Ahmadinejad's Jihad (Extract)

By MENASHE AMIR
Extract from an article in Issue 14, October 27, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic tirade at the U.N. General Assembly in late September surprised no one. Ever since the Iranian president's call in 2005 for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and the Holocaust deniers conference he organized in Tehran a year later, this is the rhetoric the world has come to expect of the vituperative Iranian president. The trouble is he means every word he says. Hatred of Jews and hostility towards Israel are integral parts of a belief system that seeks to revive the Caliphate that dominated the Islamic world at the time of Muhammad and of a political ideology that strives for hegemony in the Islamic world. Indeed, Ahmadinejad's ultimate goal is leadership of the whole world. A review of his speeches and writings shows that he is convinced the United States is undergoing a process of disintegration and will collapse the same way the Soviet Union did. Therefore, devout Muslims should prepare themselves to fill the void and assume world leadership. In the eyes of Iran's fundamentalist leaders, Judaism and Christianity lost their raison d'être the moment Islam appeared 1,400 years ago, because the new religion incorporates the other two. Indeed, the Shi'ites believe that when the missing 12th Imam or Mahdi reappears as the messiah, the whole world, Jews and Christians included, will become Shi'ite Muslims. The sin of the Jews is twofold: Not only do they believe in a defunct religion, they are preventing the spread of Islam and trying to control the world by deceitful methods. They dictate the foreign policy of Western nations, they manipulate the global economy and they used the Holocaust as a pretext to force the West to establish the State of Israel on Islamic soil. Like all non-Muslims, the Jews are considered to be "unclean." But not only have these "unclean people" gained control of the holy land of Palestine, they also hold the keys to the al-Aqsa Mosque, the second holiest site in Islam after the Kaaba in Mecca. Therefore, radical Shi'ites believe they must be wiped out to purify the land and pave the way for the coming of the Mahdi. Indeed, for the Shi'ite leaders of Iran and their followers, the destruction of the State of Israel is a necessary condition for the reappearance of the missing Mahdi. In addition to its religious, ideological and strategic aspects, the call for the destruction of Israel also has a tactical side. As it seeks sway in the Muslim world (although the Shi'ites number only one tenth of Muslims worldwide), Iran uses its support of the Palestinians and opposition to the peace process to prove that it alone remains faithful to a religious belief system that sees all of Palestine as holy Islamic territory; it denies the Holocaust to undermine the justice of Israel's cause and to attract Jew haters; and it calls for war against the "Zionist entity" as a means of mobilizing the Muslim world. Tehran-born Menashe Amir, a former head of Israel Radio's Persian division, is a consultant on Iranian affairs and chief editor of the Foreign Ministry's Persian website. Extract from an article in Issue 14, October 27, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.