German-Iranian scholar exposes document in effort to educate Bundestag about Tehran’s "pseudo-parliament."
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENTThe German Bundestag in Berlin 311 (R)(photo credit: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)
BERLIN – Close relations between the Bundestag and Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, led a prominent German-Iranian scholar to issue an analysis on Friday of a July- August Majlis report that attacks Jews, Israel, Rupert Murdoch’s media enterprise, women’s rights and Western culture.“The German Bundestag maintains parliamentary relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s pseudo-parliament. The Bundestag believes that ‘paths of communications among parliamentarians could be important.’ For this reason it is surely important to be aware of the anti- Semitic stances taken by the scientific department of the Iranian Majlis,” wrote Dr. Wahied Wahdat- Hagh, an expert on the Islamic Republic and a senior fellow at the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy.RELATED:Iranians protest over UK police 'savagery' in riots Ahmadinejad vows 'decisive response' to Israeli attack The results of Wahdat-Hagh’s investigation, which was written in German and based on his analysis of the 27-page Persian-language parliamentary document, appeared on the foundation’s website on Friday.“The so-called scientific department of Iran’s pseudo-parliament published a study titled ‘The Zionist Lobby in England’s Power Structure,’” according to Wahdat- Hagh’s report.Iran’s parliament is a phony legislature because it is not elected by the population, Wahdat- Hagh told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. The candidates are imposed by the Iranian dictator, he said. “It is not a democratic body.”
The Iranian study asserts that the “Zionist Lobby” embodied by Rupert Murdoch, the founder of News Corp. and the owner of several newspapers in the United Kingdom, is responsible for the telephone-hacking scandal in England.Journalists from the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, a Murdoch-owned publication, have been engulfed in a scandal because they reportedly illegally hacked into private telephone voice mail boxes.Iran’s parliament report states that Murdoch is a “Jewish Australian- US-American Capitalist,” a “Jewish Zionist” and a “right-wing conservative.” The Iranians contend that Murdoch’s mother was Jewish and that he was raised Jewish. Both assertions are fabrications. Murdoch, who has voiced strong support for Israel’s security and strongly opposes expressions of modern anti-Semitism, is not Jewish.Speaking last year at an Anti- Defamation League event in his honor, he said, “When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the Left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.”
The Zionists are also responsible for the violation of human rights in the UK, the Iranian report says. Iran’s government frequently uses the term “Zionist” to mean Jewish Israelis and Diaspora Jews who support Israel.“The goal of the [Iranian] report is clear. The Jews are to blame for the problem of the British phone-hacking affair,” wrote Wahdat-Hagh.Mehdi Javdani Moqadam, the author of the Iranian parliamentary report, states that Murdoch seeks to advance “Western culture and political liberalism as well as economic liberalism.”Wahdat-Hagh told the Post that Murdoch supports “the freedom of the press” in Iran with his satellite television program Farsi 1. Murdoch’s is the co-owner of Farsi 1, which broadcasts Western programs.According to Moqadam, Murdoch advocates a “liberal feminism” via Farsi 1 because his programs show, for example, women divorcing men. Farsi 1 is an entertainment station that features soap operas.Iranians who have satellite dishes and watch Farsi 1 are frequently harassed and their satellite technology confiscated, Wahdat- Hagh said.The Daily Beast website wrote last October that “Farsi1, a Persian language satellite station partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has become the most popular entertainment network in Iran, with nearly half of the country’s population (some 35 million people) tuning in daily to keep up with dubbed episodes of Fox favorites like 24 and How I Met Your Mother.”The Iranian legislative study also launched into a tirade against the BBC, claiming that the British publicly owned media company serves the interests of the “Zionists.” Wahdat-Hagh noted the irony of the Iranian attack because the BBC is widely viewed as one of the most critical news organizations when reporting on Israel.Germany’s decision to invite members of Iran’s Majilis to the Bundestag in June severely strained relations between the Knesset and the Bundestag. A visit of Iranian lawmakers to the Bundestag in June coincided with a delegation of MKs, prompting MK Shaul Mofaz to file a letter of protest to his counterparts in the Bundestag.“The Iranian Majlis is a façade of a parliament that covers a murderous regime that oppresses its people and tortures young students and protesters. They support and export terror, aid Assad’s regime in repressing protests against him, deny the Holocaust – all while manufacturing nuclear weapons and missiles in order to commit genocide against the Jews and erase our only state from the map. We cannot stand by while German representatives hold a dialogue with a regime that calls for genocide,” Mofaz wrote.German critics of Iran-German relations have long slammed deputies in the Bundestag for ignoring the security interests of Israel at the expense of a strong trade relationship with Iran’s government.Defending the meeting with Majlis representatives, Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign committee from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said, “Sanctions do not rule out talks” with Iran’s government.Polenz is seen as lenient toward Iran’s anti-Western and anti-Israel policies.
