One-way Street: Palestinians Expectation of Iranian Progressive Movement
 

From:  "Sam Ghandchi" <ghandchi@yahoo.com>
Date:  Mon Apr 8, 2002  2:11 pm
Subject:  One-way Street: Palestinians Expectation of Iranian Progressive Movement

I have already written enough about violation of human rights and
condemnation of the atrocities of Israel's Sharon and noting the errors
and incompetence of Yasser Arafat for not working things out at the time
of Israel's Barak and we have just posted the AI petition in support of
Palestinian rights and there is no need to write more as more than this
is really appropriate for Palestinian forums and we have supported the
human rights in this situation and as Iranians we cannot go and change
the leadership of Palestinians or the election choices of Israelis. And
getting distracted in US-Israel or US-Palestinian relations is as wrong
as getting distracted with US-IRI relations. Our focus should be
Iranian pro-Democracy movement.

My friend Dr. Kazemzadeh on Jebhe BB noted that "What bothers [him] and
many others is why Palestinians do not condemn OUR oppressor the IRI?
Why, for example, Dr. Edward Said went to Tehran in December 2001 as the
guest of honor of the IRI regime? (ES either has just returned to US or
will do so in the next few weeks). ES went to IRI although many Iranian
progressives and democrats signed an open letter asking him to show
solidarity with OUR struggle and not to go to Iran as the guest of the
IRI regime."

I think Dr. Kazemzadeh is absolutely right. The Palestinians have always
thought that using the contradictions of Islamic Republic and other
ruling factions of Iran with the states they are in war with is OK but
they have always condemned Iranian pro-Democracy activists if we were
not hundred percent with all their positions, even though we never used
Israel's contradiction with IRI for our advantage and never stopped
supporting the Palestinian rights. But as shown again above, it has been
a real one-way street for almost 50 years between the Palestinian
movement and Iranian movement.

Some folks mention that the ship thing which is used as the justification
for Palestinian massacre is a setup and they say even IRI is playing into
it.  I do not deny it that their speculation may be right. 

This should show Palestinians to learn to work by principles. What do I
mean? Not just what Dr. Kazmezadeh mentioned about Edward Said which
I noted in the original post on this thread. Let me mention something more
fundamental about principles and Palestinians.

The WTC tragedy happened. Iranians risked their lives and picked up candles
and went to the streets and supported the Americans in their tragedy.

http://iona.ghandchi.com/TehranVigil.htm

But Palestinians went to the streets and danced. True, not all of them danced,
but others among them could have condemned the dancing and could have
volunteered to come to New York and help with the evacuation. But they did
not. They hurt themselves, the Arab people and all Middle Eastern people
with their wrong attitude.

We should not do likewise. We support them in their suffering. I just noted
this to help people to see what is underlying the silence in the US about
what Sharon is doing to the Palestinians. I wrote the following the day
after Bush's State of the Union message:

http://www.ghandchi.com/111-Bush.htm

and I should say "as mAst keh bar mAst":

http://iona.ghandchi.com/CryingEagle.jpg