TIES THAT BIND: YOUNG AMERICAN JEWS AND THE BOMBING OF IRAN

According to New York's Jewish daily FORWARD, Young Jewish Iranians who live in USA (most of them since the revolution) are very hawkish towards Iran and don't hesitate to support Israel in an attack against that country.

The article measures the young Iranian Jews' attitude towards attacking Iran against that of their parents who are far more reluctanct in  joining the Pro Israeli hawks in their desire for more wars.

To explain such hatered towards their parents country, further on the article argues that these kids are not actually Iranian, since they don't have any solid links to the land, people or the culture of their parents' home country and they should just be seen as American. 

The problem with this analysis is the prevalence of anti war sentiments among a majority of Americans, specially younger Americans (don't forget those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan). 

Is it safe to assume that the aggressive attitude of this specific segment of the Jewish community matches the general levels of hawkishness among young American Jews? 

In other words, are young "Iranian American" Jews more hawkish than the average young American Jew? The article has no answer for this question, (even though it claims to have been serving as the main print media for the Jewish community in America for over half a century). 

Our question from Forward is, why not cut the crap about Non existing young Jewish Iranian Americans and get to the chase? What is the attitude of young Jewish Americans towards Iran, especially in contrast to the older Jewish community? What about the entire Jewish community in USA? what does the majority of Jews in America think about attacking Iran?

From what I know and have gathered from my own personal contacts with a lot ofJewish Americans, Canadian and Israelis, most of them are not supportive of an attack on Iran, young or old. If anything, they think that the kind of blind support Israel receives from USA and other Western governments is a poison pill and Israel is better off without friends Like dick Cheney and George Bush. More than half of my jewish friends don't like Israel so much and get mad if you ask them anything about Israel, as if they are responsible for Israel's actions and interests. 

Why would young Jewish Iranian Americans be any different? I know a handful of extremist Iranian Jews who advocate an attack on Iran, but I also know many from inside and outside of Iran who wish for dialogue and peace. I'm not afraid of hawkish young Iranian American Jews. You shouldn't be either.

CBC SPREADS ANTI IRAN PROPAGANDA WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS

SPET 1ST UPDATE: SInce the publication of the article on CBC web site,  I have left several messages on Matthew Hays' answering machine at TIFF but no call backs so far. Also Tanaz refuses to be interviewed by Iranian journalists about her documentary.  This was communicated to me by the press office of Montreal's World Film Festival, which featured this film in the Labour day weekend as part of its documentary section. 

How dare to make a controversial movie yet fail to feel the importance to talk about it. I call this extreme cultural arrogance, to betray your subjects' trust, to spread lies and to hide afterwards. 

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I started my morning by reading this on cbc web site about Tannaz Eshaghian and her documentary called "Be Like Others" about transgendered people and homosexuals in Iran. Great. According to our Concordia professor turned expert on the Iranian culture, Iran has a "...culture so steeped in hatred of gays and lesbians that it deems a sex change preferable to simply accepting differences in sexual orientation."

As far as I am concerned, Iran should be praised for allowing transgendered people to receive public funding for their sex change. Imagine if Iran had created a program to force transgenders to commit into their male gender. I bet Matthew would have seen that as another sign of hate, One way or another, Matthew is determined to see hate in Iran.

I thought to myself, If Israel Asper's children and CanWest GlobalMedia like to trash Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs and Iranians on a daily basis, one can shrug and blame capitalism, after all they own the media company they use as a propaganda vehicle, but what about CBC? Where is public integrity? Dear Mr Robert Rabinovitch - President and CEO of our publicly funded broadcasting network, you can't do the same with our money.

Then I started reading on the film, its producers and the CBC writer Mr. Matthew Hays, a professor at Concordia University and a programming director at the Toronto International Film Festival. Before I even tried to write something on it, I noticed my friend Hossein Derakhshan already had done a great piece about the film and its pushers back in February 2008. Here is a link to Hossein's brilliant piece on the film.

As Hossein comments about the director, "If you are a Jewish Iranian, living in the U.S. from the age of 6, it is very likely you don't like Ahmadinejad. So of course you would like to show how you hate him and how he is such a liar and how evil the entire government he represents is, in any way you can."