The Banality of Evil

The Muslim world celebrates Al Quds day, and thus yet another opportunity presents itself to name the presence of the State of Israel within the Middle East, the very historical source of the Jewish people, as being contaminated by the presence of Jews.  The biblical-era city of Jerusalem, the city of David, has always represented Jewish national heritage.  Jerusalem represents the spiritual essence of Judaism, a tribute to the Tribe of Israel still functioning today despite three thousand years of repression, oppression and displacement.

Jerusalem has now been restored to the Jewish people, as their historical, state, political and spiritual capital.  In 1004 BCE, King David declared the city the capital of the first Jewish kingdom.  His son, King Solomon, built the First Temple in Jerusalem with its sanctuary dedicated to the world's first monotheistic religion, the worship of a single god.  The Babylonians destroyed the city and the temple four hundred years later, when the Israelites were forced into their first exile.

Paradoxically enough, many of the ancient Jews were permitted return to Jerusalem when the Persians conquered Babylon and gave Jews who languished there, and anguished after their own spiritual home, the right to return to Israel, encouraging them in their determination to rebuild the Beis haMikdosh, the holy temple.  Present-day Persians, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and succeeded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have decided to re-write history to suit their particular Islamist-centred needs.

Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France with the downfall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, to grasp Iran's future and turn it to a pathological version of extreme Islamism of a type that puts the words 'fanatic' and 'fundamentalism' in a lesser class of moderation.  And from that time forward the modern era of the Islamic Republic of Iran became a reality with the Islamic Revolution that saw the country change from a moderate one reaching toward the future and modernity, to one ensconced in a glowering hatred of all but the most rigid Shia-led Islamism.

Twelve years ago when the former Prime Minister of Spain conversed with the second supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, it was relayed to Jose Maria Aznar that "the mission of the Islamic Revolution always has been and always will be to rid the world of two evils: Israel and the United States".  Ayatollah Khomenei further explicated: "a gradual historical process involving the collapse of the Zionist state, or rather its physical-military termination".  This then was a militant theocracy, one completely invested in the destruction of another, neighbouring state.

The Iranian theocratic rulers and their Iranian political counterparts enjoy using the vocabulary of vulgar denigration, likening Jews, as did the Nazis, to "vermin".  On occasion lapsing to the nomenclature of medical terms, as its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is wont to do: "The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour", he reiterated just recently at the annual opportunity to indulge in regional Israel-bashing to celebrate al-Quds day.

"The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land....  A new Middle East will definitely be formed.  With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"They (the Israelis) know very well they don't have the ability", to attack Iran according to an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman.  "If they make a mistake, our nation's reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime", to great acclaim by the crowd, holding up Palestinian flags and posters of Ayatollah Khamenei along with banners reading "Death to Israel" and "Death to America".

Islamists are obsessed with death; delivering it wholesale to those whom they hate, and wallowing in the rhetoric of their own deaths as loyal, worthy, honourable Islamist martyrs.

The chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari claimed proudly that "the Iranian nation has always been at the forefront of the (regional anti-Israel) resistance in showing its animosity with Israel", and likely that is perfectly true.  Iran has expressed its vitriolic contempt for Israel in every political and diplomatic arena open to it - inclusive of addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations. 

And it has taken heart at the fact that at those times there were no repercussions; no one rose to demand a retraction, an apology, an instruction to leave, as representing an unacceptable assault against a UN member-country.

Which goes far to explaining that the website of Supreme Leader Khamenei declares there exists within Islam ample religious "justification to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and Iran must take the helm".  Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi has declared for his part: "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause - that is the full annihilation of Israel."

The United Nations was formed to work toward ensuring that never again would genocide be unleashed in the world.  It has proven time and again to be impotent in that noble resolve, both through incompetence, and as a result of political games-playing influences.  Iran's President Ahmadinejad was able to state: "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom", and where are the assembled nations of the world, to stand up in a chorus of outraged denial?

Indifference reigns supreme.  The bland and the disinterested stand by, proving once again Hannah Arendt's conclusion on the banality of evil....