Theatre mixes with rage in the rhetoric from Iran

Michael Theodoulou, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: January 05. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 5. 2009 5:30AM GMT

Iranian hardliners have seized upon Israel’s military onslaught against Gaza to portray Iran as the standard bearer of the Palestinian cause in the Islamic world.

There have been boisterous protests at the British, Egyptian and Jordanian diplomatic missions in Tehran. Militant students have volunteered for suicide operations against Israel and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, has proposed that Israeli leaders be tried by an international court for war crimes. Yesterday an Iranian military commander suggested Islamic countries should cut oil exports to Israel’s western backers to help the Palestinians in the “unequal war”.

The rhetoric from Tehran against “the Zionist entity” is certain to become more strident now that Israel has sent ground forces into Gaza after eight days of devastating air and naval bombardment. Despite sounding bellicose, Iran is at the same time keen to signal it has no desire for any kind of military confrontation with Israel.

The danger is that signal – usually delivered as a subtext to its tough rhetoric – is often missed or ignored abroad. Iran’s noisy posture risks reinforcing perceptions in the United States, Israel and much of the Arab world that Tehran has stronger links to Hamas than it does, as well as a say in the actions of the Palestinian movement.

George W Bush highlighted the linkage again last weekend: “This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas, a Palestinian group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction.”

How far Iran is able to support Hamas with more than rhetoric is a moot point. The only way weapons from distant Iran can be smuggled to Gaza is through the Palestinian enclave’s border with Egypt, which is no friend of the Islamic republic. Nor is it likely that Tehran can seriously consider using the oil weapon because its economy is already reeling from mismanagement and oil prices are one third of what they were last summer.

Domestically, hardliners hope the crisis will help them to galvanise support before June’s presidential elections. For Mr Ahmadinejad, the Gaza debacle is of particularly fortuitous timing, analysts say.

“He has just submitted a controversial bill to the Majlis [parliament] to cut state subsidies. This will make him even more unpopular. The Gaza affair is a gift to him, which he will use to distract the Iranian people from the economic pain that is about to hit them,” wrote Meir Javedanfar, a Jerusalem-based Iran analyst, on one of his blogs.

While Tehran intends its response to the Gaza crisis to be theatrical, not threatening, it is having difficulty with the stage management. After militant students briefly stormed a British diplomatic compound in north Tehran last week – replacing the Union Jack with a Palestinian flag – the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps angrily chastised western media outlets that suggested the rioters were connected to the elite force. The protest had been “spontaneous” with no official backing, the guards corps insisted.

Just days before, however, the IRGC commander, Major Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari, said his force should be ready, if the need arose, to facilitate “revolutionary action” similar to the seizing of the US Embassy in 1979. His words were seen as a thinly veiled threat against the British Embassy, which has become the focus of hardline ire against the West since the US diplomatic mission became defunct. Militant student leaders have made similar but direct threats against the Egyptian Embassy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is playing a key role in the balancing act. He has supported “defending” Gazans – without calling for killing Israelis – and has encouraged students to demonstrate in front of foreign embassies while warning protesters not to enter any “because of international treaties and agreements”.

Similarly, militant Iranian students in reportedly large numbers have been urging the government to authorise them to leave the country so they can volunteer as suicide bombers against Israel. But it is certain the Iranian authorities will dash their hopes of getting a one-way ticket out of the country to seek early immortality. As in previous years, such volunteers will be permitted to parade before television – but not venture abroad.

At the same time, analysts caution against seeing Iran’s stance on the Gaza crisis as one merely of political opportunism. “One should not underestimate the feelings of anger and resentment the tragedy in Gaza is generating among the Iranian leadership and a significant sector of the Iranian people,” said Farideh Farhi, an Iran analyst at the University of Hawaii.

“It is these feelings, shared by many throughout the region, that Iranian leaders of all ilks – Hashemi Rafsanjani and [Mohammad] Khatami included – are expressing and some are trying to capitalise on,” Ms Farhi said in an interview. Mr Rafsanjani and Mr Khatami are moderate former presidents.

Despite joining in condemnation against Israel’s actions, some Iranian moderate and reformist figures have come under attack from hardline opponents attempting to make political capital out of the Gaza conflict.

Kargozaran, a daily newspaper close to Mr Rafsanjani, was closed by Mr Ahmadinejad’s government last week for publishing an article the authorities claimed had “sanitised the Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza”. The article, by a leading student organisation, was critical of Hamas, but also condemned Israel’s blitz of Gaza.

There was also a brief but noisy protest outside the home of Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s Nobel peace laureate, whose offices have been raided twice recently by the authorities who are upset by her fearless human rights work.

The protesters chanted “America and Israel commit crimes, Ebadi supports them”, said Ms Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights activist. She described the incident as an “attack”, but said: “It has nothing to do with what is happening in Gaza because we published two days ago a statement condemning what is going on and supporting the Palestinians.”

mtheodoulou@thenational.ae