[Preliminary Remark, 21.05.2006: The story seems to be hoax. Not that the Iranian regime wouldn't be capable of such a law, but it seems it was not for now yet.]
Does this sound familiar?
via the
Jerusalem Post:
New Iranian law to require Jews to wear yellow band
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST May. 19, 2006
A new dress-code law reportedly passed in Iran this past week mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities - Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians - will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public, the Canadian National Post reported on Friday.
Under the new law, which still awaits final approval from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones.
Furthermore, according to the law, the Iranian government has envisioned that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions.
The purpose for the law was to prevent Muslims from becoming najis "unclean" by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.
"The new law resembles the Holocaust," said head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Rabbi Marvin Heir, and warned that, "Iran was nearing Nazi Ideology."
According to Army Radio, Wiesenthal Center officials sent a letter to United Nations Director General Kofi Annan urging him "not to ignore" the new law, and reminded him that, "The world ignored Hitler for many years."
The new law was drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, but was blocked. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
According to Ahmadinejad, reported the National Post, the new Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.
The final shape of the uniforms is yet to be established but there is consensus on a number of points.
I used to be called a right-wing extremist or a "neo-con" when comparing today's Iran crisis with Europe's past in the thirties and the forties. And still, more and more parallels appear: open threats, an aggressive rearmament, the will to destroy the Jews, a weak "International Community" refusing to face reality and opting for futile and counterproductive appeasemement. Hitler too tried to figure out how far he could go, and as we know today, he managed to go very far and the price eventually paid for it was almost unbearable. It is funny though to remember that Western leftitst nowadays like to compare Bush or even Sharon to Hitler. In fact, the Nazis are of course long gone and History does not repeat itself. But actually, the people most likely to defend Hitler's heritage are right now sitting in Teheran (the ones sitting in Ramallah and Damascus are not in a position to achieve that goal on their own). How can one still seriously believe that such a regime would finally comply and
voluntarily renounce to obtaining the means of becoming a regional or even a world threat?
Did someone say "Peace for our time?"
(Hat tip:
Fred & Pan)
UPDATE I (19.05.2006, 20:16):
Vital Perspective has also reacted, reminding one of
Charles Krauthammer's recent editorials in the (not especially neo-con friendly)
Washington Post:
As it races to acquire nuclear weapons, Iran makes clear that if there is any trouble, the Jews will be the first to suffer. "We have announced that wherever [in Iran] America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel," said Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, a top Revolutionary Guards commander. Hitler was only slightly more direct when he announced seven months before invading Poland that, if there was another war, "the result will be . . . the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
Last week Bernard Lewis, America's dean of Islamic studies, who just turned 90 and remembers the 20th century well, confessed that for the first time he feels it is 1938 again. He did not need to add that in 1938, in the face of the gathering storm -- a fanatical, aggressive, openly declared enemy of the West, and most determinedly of the Jews -- the world did nothing.
When Iran's mullahs acquire their coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be reaching 6 million. Never again?
UPDATE II (19.05.2006, 21:00): Over on the
Freedom's Cost, the right qestion is asked: After the ridiculous demonstrations against some "offensive" Cartoons, how many demonstrations will we see in the Muslim world against this latest expression of anti-Semitism and of "intolerance towards other religions and non-respect of other people's feelings"?
UPDATE III (19.05.2006, 22:10):
Baroness Alexandra has more thoughts on it:
Make no mistake about it, Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is no fool. This is much more than stubborn provocation; this is about paving the way for the 'final solution'. It is an ice-cold calculation, especially when expressly joining Jews and Christians together as Infidels. The purpose is not to find out how far he can push, but a systematic strategy to de-construct previously held taboos, and by taboos, I mean those established and upheld ever since the Holocaust.
UPDATE IV (19.05.2006,23:00): Accoding to the French newspaper
Le Monde, a Jewish Member of the Iranian Parliament
denies the above news. Yet, I can hardly imagine that an Iranian MP can show unlimited sympathy for the Jewish state . However, the denial is there.
UPDATE V (20.05.2006, 18:45): There's
still confusion on the issue:
Iranian officials on Saturday denied a report published by the Canadian National Post on the previous day, claiming that a new dress-code law was passed in Iran this past week, which mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities - Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians - will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public.
The National Post later cited experts saying that the idea of religious demarcation had only arisen in discussing a law defining Iranian dress code. The paper quoted an Iranian commentator who said the idea of external identification of non-Muslim minorities was only raised as a secondary motion. (...)
UPDATE VI (21.05.2006, 20:27): It really seems to be a
hoax.
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