I am proud to be a ‘crazy’ woman that opposes the Iran deal by Rachel Avraham

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Iran executed body parts of prisoner Photo Credit: Shabnam Assadollahi

Obama referred to the people that oppose his Iran deal as “the crazies.” However, some of the most innovative and thoughtful people throughout human history were considered crazy in their times but there was never an instance where it was good to appease terrorism like Obama does.

Politico recently reported that U.S. President Barack Obama recently called everyone who opposes the Iran deal “the crazies.” In Obama’s world view, you are either with him when it comes to appeasing the terrorist regime in Iran or you are insane. In the past, Obama has compared opponents of the deal to Iranian hard-liners, which prompted many Republicans to ask whether he would include in that category Democrats who oppose the deal such as the respectable incoming Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.

As a duel Israeli-American citizen, I want to tell Obama that I wear the badge of being viewed as crazy by him with a badge of honor. All great and innovative people were initially viewed as crazy. When Moses approached Pharaoh and asked to free the Jewish people from slavery before G-d performed the miracle of the Ten Plagues, Pharaoh and his entire court related to Moses as a ridiculous crazy magician. When Judah Maccabee decided to liberate the Land of Israel from the Seleucid Empire, I am sure the average Joe in the ancient world viewed him as nuts for standing up against such a mighty empire with such meager forces at his disposal. When Theodore Herzl spoke about the establishment of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, many people including numerous Jews did not think that it had a chance of actually happening. Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was viewed by many to be nuts for declaring the existence of the Jewish state on lands where Jews were a minority and faced an onslaught of five invading Arab armies on the outside with meager forces at his disposal. In the end, he is viewed by historians to be one of the greatest leaders in Jewish history.

In world history, Galileo was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church’s Inquisition for making new discoveries on his special telescope. He was viewed by them to be a heretic and a nut as his ideas opposed their theology. In the end, everyone knows who Galileo was and no one knows the names of these inquisitors. Many of the contemporaries of Leonardo Da Vinci probably considered him crazy for thinking that one day that there would be flying machines but now, airplanes are a common part of our world.

When former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared “peace in our times” following the deal he signed with Adolph Hitler that surrendered the Sudetenland to a horrendous fate in the hopes that by feeding the Nazi crocodile the big countries of Western Europe would be spared, Winston Churchill knew better but many people were skeptical of him and did not agree with him on this issue. Now, everyone knows Churchill was right and Chamberlain has been written down into history as a horrible world leader. Many people claim that Muslims aren’t capable of having democratic regimes that respect human rights but Mohammed Mosaddegh succeeded to create such a regime in Iran until 1953, when the American and British intelligence foolishly overthrew his regime in favor of the Shah just so they could have a better oil deal. Iran has never been a democracy since. This proves that Muslim countries can be democratic one day and Iran is not condemned to always be under the totalitarian rule of the mullahs.

Therefore, I think it is much better to be among these crazies than to go down in history as an appeaser of terrorist regimes like Obama has. This Iran deal won’t create “peace in our times.” Even if it solves the nuclear issue, which it likely won’t as the IAEA does not have the resources to inspect Iran properly and the system in place has too many loopholes, the Iranian issue is much greater than Iran’s nuclear program and this deal does not address those other critical issues. Therefore, it will only lead to more wars, more terrorism, and more grave human rights abuses but if the world had listened to Netanyahu, maybe a better deal could have been reached that would have prevented this. Now with the sanctions in the process of disappearing, that hope has vanished and only Israeli intervention can possibly stop the Iranian threat now.

The Iranian government is a regime that rapes virgins before they are executed from cranes; amputates body parts; declares homosexuals, Bahais, and the State of Israel don’t have a right to exist; and brutally represses both women and minorities. This is a regime that is behind massive terrorism in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and other places throughout the world. This is a regime responsible for terror attacks against Israelis and Jews abroad in addition to murdering Iranian dissidents who left that are too politically active. It is a totalitarian regime in every sense of the word and it will remain a threat to world peace as any successful deal, which this one isn’t, must also end human rights abuses within Iran and ensure that Iran is no longer a threat to other countries. Any deal short of that is not worth it, especially if it involves the removal of sanctions. It is better to be among the crazies who identified evil when it is front of them and sought to stand against it even if the rest of the world seeks to follow the path of Neville Chamberlain in the hopes that the Iranian crocodile will eat them last than to appease Iranian terrorism and to have that be my legacy. And it appears that there are Iranians who agree with me.

In response to these developments, prominent Iranian Canadian human rights activist Shabnam Assadollahi had the following to state: “According to US President Barack Obama, anyone who doesn’t believe in his lies and his weak foreign policy is crazy. Obama has failed because he acts like a dictator who keeps threatening the US Congress by vetoing anything against his wishes. He lacks dignity and shows no respect to his established allies especially Canada since Canada has been leading in opposing the bad Iran deal. But Obama prefers to build friendships with those regimes that violate their own citizen’s rights, showing no respect for religious and ethnic minorities. When you have allies, you are meant to be in alliance with them, not calling them crazies.”

“The regime Obama is appeasing and shaking hands with has been holding four American citizens as hostages in jail for years,” Assadollahi stressed. Additionally, Iran recently executed six prisoners, among them Kurdish dissident Behrouz Alkhani: “They beat the family in front of the prison. The poor guy was only 30.” Despite Amnesty International and the international human rights community calling not to execute Alkhani, Iran not only executed him but refused to hand over his body to his family: “They gave the other five prisoners bodies over but they did not give his to the family and told them to go to court tomorrow. And Obama is calling us the crazies. I wonder if Obama’s daughters were in the hands of the Mullah’s regime would he still call me crazy. It seems that Obama’s cozying up with the Mullah’s regime of Iran has prompted him to ignore the fact that the true crazies are those Iranians who burn US flags in the streets of Tehran shouting ‘Death to America!’ Obama, I am proud to be called crazy by you who have appeased and empowered the inhumane, murderous, evil, terrorist Islamist regime of Iran.”

In conclusion, I want to state that I don’t know what the best way to proceed is! On the one hand, with Iran purchasing all of these new weapons, Israel cannot really afford to wait to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities as the existential threat will only grow greater the longer we wait. By the time a Republican could potentially be elected, it will be much harder to attack Iran than today and if that Republican is Donald Trump, it might not be much of an improvement for he said he would uphold the Iran deal despite its flaws. But on the other end of the coin, Obama will create major problems for Israel or anyone else who stands in the way of his deal as he views us as the “crazies” and can’t tolerate a different vision that goes against appeasement of terrorism, much less Israel acting upon that worldview. Israel will face terrible diplomatic ostracism that will also adversely affect the American Jewish community if Israel attacks Iran under Obama’s watch. The recent drama with the Palestinians at the UN will look like a joke in comparison to the actions that Obama could take against Israel for attacking Iran. Israel’s leaders have difficult decisions to make these days.

EDITORS NOTE: This op-ed column by Rachel Avraham originally appeared on the JerusalemOnline.com website. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.

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