Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:the Iranian President

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Now that the smearing campaign has subsided, interesting articles have surfaced about him.

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Rumours that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's family converted to Islam from Judaism are false. In fact, they are proud Shias.

guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 October 2009

In June 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's meteoric rise from mayor of Tehran to president of one of the most influential countries in the Middle East took everyone by surprise. One of the main reasons for the astonishment was that so little was known about him.

One recently published claim about his background comes from an article in the Daily Telegraph. Entitled "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past", it claims that his family converted to Islam after his birth. The claim is based on a number of arguments, a key one being that his previous surname was Sabourjian which "derives from weaver of the sabour, the name for the Jewish tallit shawl in Persia".

Professor David Yeroshalmi, author of The Jews of Iran in the 19th century and an expert on Iranian Jewish communities, disputes the validity of this argument. "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name," he stated in a recent interview. In fact, Iranian Jews use the Hebrew word "tzitzit" to describe the Jewish prayer shawl. Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also went on to dispute the article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he stated.

Upon closer inspection, a completely different interpretation of "Sabourjian" emerges. According to Robert Tait, a Guardian correspondent who travelled to Ahmadinejad's native village in 2005, the name "derives from thread painter – sabor in Farsi – a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated". This is confirmed by Kasra Naji, who also wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad and met his family in his native village. Carpet weaving or colouring carpet threads are not professions associated with Jews in Iran.

According to both Naji and Tait, Ahmadinejad's father Ahmad was in fact a religious Shia, who taught the Quran before and after Ahmadinejad's birth and their move to Tehran. So religious was Ahmad Sabourjian that he bought a house near a Hosseinieh, a religious club that he frequented during the holy month of Moharram to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein.

Moreover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mother is a Seyyede. This is a title given to women whose family are believed to be direct bloodline descendants of Prophet Muhammad. Male members are given the title of Seyyed, and include prominent figures such as Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In Judaism, this is equivalent to the Cohens, who are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. One has to be born into a Seyyed family: the title is never given to Muslims by birth, let alone converts. This makes it impossible for Ahmadinejad's mother to have been a Jew. In fact, she was so proud of her lineage that everyone in her native village of Aradan referred to her by her Islamic title, Seyyede.

The reason that Ahmadinejad's father changed his surname has more to do with the class struggle in Iran. When it became mandatory to adopt surnames, many people from rural areas chose names that represented their professions or that of their ancestors. This made them easily identifiable as townfolk. In many cases they changed their surnames upon moving to Tehran, in order to avoid snobbery and discrimination from residents of the capital.

The Sabourjians were one of many such families. Their surname was related to carpet-making, an industry that conjures up images of sweatshops. They changed it to Ahmadinejad in order to help them fit in. The new name was also chosen because it means from the race of Ahmad, one of the names given to Muhammad.

According to Ahmadinejad's relatives the new name emphasised the family's piety and their dedication to their religion and its founder. This is something that the president and his relatives in Tehran and Aradan have maintained to the present day. Not because they are trying to deny their past, but because they are proud of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/05/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-jewish-family

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January 16, 2008

REAL REASON WHY USA & ISRAEL WILL ATTACK IRAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEpp9E6aJGw

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October 11, 2009

(JTA) -- The world will not wait "indefinitely" for Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program, Hillary Clinton said.

During a news conference in London Sunday following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the U.S. Secretary of State said that the recent meeting between Iran and six world powers in Geneva was a good start but needed to be followed up with action on the part of Iran. The United States and Britain were among the world powers at the meeting.

"The international community will not wait indefinitely for evidence that Iran is prepared to live up to its international obligations," Cinton said.

Iran said it would further enrich its uranium for a research reactor if talks with the world powers and the United Nations nuclear watchdog fail, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency reported Sunday.

Iranian representatives will meet with negotiators from the United States, Russia and France on Oct. 19 at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna, to discuss a proposal to send Iranian uranium abroad for processing and then return it to Tehran.

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/11/1008431/clinton-world-will-not-wait-for-iran

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Did not GW Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil"?

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Ahmadinejad: Zionists Aim to Destroy Civilizations in Region

11Oct09

“Zionists intend to destroy regional civilizations in an effort to build their own foundations on the ruins,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday, after revelations that construction work by the Zionist regime near the Muslims’ holy Al-Aqsa mosque has inflicted damage on the holy site.

Ahmadinejad reminded Iran’s anti-Zionist stances, and stressed that the Iranian people and government would continue support for the Palestinians against the Israeli regime. “The Iranian people always chant the motto of ‘Death to Israel’,” Ahmadinejad said on the sidelines of a forum dubbed as ‘psychological operations and media’ here in Tehran.

Meantime, Moshir al-Mesri, a member of the Palestinian parliament, warned on Sunday that Israelis should wait for the Palestinians crushing response after their adventurism in the mosque, referring to the regime’s construction works near the holy site. “Any adventurism by the Zionists will receive a crushing response from the resistance (movement),” Mesri told FNA.

“Zionists aggression against the Al-Aqsa mosque is a kind of crime. Now Zionists are seeking to perform their plans on the mosque,” he said, and added, “The Israelis claim that the Al-Aqsa mosque is built in the site of Solomon’s temple and want to rebuild the temple again.”

“Palestinians accompanied by other Muslim and Arab nations are opposed to the destruction of the Al-Aqsa mosque and building of the temple claimed by the Zionists and for this reason they have risen in support of the Al-Aqsa mosque and the holy Qods,” Mesri reiterated. He also warned that Palestinians will never allow the Zionists to enter the mosque. Otherwise, they will have to face the dire consequences of their aggressions, the Palestinian lawmaker concluded.

[via Al Manar]

http://politicaltheatrics.org/2009/10/11/ahmadinejad-zionists-aim-to-destroy-civilizations-in-region/