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Leaving all their possessions behind, 40 escape a hostile, hard-line regime to build a new life

Dec 26, 2007 04:30 AM
Rory Kress
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TEL AVIV–About 40 Iranian Jews completed a covert escape from Iran yesterday, hoping to build new lives in Israel after fleeing a regime that has repeatedly called for the Jewish state's destruction.

Family members screamed in delight and threw candy at the newcomers as they arrived at Tel Aviv airport. Officials said their flight came via a third country they declined to identify.

"I feel so good," said Yosef, 16. He and his brother Michael arrived with their parents and a sister.

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An estimated 2.2 million refugees have fled Iraq to neighboring countries

More than 400,000 refugees and internally displaced persons have been driven from their homes by fighting and insecurity in Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan

The UN High Commission for Refugees is exerting efforts to arrange necessary funds for resettlement of 2,000 Palestinian refugees in Sudan. [How desperate do you have to be to seek refuge in Sudan?]

More than 20 Colombians have recently moved to Hamilton, New Zealand, as part of a refugee resettlement program.

Polish police detained 59 Chechen refugees who attempted to cross illegally into Germany on a train

28,500 Tamils of Indian origin now living in refugee camps are to be given Sri Lankan citizenship.

170 Burundians moved to Utah between September 2006 and September 2007

Hundreds of Uzbek refugees face difficulties in Kyrgyzstan

Since 1990, 2,969 refugees have settled in Erie, Pennsylvania

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Originally posted by J. Arthur:
Yeah, Spector, you're right. Iran is a great democracy, a wonderful place to visit and an even better place to live.

Home, home in Iran,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard,
A discouraging word (toward Jews),
And the skies are not cloudy all day
(Thus making optimal conditions for state sanctioned hanging of homosexuals)

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For me when I think of Iran I think of a country that murdered Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. Then denied it etc.

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
I am glad to see that they got the opportunity to leave Iran. Some may think Iran is heaven. Others may find it hell.

For me when I think of Iran I think of a country that murdered Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. Then denied it etc.

It is said that Iran's Jewish Community is protected by their constitution. Kazemi was also protected by that same constitution.

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And yet Iran says an inquiry continues into Kazemi's death. It is interesting people who will point to the sparse inquiries into deaths of Palestinian civilians caused by the IDF hail such inquiries as proof of Israel's adherence to law and democracy but such inquiries are not enough for Iran.

Go figure.

When you think of where these "refugees" went, do your thoughts ever turn to the countless dead Palestinians? Or what about those Canadians murdered in Lebanon last year? Do you remember their names?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
...and may I remind you that Iran PROVES that fanatical Islamic anti-enlightment force also can't democratize Middle Eastern countries?

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Fine. I've never been a defender of those forces. Just an opponent of Western arrogance, especially since it goes without saying that no one in the West has any moral authority to speak on matters in the Muslim world.

I hope the people of Iran will create their own form of democracy. But only they can do it. Those who rant about Iran from the west only do it because they want war, just like the people who endlessly whined about the German army "bayoneting Belgian babies".

That lead to nothing but death in 1914, it can lead to nothing but death now.

This was part of an operation announced last year by (IIRC) a Canadian Jewish group, to finance any Jewish Iranian who wanted to emigrate to Israel. I guess this is the only group who has taken up the offer so far.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

And yet Iran says an inquiry continues into Kazemi's death. It is interesting people who will point to the sparse inquiries into deaths of Palestinian civilians caused by the IDF hail such inquiries as proof of Israel's adherence to law and democracy but such inquiries are not enough for Iran.

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Inquiries are meaningless in Iran, because there is no independent body to conduct such inquiries.

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The circumstances surrounding the Arar case are a stunning indictment of the slack ass and incompetent way Ottawa bureaucrats operate. Where they may pass their civil service exams their morality is in the sewer. Clearly, the interests of national security was not invoked to protect the ramparts of the nation but to cover the tracks of their incompetence and wanton indifference to the plight of a wrongfully accused Canadian. The claim of the need for national security has now been degraded to whitewash, yet no resignations, firings or reprimands appear forthcoming.

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The cornerstone of democracy and the rule of law must be accountability. What happens when no one is ever accountable?

Sure, maybe our inquiries are less suspect than Iranian inquiries, but are the results much different?

Besides, this isn't really about Kazeemi. It is really about a propaganda exercise. One in the works for months:

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Following the revelation in October that $10,000 per person was being offered by a Chicago-based Christian-Jewish nonprofit to encourage Jews to leave Iran and immigrate to Israel, organizers of the project in Israel and the United States admitted to being disappointed with the lack of response to their efforts.

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I despise the regime in Tehran but that does not mean they are all evil and we are all good. I'll give you a two brothers scenario I just thought of. An Iranian family has twin boys one of whom immigrates to Canada because he wants a better life. The other a devout Moslem chooses to stay in Iran because he has hopes for the evolution of the Iranian state into a real democracy.

The two brothers though become disillusioned. The Canadian overwhelmed by Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan decides he should join a Moslem group opposing the Canadian government and the western invasions of middle east countries. The Iranian overwhelmed by the senseless suicide bombings and the hateful pronouncements by his President decides to join a group opposing the Iranian government.

Fifteen years ago I would be convinced the Canadian would have democratic rights and he could never ever land in jail without due process and that the Iranian would be summarily jailed and tortured.

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So eager were the assembled forces of the media for this story that no one was even thinking of arguing with the censorship over the restrictions, don't show their faces, no full names and all details about their route from Persia to Zion to be left out. And still, for at least one senior agency official, this was a hollow victory. When it was all over, and the Iranians were being bundled off to the buses about to take them to an absorption center in Be'er Sheva, he smiled bitterly and said, "we offered them everything possible and still we got such a pitiful number."

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