help for the Palestinians in the face of Hama’s defeat, or provide help for Hezbollah in Lebanon (the next line of confrontation), but instead to ask the Saudis to intervene on their behalf with Israel and the with the United States to not attack Iran, and that they may be even willing to join the Abraham Accord themselves.
So, what can Israel do?
1. The relentless and disproportionate response by Israel against the Palestinian people has by far overshadowed the sympathy for and the legitimate rights of Israel to defend itself against acts of terrorism by Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu, would do best to realize that the righteousness of Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Joseph is not the same as his rigorousness to indiscriminately victimize the entire Palestinian people. At the same time, the world must compel Hamas, ISIS, Jihadists, Iran, and Turkey’s leadership with proven criminal records, to realize that they are not the standard-bearer of the piety of Prophet Mohammad. Had Israel existed at the time of Prophet Mohammad, surly, he would not have called for the destruction of Israel.
2. Israel should not go to war with Iran in favor of the rejected vestiges of the old regime not only by the religious leaders, but also by the Iranian people who loudly and clearly chanted they do not want the current regime, nor they want to return to the refused regime of the past. Nor should Israel be convinced that a “soft” regime-change in which the Persian Mullahs are quietly abandon power and the Pro-Israeli Persian nationalists are inserted back to power is desirable. The wishful thinking of such a group is to keep the Iranian military, especially the IRGC and the current political system intact, while simultaneously ignoring rights of the many diverse nationalities living in Iran remains the same. Such a scenario will bring an unwanted civil war and much bloodshed among these various nationalities who no longer want a sovereign Iran, to be governed and controlled by the Persian nationalists whose questionable Iranian identity.
3. Israel needs to fight back against the spreading antisemitism and the accusations that the Jews own and control all the financial system of the world. Especially in a world where close to 10% of the world population live in extreme poverty and hunger, starting in Palestine. It is among these poor and hopeless people, where Turkey and Iran are recruiting their ISIS and Jihadists. This can start by urgently meeting the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, showing the world that Israel as a country and the Jews as a people have the spirit of Menscheit operating within their hearts to care and to help the Palestinian people. Israel is fast losing the hearts and mind of the people around the world, which is exactly what the Turk-o-Persian alliance want to be the final outcome of this conflict.
4. Finally, as we know in the aftermath of WWI and WWII, the map of Middle East was changed and as a result, in 1948, the modern State of Israel was created. Now the time has come for the United Nations under the leadership of the United States and without further war and violence to redraw the map of the Middle East to make right the wrongs of the past. This time with the peaceful States of Palestine created next to the State of Israel. Most significantly, a new and normalized map of the Middle East, where the new state of Greater Kurdistan emerges from the ashes of ISIS and the Jihadists and the radical religious-nationalist states that continue to support them. Israel can be an agent of change not death and destruction in a wider war which can become The Wars of The Clash of Civilizations.
Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
Copyright © 2023 Ekurd.net. All rights reserved
The appalling carnage inflicted on the Israelis by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, and the ongoing disproportionate and excessive response by the Israelis on the Palestinian population has benumbed the humanity within all of us. It even debilitated the United Nations and its member states to stop it as the brutality and the promise of war rages on. Could this be the manifestation of the “Clash of Civilizations”, Samuel P. Huntington wrote about in the 1990s? Does this volcanic eruption of attack and counter attack, revenge and counter-revenge be just another temporary flaring of violence until it subsides and erupt again in a future time? Does it have its roots in the Hebrew Bible itself? Can answers be found in the deep annals of history? Should we be investigating the various conspiracy theories?
It is ironic that if the letter “s” in “Hamas” is replaced with the letter “n” we have the name “Haman”. He was an Amalekite Persian who lived in ancient Persia and was the arch nemesis of the Jewish people. Haman’s reversal of ill-conceived fortune is the reason for the instigation of the feast of Purim and is well documented in the Book of Esther. Haman was a Persian official absolutely bursting with hubris and a top advisor to an equally hubris king Xerxes. Haman had hatched a cunning plan to kill and exterminate all the Jews throughout ancient Iran by initiating a decree, influencing with lies the king of Persian empire, (historically and erroneously referred to as “Persia” which simply means land of the Guards with numbers reach 10,000 under Cyrus, inherited by the immortal guards during the Shah’s regime and today under the Islamic Republic of Iran known by the IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp).
In the conclusion of the Book of Esther, the Jews are saved from the attempted total annihilation by their Persian foes and mainly due to the charm, beauty and political initiative of their Jewish rescuer named Esther. It is also interesting enough to mention that the name Esther is a cognate of the Kurdish word “Astarah” which means star, which in turn is related to the Sumerian name of the goddess Ishtar, who was worshiped by the Akkadians and the Assyrians in later centuries. Esther’s tomb is located in Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat) East of the city of Kermanshah, near Hama-daan.
Just as the United States and its allies rescued the Jews from a similar threat posed by Nazi Germany leading up and during WWII, we are stepping up and assisting once again the Jewish people threatened by the regime of Iran to total annihilation. The scourge of antisemitism to this very date has not been eradicated and Nazism (national socialism) still exists in the mind of much of the world. Esther, although she liberated her people from an all-out genocide some 2500 years ago, there still exists an anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist sentiment among a large sector of present-day Persians and their leadership.
Persian society continues to drive the political agendas of Persian Religious-Nationalists who are running the present-day Iranian government. Persian nationalism is ancient, in fact it is two and a half millennia (2500 years!). This long-standing state of affairs, combined with the Shiite version of Islamic Jihadism and “Shiitism”, (Jihad & martyrdom), which began some 1400 years ago with the rise of Islam, is the ideological fuel that drives the engine of the current Persian-run government in Iran and its political apparatus. It is exactly why they are funding Hamas. If the Persians are the guards, the Jihadists are used as bandogs in an unprovoked attack of the Jews. The Iranian regime is only the tip of one hateful spear aimed at the Jewish state, while there are multiple other forces with the same intention to destroy Israel and to try once again to kill all the Jews.
The current Hamas-Israeli war is the outcome of this animosity and hostility with many innocent Palestinian civilians being the real victims of this ancient conflict. Iran’s policy toward Israel and the Jewish people can be summarized in one sentence “from Haman-to-Hamas, the Jewish state of Israel must be eliminated”. It was knowing that an abiding anti-Jewish sentiment existed among a sector of the Persian elite during Reza Shah’s rule which contributed to an emboldened Hitler. He touted the idea of the Persians being of the pure “Aryan’ race, so that he (Hitler) could recruit Reza Shah’s ideological and political alliances in support of his war efforts against the Allies in the Middle East. Besides Reza Shah, Hitler found an even a stronger ideological ally in Kamal Ataturk of Turkey.
In essence, the current ideological forces that drives the Religious-Nationalism policies of the current Iranian and their like-minded regimes in the Middle East can be summarized as follows:
1. First, the Persian Nationalism, built upon centuries of false historical claims and a non-existent glorious past that supposedly dates back the time of early Persian kings who were in fact not empire builders. The Persian empire was created by the usurping guards of the already established Kingdom of the Medes under King Cyaxarex (Kay-Sar) (according to genealogies in Bible, The Medes are a sister to the Faith and that of Judaic faith through Abraham’s wife Keturah). The Medes were early friends of the Jews, helping them come out from under Assyrian captivity.
To the hidden amusement and quiet laughter of many world leaders, the Shiites clergies and many Iranians at the behest of the Shah of Iran in 1971, the Persians announced a vainglorious event known as “the celebration of 2500 years of the Persian empire” aggrandizing Cyrus the Great, great grandson of Kay-Sar. The laughter lingers still due of the fatuous belief that Iran had absolutely no previous history prior to Cyrus, and that Iran is the same as Persia and all Iranians are therefore Persians. This event was in part to bolster Hitler’s message that Iran is the land of the Aryans, (They promoted that Iran is a form of the word Aryan that means land of the Aryans) and he, the Shah, is the Arya-Meher, (lover or the love of the Aryan race). This title was given to him by his own party right before he was deposed with full humility of a clown in 1979 by the religious opposition (Khomeini) and for his implementation of extremely racist and prejudice policies of Persian “supremacy” against the rest of Iranians (there are at least 12 distinct cultures and nationalities within Iran who are not Persian).
Today the Persian propaganda machine invites the Western tourist to visit Persia! a fictious land which never existed, except for a short period of time under the 10,000 guards during the Cyrus to the time of Alexander. At the present time being revived under the IRGC who are labeled by the State Department as an FTO group and by a die-hard monarchist living abroad. As it will be covered in the future articles “Who Are the Persian”, we shall find out that many Iranians believe that today’s Persian are no longer belong to the Iranian people. and due to many invasions by many outside invaders, they have lost their status as being of Iranian stock. The Shah’s extreme human rights violations against minorities and his opposition to human rights for all, didn’t matter as much as the importance of his ephemeral pro-West, pro-Israeli policies. What a dreadfully grave (and expensive) state of affairs it will be for Israel and for its allies in the West if a new “minimo-shah” is ‘selected’ if and when we see the collapse of Iran’s economy and inevitable, its regime.
2. Second, is the driving force of Persian Shiitism, a Muslim sect that came to power under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and birthed the current ideological identity of Persian Religious- Nationalists who are ruling Iran today. Just like Erdogan of Turkey who is vying to be the Caliph of the Muslim world (Sunni sect), the current regime in Iran considers itself to be the true standard- bearer of Islam. None of these two Islamic states were the founder, or co-founder of Islam, yet they have become the Nany whose love for the child far exceeds that of the mother state of Arabia where Islam was born. They are the converters to Islam, who now play a considerable role in the world of Islam. Especially over the Saudis and the rest of the Arab Gulf States, who the Persian and the Turks consider they have deviated from the original message of the Prophet Mohammad after his victory over the merchant tribes of Quraysh in Mecca at the Battle of Badr in 624 CE.
A post victory message put out by the new Muslims who won that battle over the infidels encouraged the harassment of some Jewish merchant tribes of Medina, who centuries earlier had fled Judea under the Greco-Roman occupation. This was in follow up to the persecution of Jews under the Roman occupation and start of Jewish Diaspora. These Jews who had been doing business peacefully with the defeated tribe of Quraysh now naturally became the new unwanted competitors. ‘The friends of my old enemy are now my new enemies” who were the merchant Jews who were considered as friends of the defeated Quraysh tribe. Prior to the Islamic victory under the Prophet Mohammad, the Jewish merchants in diaspora, along with the native merchant tribes of Quraysh, had thriving businesses trading goods by caravan between Gaza situated on the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of the Levant, including mainland Arabia and the rest of the Middle East.
With the victory by the sword, of the Muslims in 624 CE, the main trade routes from Gaza and Judea to the mainland in the Middle East fell in to the hands of the newly victorious and empowered Muslims. The role of the Jewish merchants was reduced to shopkeepers, local traders, grocers, bookbinders and money lenders, within the new and fast- growing world of Islam. The status of the Jewish population in the expanding Islamic world gradually improved since they were considered to be “People of the Book”, yet they were viewed with disdain and cast down by many in the newly formed Muslim communities and their leaders for never converting to Islam. The Jews who adopted a stoic life of pacifism, led a frugal and thrifty social existence by employing good business sense, loaning money with interest, and promoting scholarly culture for their children. They carried with them a copy of the Torah to guide them during times of despair.
These Biblical practices enabled them to accumulate not an insignificant amount of wealth, more than an average member of the Muslim community, and they kept it through remaining obedient to their faith and the political poser ruling over them. These qualities made them to be the to-go-to people by political leaders for economic advice and for borrowing money to finance their political plans. This loan was to be repaid with nominal interest along with the original principle. It is worth mentioning that after the rise of Islam, one of the early differences between the Jewish merchants and the newly empowered Muslim merchants was how much interest rate to be charged on borrowed money. Today, the Islamic economy and the Jewish economy both apply a charge for borrowed money but under different names.
In the Islamic economy, Muslims don’t call the charge interest (riba), since collecting riba (interest) is a sin and forbidden according to Islamic Shariah law. Instead, the interest-free appearing in Islamic banking system is based on the old concept of giving of yearly alms or a religious tithing (10%) which consists of Khamss (5% up to 20%) on properties seized in a religious campaign (Anfal) or business in service of Islam. It is based on conquest and gain. Zakat (2.5 to 20 %) on wealth, Sadaqha, an additional charity alms, is to be given voluntarily. Adding them all up, this interest- free banking as is it exists in Iran, reaches over 50% which matches that of some of the highest taxed and interest charging economies in the world. One might notice that the application of Sharia economic law in Iran has been utterly disastrous. Like the Gulf states, if it wasn’t for the massive oil revenue sold on the world market (oil-nomics), they would face a total economic and political collapse. Simply put, Iran is on the brink of collapse and war is good both, for business and for oppressing the minorities.
Since ancient times, and particularly in the last 1400 years with the rise of Islam, the Jews have lived in a state of diaspora, subjected to various forms of persecutions, genocides and expulsion from place to place. However, they have never given up the two most important aspects of their culture. First, they have carried with them the history of their people and their faith and observing an exceptional obedience. Second, they have refined their sophisticated mastery of money acquisition, of doing business, and of exquisite money management to the envy of the merchants of the lands from where they were persecuted or expelled. The rise of Hitler in Germany, and the holocaust was the apex of antisemitism and yet, thanks to the Jewish merchants of Europe like the Rothschild family (originally from Frankfurt Germany), whose financial resources and lending to the Allied forces made in part, the defeat of Hitler in WWII possible. Modern day Israel came into being after WWII in 1948, existing on the same land they are now protecting and believe it has belonged to them since the time of Abraham, Issac, Jacob (Israel) and the twelve tribes of Israel.
Sadly, and dangerously, these merchant battles between the children of Abraham continues today, not only in Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and throughout the entire Middle East, but it is also making its way to the cities in Europe and even America. Today, the Jews are being accused by countries like Turkey (look up history of antisemitism in Turkey) and by Iran, of controlling New York City, the financial capital of the world and the Federal Reserve of the United States and the gate valves of world’s money flow. Nothing will stop either Turkey nor Iran, especially Turkey, from attempting to eliminate the Jewish presence in the Middle East and their influence in the West’s financial centers. This Islamic bloc wants to replace the Jewish monetary system with their own financial, cultural and political influences and agendas.
The undercurrents of this political plan by the Turk- o-Persian alliance to unleash ISIS-Like Hamas on the innocent Israelis, and the unjustifiable, entirely out of proportion response by the IDF against the poor Palestinians, is just a part of the bigger game plan by the Turk-o-Persian alliance to also completely oust the United States from the Middle East. Change and Democracy in the region are frightening concepts to these old and corrupt ideological moss-backers. A clash of civilization which Samuel P. Huntington writes about is just about will the forces of tyranny now governing Iran and Turkey comes to the West, or will the forces of democracy changes Iran and Turkey, and ultimately the entire Middle East? The world recognizes the legitimate and democratic right of the Palestinians to a homeland of their own, but not on the Turk-u-Persian, ISI-Jihadist terms and conditions, but instead on the basis of Israel itself wanting to survive and live in peace with its Muslim neighbors and cousins and brothers. After all that is the spirit behind the Abraham Accord, to achieve economic cooperation, to dissemble the rivalry between the children of Abraham.
3. In Iran, from the time of Ayatollah Khomeini beginning in 1979 to president Ahamadinejad and onward to the time of Qasim Soleimani, by orders of the current supreme leader, and the IRGC leadership, leaders of Iran have all continuously called for the destruction of Israel. They are the reincarnation of the ancient Persian Haman in the Book of Esther, seen today in Hamas who are sacrificing the poor and the innocent Palestinians for their own long term political goals to defeat the West politically and economically, without wanting a war with Israel or with the United States and the West (Iran and Turkey are frightened and fearful of what happened in Iraq could happen to them!).
Seeing the danger of expansion of war with Iran, allegedly equipped with the A-bomb and backed militarily by Russia and China, for the first time, Iran’s president Raissi visited Saudi Arabia to prevent war with Israel. The purpose of his visit was not as much to provide help for the Palestinians in the face of Hama’s defeat, or provide help for Hezbollah in Lebanon (the next line of confrontation), but instead to ask the Saudis to intervene on their behalf with Israel and the with the United States to not attack Iran, and that they may be even willing to join the Abraham Accord themselves.
So, what can Israel do?
1. The relentless and disproportionate response by Israel against the Palestinian people has by far overshadowed the sympathy for and the legitimate rights of Israel to defend itself against acts of terrorism by Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu, would do best to realize that the righteousness of Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Joseph is not the same as his rigorousness to indiscriminately victimize the entire Palestinian people. At the same time, the world must compel Hamas, ISIS, Jihadists, Iran, and Turkey’s leadership with proven criminal records, to realize that they are not the standard-bearer of the piety of Prophet Mohammad. Had Israel existed at the time of Prophet Mohammad, surly, he would not have called for the destruction of Israel.
2. Israel should not go to war with Iran in favor of the rejected vestiges of the old regime not only by the religious leaders, but also by the Iranian people who loudly and clearly chanted they do not want the current regime, nor they want to return to the refused regime of the past. Nor should Israel be convinced that a “soft” regime-change in which the Persian Mullahs are quietly abandon power and the Pro-Israeli Persian nationalists are inserted back to power is desirable. The wishful thinking of such a group is to keep the Iranian military, especially the IRGC and the current political system intact, while simultaneously ignoring rights of the many diverse nationalities living in Iran remains the same. Such a scenario will bring an unwanted civil war and much bloodshed among these various nationalities who no longer want a sovereign Iran, to be governed and controlled by the Persian nationalists whose questionable Iranian identity.
3. Israel needs to fight back against the spreading antisemitism and the accusations that the Jews own and control all the financial system of the world. Especially in a world where close to 10% of the world population live in extreme poverty and hunger, starting in Palestine. It is among these poor and hopeless people, where Turkey and Iran are recruiting their ISIS and Jihadists. This can start by urgently meeting the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, showing the world that Israel as a country and the Jews as a people have the spirit of Menscheit operating within their hearts to care and to help the Palestinian people. Israel is fast losing the hearts and mind of the people around the world, which is exactly what the Turk-o-Persian alliance want to be the final outcome of this conflict.
4. Finally, as we know in the aftermath of WWI and WWII, the map of Middle East was changed and as a result, in 1948, the modern State of Israel was created. Now the time has come for the United Nations under the leadership of the United States and without further war and violence to redraw the map of the Middle East to make right the wrongs of the past. This time with the peaceful States of Palestine created next to the State of Israel. Most significantly, a new and normalized map of the Middle East, where the new state of Greater Kurdistan emerges from the ashes of ISIS and the Jihadists and the radical religious-nationalist states that continue to support them. Israel can be an agent of change not death and destruction in a wider war which can become The Wars of The Clash of Civilizations.
Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
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