A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian -- a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver. The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.
Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.
Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: "This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him.
"Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith. By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."
A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.
"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said it would not be drawn on Mr Ahmadinejad's background. "It's not something we'd talk about," said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.
The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s. But he has never revealed what it was change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch. Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr Ahmadinejad was aged four.
The Iranian president grew up to be a qualified engineer with a doctorate in traffic management. He served in the Revolutionary Guards militia before going on to make his name in hardline politics in the capital.
During this year's presidential debate on television he was goaded to admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.
However Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots was arrested this summer.
Mr Ahmadinejad has regularly levelled bitter criticism at Israel, questioned its right to exist and denied the Holocaust. British diplomats walked out of a UN meeting last month after the Iranian president denounced Israel's 'genocide, barbarism and racism.'
Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned denunciation of the Iranian leader at the same UN summit. "Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium," he said. "A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."
Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistently outspoken about the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jewish race. "They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets," he declared at a conference on the holocaust staged in Tehran in 2006.
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Posted by: Anonymoose ||
10/03/2009 07:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11144 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
If it gets him killed, I'm all for it. (if it works, we try it on Mashaal next).
#2
Didn't Schicklgruber also have a Jew or two in his family tree?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/03/2009 13:14 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Didn't Schicklgruber also have a Jew or two in his family tree?
Nope, I think this was disproved, and even confirmed a very short while ago by some DNA testing (glanced through the article, as i don't have much interest in adolf, unless it turns out he was really alesiter crowley in drag or something, which would be very kewl on some levels), much to the glee of some french Catholic idiot bloggers, who actually have an huge hard-on for nazis... even with that all pagan, anti-Christian theosophist thing, because, well, they are none too keen on juices, as you know.
US lawmakers have approved legislation to punish companies exporting gasoline to Iran, in a move to mount pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.
The Thursday action by the US House of Representatives would even bar foreign companies exporting gasoline to Iran from delivering crude oil to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Reuters reported.
The sanctions were included in an energy and water programs spending bill.
Senators Jon Kyl and Susan Collins had sponsored the provisions included in the final version of the compromise spending bill, which is expected to be signed into law shortly.
"This provision sends a message to companies that put profits over security -- you can do business in our USD 13 trillion economy or Iran's USD 250 billion economy," Kyl and Collins said.
The sanctions would have no immediate effect on companies selling fuel to Iran, as the US petroleum reserve is just 2 million barrels short of its 727 million barrel capacity, which will be reached by January.
The latest development in the fuel feud comes while Iran has declared that fuel sanctions will not have any effect on the country, since Tehran will manage to meet its need for gasoline through other means.
Most Americans say they are worried about Iran developing a nuclear weapons program, and think President Obama should be tougher on the rogue nation. In addition, a clear majority supports the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
They're all racists, of course ...
According to a new FOX News poll released Thursday, a sizable 69 percent majority of Americans thinks President Obama has not been tough enough on Iran. That includes over half of Democrats (55 percent), two-thirds of independents (67 percent) and almost all Republicans (88 percent). Some 16 percent of Americans think the president's actions have been "about right" and hardly any -- 6 percent -- say he has been "too tough" on Iran.
By a two-to-one margin the public thinks the U.S. will eventually need to use military force to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons -- 59 percent think so, while 29 percent think Iran can be stopped without the use of force.
Furthermore, 61 percent of Americans support the U.S. taking military action to stop Iran, including majorities of Democrats (53 percent), Republicans (73 percent) and independents (55 percent). Some 28 percent of Americans oppose military action against Iran.
Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from September 29 to September 30. The poll has a 3-point error margin.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
10/03/2009 00:00 ||
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[11138 views]
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#1
Obama's probably thinking "Ahh, but they didn't say when they wanted to use it!"
#3
Nice to know I'm not the only one. People should know that Iran will strike back and that there will be danger for our military and for all of Iran's neighbors. Israelis should know that Hezbollah and Hamas would rain missiles on Israel. Persian Gulf oil traffic would almost certainly be curtailed for an unpredictable amount of time. Nobody wants that. Then there are the Russians and the Chinese to consider. Most likely there are other considerations of which I am not aware. But I still think the overriding consideration is the danger of nukes in the hands of Mad Mullahs.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/03/2009 12:57 Comments ||
Top||
#4
President Obama will pay no attention to this except for token gestures to appease the sentiment. After all, similar percentages were for invading Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning, and look what the Progressives and their media have managed to do with that sentiment.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
