At issue here is what genuine looks like. That is what Iranians pondered last Friday as the US administration offered to send a delegation led by Sen. Elizabeth Dole to assist in the distribution of relief supplies to the earthquake victims in Bam.
Tehran’s judgment? The offer was essentially duplicitous and thus rebuffed.
That is unfortunate because the overture was made at a time when Washington has declared that Iran’s recent actions — including its agreement to open its nuclear facilities to inspection — have been “positive” and could lead to a resumption of dialogue and improved relations between the two nations.
Clearly, Iranian officials have long smarted under the label that President Bush leveled against their country as a member of a tripartite “axis of evil,” repeatedly denouncing it for allegedly pursuing “an advanced nuclear weapons program” and supporting guerrilla groups that Washington facilely identifies as terrorists.
In a statement issued Friday evening, Mrs. Dole said that she initially broached the idea of a relief mission with the State Department and decided to act after seeing television reports of “the horrendous Iranian tragedy.” She hoped that “this humanitarian visit will be accepted by the Iranians because the American people are most willing to help.”
There is no doubt that the American people are genuinely touched by the tragedy in Bam and equally genuine in their desire to assist the victims.
But when a nation grievously harms another — as America had done Iran, engineering the overthrow there of a government in 1953 and recently identifying it as one leg of a tripod of evil — the harm lodges in the national archetype. Its instigations never wholly or rapidly disperse, but animate a mode of resentment that may take generations to decline.
Consider, as an example, what happened after the infamous Kristallnacht in the occupied territories, in March 2002, when Israeli occupation forces wreaked havoc all the way from Bethlehem to Nablus, and Gaza to Jenin, that gave terror a new name and left hundreds dead and thousands homeless: The US sent truckloads of blankets, tents and medicine to the victims. In Jenin, the town that had suffered most from the devastation, the townspeople refused to accept the shipment, sending it back with the admonition that it was the Israeli military, backed by America and armed with American weapons, that was responsible for the carnage, and thus Americans can take their aid and shove it.
Unfortunate? Yes. Intemperate? Yes. Understandable under the circumstances? Definitely.
Americans too, in these dangerous times, are going about the business of making friends and influencing people erratically. Take, as another example of intemperance, the USA Patriot Act, passed after Sept. 11, by virtue of which American citizens, along with hundreds of immigrants, have been held without charge or trial, or even access to lawyers. It is now documented that many of the detainees have been subjected to physical and other abuses. The inmates are mostly from Arab and Muslim countries.
That is why, like other ethnic Americans had done before them, including the Irish and the Italians, the Germans and the Japanese, Arab and Muslim Americans these days tread carefully.
Want to send money to a Muslim charity? Think twice, because your name might go into a data base. You want to play American football? Again, think twice.
Wait, did I say be wary of playing American football if you happen to be an American Muslim?
Looks like it. Ruben Navarrette Jr., a Washington Post columnist, devoted his piece last week to telling the tale of a group of young Muslim Americans in their early twenties in southern California who had organized a series of pickup football games for the New Year’s holiday. Among the stylized names they chose for their teams were “Intifada,” “Soldiers of Allah” and “Mujahedeen.”
That didn’t sit well with Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center nor with a whole bunch of bigots in California who, through threats, have made the boys abandon the games, fearing for their lives.
So, are we having fun yet?
