Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 30, 2013 Page: 5 of 28
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Jewish Herald-Voice
May 30, 2013
German chancellor honored by rabbis
Chancellor Angela Merkel receives the 2013 Lord Jakobovitz Prize at the Brussels
Great Synagogue of Europe on May 22.
The Conference of European
Rabbis, meeting in Brussels, has
awarded the 2013 Lord Jakobovits
Prize for European Jewry to German
chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Chancellor Merkel was awarded
the prize to mark her strong record
of support for the German Jewish
community and her outspoken
denunciation of anti-Semitism
throughout Europe.
It also is in recognition of the
chancellor’s decisive action last year,
when a district court in Cologne
ruled that the religious circumcision
of a young boy constituted an
irreversible and unlawful attack on
the child.
The speed with which Merkel
responded to this most urgent matter
- first pledging and then delivering
an agreeable solution, which
protected the religious practices
of both the Jewish and Muslim
communities in Germany - was
received with relief and gratitude
by faith groups in Germany, Europe
and the world.
The award was presented to
Merkel at a ceremony in the Great
Synagogue of Europe, Brussels.
Upon receiving the Lord
lrd.Il From Page 1
candidates vs. the Iranian people,”
he said.
According to Marashi, this
dynamic is the result of Iran having
an increasingly shallow pool of
presidential candidates who fail to
connect with an Iranian public that is
suffering under the regime’s control
and from international sanctions.
“[Sanctions always hit innocent
people first,” he said. “It takes much
longer for it to squeeze the regime,
because the regime has control over
all the financial resources in the
country in the first place.”
Iran has been targeted by
international sanctions due to
the regime’s alleged violations of
nuclear nonproliferation treaties and
suspected illegal nuclear weapons
program, which poses a perceived
geopolitical threat to the U.S. and a
perceived existential threat to Israel,
Marashi said.
As Iran’s election day on June 14
draws near, Marashi said to “expect
the unexpected.”
‘Watershed moment’
Iran’s last presidential election, in
2009, marked a “watershed moment”
in the regime’s 34-year history,
Marashi said.
For the first time ever, candidates
vying for the presidency engaged
in live televised debates during the
short three-week period in which
they are permitted to campaign. This
was done in an effort to boost voter
turnout, Marashi said, in order to
provide the regime with a “veneer of
legitimacy.”
“But, what ended up happening
was that the candidates who were
running for president at the time,
particularly the sitting president, Mr.
[Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, violated
pretty much every unspoken red line
and every unspoken political rule in
Iran ... accusing each other openly
of corruption, of mismanagement, of
nepotism, of incompetence. And, this
created energy inside of Iran,” he
said.
Such energy translated into
Jakobovits Prize, Chancellor
Merkel said: “We must learn to
talk to one another and not about
one another ... Freedom needs
to be defended anew every day.
massive street rallies all over the
country in the few days leading up to
the 2009 election. When the regime
announced that Ahmadinejad had
won a second five-year term, despite
his waning popularity, millions of
people poured back out onto the
streets declaring, “Where is my
vote?!” and demanding the political,
economic and social freedoms that
are “long overdue” in Iran, Marashi
said.
The regime, which is headed by
Iran’s unelected supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei, responded to the protests
with a violent crackdown, leading to
arrests and deaths.
Power struggle
Since the contested election in
2009, political infighting in Iran has
crescendoed, Marashi said.
The regime’s ultraconservative
leaders systematically have
eliminated their political rivals and
now are beginning to turn against
each other. The Islamic republic’s
president, traditionally a “puppet” of
the regime, Marashi noted, openly
has challenged the supreme leader,
who holds the most power in the
country.
Whereas several authorities in
Iran have the power to say “no,” the
supreme leader is the only one who
can say “yes,” Marashi said.
When the regime was challenged
in the past, it simply would get rid of
the challenger, Marashi said. But, this
hasn’t happened with Ahmadinejad,
who is term-limited but refuses to go
down without a fight.
“The reason why is because he’s
outright blackmailed his political
rivals,” Marashi said.
‘Prevention vs. cure’
In the run-up to the 2013
presidential election, the regime is
taking proactive measures to avoid
the sort of popular protests and
challenges to its power that erupted
after the last election.
Among other measures,
candidates have been barred from
running in the upcoming election,
security forces have increased
“I am deeply moved to
have received this prize, and
I see it as an encouragement, as
there is much work still to be
done across Europe.” □
their public presence and Internet
connectivity has been reduced, all
in attempts to control the election’s
outcome and response, Marashi said.
“What we’re really talking
about here is ‘prevention vs. cure,”’
Marashi said. “Rather than trying
to cure it, [the regime’s aim is to]
just prevent it outright and deal with
the consequences upfront before
the election, as opposed to after the
election,” he said.
Besides barring all women
candidates from the election,
Iran’s election-management body,
the Guarding Council, earlier this
month reportedly disqualified
two high-profile candidates -
former Iranian president, Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the
current president’s chief of staff,
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei - from
running. That a former president
and Ahmadinejad’s top aid are
deemed unworthy of running
for the presidency in 2013 signals
that conservative factionalism is
deepening in the regime’s ranks,
Marashi said.
Lower voter turnout
Of the 680 presidential hopefuls
who registered for the upcoming
election, only eight reportedly were
approved by the Guarding Council.
The race’s six serious contenders
- Ali Haddad-Adel, Saeed Jalili,
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf,
Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rouhani
and Ali Akbar Velayati - all are
conservatives, with “impeccable
revolutionary credentials” by the
regime’s own standards, according
to Marashi. Many of them reportedly
have been involved in the regime’s
violent crackdowns against the
Iranian people.
Thus, none of these candidates
is expected to draw crowds to the
ballet box on election day, leading
analysts to speculate that Iran’s
supreme leader might prefer lower
voter turnout to massive street
protests. Yet, the fact that the regime
is taking preventive measures in the
run up to the presidential election
suggests that it is concerned about
Synagogue services to
feature top rock music
Congregation Brith Shalom will
hold an alternative erev Shabbat
service, a Rock Shabbat, on two
consecutive Fridays, June 7 and 14,
at 7 p.m.
The Friday night liturgy will be
echoed in top songs from Justin
Timberlake, Adele, Creed, U2, Bon
Jovi and many others. In addition
to the Rock Shabbat, a traditional
service will be held, as usual, at 6:15
p.m.
Brith Shalom is located at 4610
Bellaire Blvd., in Bellaire. For more
information, call 713-667-9201 or
go to brithshalom.org. □
its ability to control the situation
and maintain the status quo, Marashi
said.
The regime “has no good choices
for the upcoming election,” Marashi
said. “It’s put itself into a corner and
I don’t think it’s talented enough to
find its way out.”
That being the case, the political
analyst predicted that things in Iran
likely will get worse before they get
better for the Iranian people. The
reason being that the regime and
Iran’s supreme leader, himself,
“thrive in isolation,” Marashi said.
“The more connected Iran is to
the outside world, the harder it is for
them to keep a lid on it,” he said.
Toothpaste is out
For the past four years, the
Iranian regime has done all it can
to “put the toothpaste back into the
tube,” Marashi said. In attempting
to do so, the regime has no good
options at its disposal.
“You can manufacture an election.
You can beat, kill and imprison
people. You can tell lies - and they
do a lot of that, that’s for sure. But,
what does that do at the end of the
day? It doesn’t create buy-in into your
system. It doesn’t make people shut
up and stay home forever,” he said.
Both sides of Iran’s internal
conflict - the Iranian regime vs. the
Iranian people - are playing the long
game, according to Marashi. He said,
while the Iranian people want to
engender change through peaceful
means, the regime repeatedly has
shown a willingness to resort to
violence and oppression to achieve
its ends.
However, the regime isn’t one
that’s disconnected from reality,
Marashi said; it recognizes its
unpopularity and challenges.
“But, at the end of the day, if
all you’re trying to do is buy time,
then you’re not looking 10, 15, 20
years down the line. All you’re doing
is looking to reset the clock every
couple of years. And, that’s the great
tragedy in all of this ... because as
the clock continues to get reset,
innocent people suffer,” he said. □
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Samuels, Jeanne F. Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 106, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 30, 2013, newspaper, May 30, 2013; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth544137/m1/5/?rotate=270: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .