Iran since the Revolution
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Nikki R. Keddie, Iran since the Revolution, bahai-library.com.
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b37á5.c.9S. 12

IRAN
SINCE THE REVOLUTION
Internal Dynamics,
Regional Conflict,
and the Superpowers

Edited by
Barry M. Rosen

SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS, BOULDER
DISTRIBUTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK
1985
Copyright © 1985 by Program on Society in Change
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 84-52082
ISBN 0-88033-075-9
Printed in the United States of America
Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change
No. 47
Editor-in-Chief
Bela K. Kiraly
12                            Nikki R. Keddie                                            Islamic Revivalism Past and Present, with Emphasis on Iran       13

in government, but with the giving of greater weight to right-wingers           in-chief did not increase his long-term power and was taken from him
and to those who once favored the radicals but now act conservatively.          in 1981.
The radicals are, as of January 1984, still in government, and some are             The third phase began in the spring and early summer of 1981, when
still fighting for greater influence. In social terms the recent development    participants in a Bani-Sadr rally, attacked by the Hezbollahis, fought
has been away from workers and peasants and toward the middle,                  back, and Bani-Sadr was stripped of his presidency and went into
landed, and professional classes-including bazaaris, landlords and              hiding. He escaped abroad with Mas'ud Rajavi, leader of the Islamic
wealthy peasants, and professionals and technocrats, as well as those           leftist Mojahedin-e Khalq, which declared its militant opposition to the
in these classes and among students outside Iran whom the government            regime. A large number of assassinations of high- and middle-level
would like to attract back to Iran. Revolutionary utopianism has, at            governmental figures, mostly by the Mojahedin, failed to weaken the
least for now, partly given way to "bourgeois" practicality, including a        government but did give it both a reason and an excuse to crack down
stress on oil income, foreign trade, and technology, though continued           on all opposition, which was tainted with abetting the Iraqi enemy.
war, jailings, executions, and anti-American rhetoric have kept most            Executions, torture, and jailings occurred on a massive scale.
Americans from noticing the change.                                                 During these three phases the government tried to meet some of the
Both Iranian revolutionaries and some foreign analysts have divided         needs of the poor, despite the economic problems created by revolution
the revolution in power into three phases, and the Thermidor beginning          and war, and the volunteer Construction Crusade carried out important
sometime in 1982 may be added as a fourth.                                      public works while organizations like the Foundation for the Oppressed
The first phase began with the seizure of power by guerrilla forces         aided the urban poor. New land distribution measures were proposed
in the name of the revolution in February 1979 and ended with the               from 1980 on but never implemented, although some confiscations
taking of the American hostages in November 1979. At first there was           effected by peasants were not reversed.
a true united-front government, including not only nonulama supporters             The fourth phase began with conservative measures early in 1982,
of Khomeini, notably Prime Minister Mahdi Bazargan and the younger              and by the end of that year, this tendency was clear, even though there
Abu 'I-Hasan Bani-Sadr, Sadeq Qotbzada, and Ibrahim Yazdi, but also,           were few major personnel changes after those necessitated by the
for a time, more conservative, secularist members of the National Front        assassinations. One aspect of this phase has been the veto by the Council
such as Karim Sanjabi. For a time there was considerable freedom of            of Guardians as un-Islamic of economic measures that were deemed to
the press and association, but by the summer of 1979 numerous news-            interfere with private property (in contrast to the numerous nationalpapers and journals had been suppressed, and the clerically backed             izations that had taken place earlier). The two main measures so vetoed
thugs called the Hezbollahis were breaking up demonstrations by leftist        in 1982 were a land reform bill, which would have divided still-existing
and left-center groups, notably the Mojahedin-e Khalq, the Feda'iyyin-         large holdings among poor peasants, and one nationalizing most foreign
e Khalq, and the National Democratic Front led by Hedayatollah Matin-          trade. Iranian eyewitness reports indicate that pressure from landowners
and bazaar elements whose economic interests would be hurt by these
Daftari, a grandson of Mosaddeq.
measures help account for these vetoes; both laws had been passed by
With the taking of the U.S. embassy and hostages, the movement
the Majlis, which still represents more broad-based popular opinion.
toward control by radical clerics received a big impetus that the growing
In late 1982 Khomeini issued a decree that, among other things,
radical clerical leadership used for its own ends; this inaugurated the
protected people's homes, jobs, and telephones against scrutiny or
second phase of the revolution. Bazargan and his foreign minister Yazdi
invasion by officials, and this was followed by the creation of investigative
resigned when they were unable to resolve the crisis, and their power
bodies that traveled throughout Iran and the forced resignation of some
passed to radical clerics. In the light of later trends, the January 1980      officials charged with crimes against people. Khomeini spoke of the
election of Bani-Sadr as president appears in part as an anomaly that          revolutionary phase's being over and the need for stabilization. Middleoccurred largely because the Islamic Republican Party candidate was            class and upper-class pressures were at work here too, as was the
forbidden to run because of a technicality. Iraq's attack on Iran later in     growing economic pragmatism also seen in Iran's striving for high oil
1980 further radicalized the situation and made opponents of the regime,       production and prices and numerous trade and industrial agreements
such as the Kurds, who had been fighting for autonomy since negotiations       with a variety of countries that could not meet Iran's ideological standards.
broke down in 1979, look like traitors. Bani-Sadr's position as commander-     The establishment of some new legal norms, as long as the persons
14                            Nikki R. Keddie                                                  Islamic Revivalism Past and Present. with Emphasis on Iran            15

involved were not Baha'is, women, or associated with organizations                   ease with which many of Iran's clerical leaders can change their interconsidered hostile, was aimed in large part at the middle classes and                 pretations
. .          of Islam from
. . revolutionary-populist
.              to conservat 1áve -b ourgeo1s,
á
at halting the continued emigration of trained persons and attracting                 mdJCate that
.     IslamJC ideology 1s malleable accordiáng to c1árcums t ances.
back such persons who had gone abroad. The conservatism has often                     Both r~d'.cal and conservative camps still exist among the ulama, with
not, however, been directed toward legal norms. The increasing arms                   Khome1m bowing to trends more than is admitted, and future trends
sales by the USSR to Iraq after Iran refused to negotiate with the latter                 . behdivined by any. study. of .Shi'ism, which is consta n ti y m
cannot                                                                   á fl ux.
were probably the main reason for the arrest early in 1983 of the                        Smce t e 196 0 s, .Islamic revival m Iran, while appealing to some of
leadership of the Tuda party and the effective banning of that party                 the s~me mass. sentiments, has represented a wide variety of trends in
despite its support of the government. Jailings and/or executions of                 pra.chce. Even 1f one starts an analysis only in 1978, one finds a variety
people for their associations-whether Mojahedin, Tuda, or Baha'i-                    of 1de~s bound together at first more by a common enemy-the shah
continue and often involve the flouting of legal norms.                              and his foreign s.upporters-than by a really common interpretation of
The 1982 veto of the land reform bill was both an element and a                  Islam. Interpretations ranged from the de facto socialism of the Mojahedindirectional signal in the treatment of peasants. The increasing references           e Khalq through the more ambiguous radicalism associated with the
to the sanctity of private property in Islam have found their most                   name of 'Ali Shari'ati (d. 1977), the reformism of Mortaza Motahhari
extreme expression to date in a labor act proposed in 1983, which would             and the
., ratherd á conservative bazaar-oriented constitutionalism of Kazem'
do away with both the gains made before the revolution and those                    Shan a'.ma an, to the populist .fu.ndamentalism of Khomeini. Younger
,1dded in some areas since then. Islam is said in this bill to sanction             nonclencal
d.         followers of Khomem1 such as Bani-Sadr, Qotb za d a, an d
what amounts to the view enforced in parts of the West at the beginning             Yaz 1 seem t~ have believe.d that their influence on Khomeini's prol)f the nineteenth century, namely, no interference of any sort with                nouncements m France, which Khomeini accepted out of pragmatism,
private contracts between owner and worker. Group gains, including                  wo~ld extend ~o a real moderating influence after the revolution, but
1t did not. Barn-Sadr has subsequently claimed to have been bet a ed
unions, insurance, and a minimum wage, would be outlawed, as would
existing limits on child labor. In a period of mass unemployment like               by Khome.ini, but he seems rather to have believed in that part
prerevolut1onary Khomeini that pleased him.1J
:f ~he
the present, workers would surely bid each other downward. Whether

l
or not the measure passes in its current form, it is a good indication                  Af'.er the. revolution there continued to be ideological differences, not
of the way some of those now leading the government look at socio-                  only. m~lud1~g all the above groups, but centering more and more on
economic issues. 12 The dismissal in the summer of 1983 of the Minister            contmumg differences between radical and conservative ruling clergy,
of Labor who sponsored the bill put the bill in limbo, but its ideas were          among whom there were often shifting alliances and subfactions. As
not repudiated by its supporters.
•l    noted above, policies have changed significantly from one phase of the
i
As I have said, it is a special feature of the Iranian Thermidor that          :ev~lutio.n to the next, and for each phase and policy an Islamic
it is being carried out largely by the same persons who were identified            1ustification has been found. The few constants that might be noted
with the radical Phase 3 and, in some cases, with even earlier phases.             ~ave bee~ in enforcing "Islamic" laws and some "Islamic" punishments
It is common both in the Muslim world and elsewhere for someone                    (m.,~uotahon marks because there is no complete agreement, even among
who begins with a radical and populist appeal to adjust to the old                 Sh11s, about what laws and punishments are Islamic). These are mostly
ruling classes and conservative ways once in power, but here there has             as else~here, in the sphere of what we would call morality and in th~
t-een, in addition, a postrevolutionary phase of increasing radicalism            segregat10n .of wom~n and a return to many Quranic or early Islamic
reminiscent of revolutions like the French, in which personnel did                laws regarding marnage and the family. Bad treatment of the Baha'is
change. It appears that revolutions do have a momentum and force that             has also been present in all phases. Essentially, then, a considerable
pushes them, once in power, toward fulfillment of some of their promises          ~umber of Baha'is, active oppositionists, and women have borne a burden
to the masses and suppression of less revolutionary views. In the English,        m all phases of the revolutionary movement from at least Phase 2 on.14
French, and Russian revolutions, foreign war was another force leading                 Another c.onsta~t ~f the Islamic Revolution in power, which ties it
to greater radicalism and to both voluntary and forced unification of             to .the I~la~1c re~1:ahst movements discussed in the first part of this
the nation behind the embattled revolution, and this has also happened            article, 1s its ant1-1mperialist appeal. The "Great Satan," the United
in Iran. These parallels with non-Islamic movements, as well as the               States, remains the great symbolic enemy, responsible for most of Iran's
22                             Mango/ Bayat                                                          Shi'a Islam as a Functioning Ideology in Iran           23

but more progressive, more challenging and innovative view of knowl~dge              served as vali al-amr (Holder of Supreme Authority) in the absence of
as an alternative to the official teachings of the conservative theologians.         the Imam. 3
The foqaha', on the other hand, viewed the Imam as the sole                         The first decade of the twentieth century marked the end of theological
authoritative source of knowledge and maintained that the renewed                    speculative ferment. It was also the beginning of a political era in which
understanding of the revelation had to be postponed until the return                 the crucial issues were no longer those of doctrine or of man's relation
of the Hidden Imam. As guardians of the law that regulates the everyday              to the ultimate conditions of his existence. The dispute that came to
life of the believer in this world and prepares him for the next, they               divide the ranks of the religious establishment was over aspects of the
resisted and condemned the development of an individual leadership                   new law. Both the opponents and the proponents of the new constitution
that laid claim to absolute authority in the name of the Imam. Never-                favored the continued existence of the state, with its executive power
theless, despite the traditional stand of the jurists, occasional deviati~n,s        delegated to a cabinet of ministers directly responsible to the Majlis.
from the norm may be observed. For instance, the concept of the mar7a -              Nuri and fellow opponents of the constitution came to champion the
e taqlid-e motlaq as the supreme authority in religious affairs, .w~ic~              cause of the reactionary Mohammad 'Ali Shah Qajar mainly as a result
gained ascendancy in the nineteenth centu?, ~e?1onstrates th~ iunsts                 of their objection to the inclusion of certain articles. These articles,
own temptation to recognize the need for md1v1dual leadership. That                  guaranteeing sovereignty of the people, freedom of opinion, equality of
this concept did not find firm roots in Imami Shi'ism is evidence of the             all citizens, including the religious minorities, before the law, and
sect's strong juridical preference for a collective leadership that ~Hows            compulsory education for all men and women, were declared contrary
a degree of ekhtelaf, divergence of opinion i.n. legal mat.ters not directly         to Islamic principles and directives. In fact, Nuri accused the Majlis of
concerned with the basic principles of religion or with fundamental                  seeking to establish the "heretical" Babism and eradicate Islam in Iran.
aspects of the dogma.                                                                Yet members of the religious establishment occupied one-fourth of the
At the tum of the century, socioeconomic forces and new ideas shifted            seats of the Majlis that had drafted and unanimously adopted the new
the emphasis in religious disputes from doctrinal considerations to politics.       constitution. Moreover, a leading mojtahed of the time, Mohammad
The lay modernists found "converts" to their political cause within the              Hosain Na'ini, wrote in favor of the constitutional government. His
ranks of the dissident ulama and through them gained the valuable                   often-quoted work 4 is nowadays hailed as an authentic Shi'i attempt at
support of some high-ranking members. of the r~li~ous establish.n:ent.              defining the form of government that would best fit the conditions of
A new conception of the law then split the opm1on of the religious                  ghaiba. While Nuri's view was obviously influenced by his concern
community. The state and the religious establishment had periodically               with the immediate threat of the Babi heresy (the ulama's main enemy
clashed over their respective rights to administer the law. While the               at the time), Na'ini was undoubtedly inspired by Western concepts of
ulama had a monopoly over matters pertaining to personal and com-                   constitutional rights. 5 The concerns of both men reflected the social
mercial law, the state enjoyed the right to administer public law, or 'orf.         tensions and clashing rhetorics of their time.
The distinction between 'orf and shari'a and their application to particular           In the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution, the poet, the lay
cases was not always clear. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth            man of letters, came to displace the mojtahed in influencing public
century, government officials often clashed with the ulama, who a~cus~d             opinion. The traditional centers of Islamic culture rapidly lost influence
the state of encroaching upon their legal domain and enlarging its                  and prestige among progressive-minded thinkers. Change in intellectual
jurisdiction at their expense. To a number of high-ranking ulama, including         outlook, traditionally initiated by speculative theologians and philoso-
Ayatollah Fazlollah Nuri, who had initially supported the movement,                 phers from within the ranks of the ulama, was undertaken by g.r~ups
the promulgation of the Constitution of 1906 and the sub~equ~nt                    outside the religious establishment. However, the system of relig10us
establishment of the Majlis as a consultative assembly for legislat10n              beliefs enforced by the ayatollahs was not openly rejected. Secularization,
offered a unique means to institutionalize and control the '~rf system.        I   or the institutional change inaugurated by the first Majlis, was not

I
The idea of collective leadership taking over from a despotIC monarch              accompanied by change in doctrine. Nor was secularism in its Western
the power to enact laws pertaining to the pu~lic life of the believe~,~            form adopted officially. The constitution specifically declared Twelver
thus gained official recognition. It also constituted yet anothe: Sh1.1            Shi'a Islam the state religion and granted a council of five mojtaheds
attempt at accommodating the state, a more up-to-date ~odus v1venádá1.         I   the right to supervise Majlis legislation. Moreover, religious studies were
In the words of the revolutionary preacher Jamal ad-Dm, the Mailis                 made compulsory in public schools. The official anticlerical and mod-
84                              Farhad Kazemi                                                        Iran, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Balance             85

reflected in the story of Esther and Haman. The Jews were also subject             of these regulations was "to degrade the Jew in the eyes of the Muslim."7
to the intermittent hostility of Zoroastrian priests, the severity of which        The only respite for the Jews came after the downfall of the Safavids,
depended to a large extent on the personality of the reigning Sasanian            under Nader Shah Afshar (1736-47) and Karim Khan Zand (1750-79).
monarch and the relative power of the priestly caste.                             With the establishment of the Qajar dynasty in late eighteenth century,
The Islamic conquest of Iran in A.O. 642 was not necessarily viewed           however, many of the Safavids' restrictive codes, mass conversion presas a calamity by the Jews. They were granted the status of protected              sures, and other forms of persecution were revived. The relative asminority (dhemmi) and partook of the cultural expansion and development           cendancy of the Shi'i clerics in the Qajar era contributed to this rise
of early Islamic civilization. They were, however, subjected to heavy             in anti-Jewish sentiment. The Jews of Mashhad and Tabriz in particular
taxation and probably also some of the prejudice directed against other           suffered enormously during this period. 8 The general worsening of the
non-Muslim and non-Arab elements of the population. Jewish settlements            situation was probably a factor in the conversion of many Jews to the
were established throughout the country in both urban and rural areas, 3          new Babi-Baha'i religious movement. 9
and the Jews engaged in a variety of occupations in commerce and                      The Qajar period also heralded a few important positive developments
trade. Isfahan emerged as the primary center of Jewish learning, but              for the Iranian Jews. First, communications and contacts with world
Talmudic scholarship was also in evidence in other parts of Iran. 4               Jewry were reestablished. Second, secular education was made available
Messianic movements emerged sporadically in Isfahan and elsewhere.                                                                                °
through the creation of the first Alliance school in 1898. 1 Finally, the
The available information on Jewish life in Iran during the centuries         adoption of a constitution based on popular representation in 1906
immediately preceding the Mongol invasion is not extensive, but a Jewish          officially and formally recognized the Iranian Jews as a religious minority.
presence persisted in many areas of Iran. There is evidence of extensive          The Jews were allowed to elect a representative to the Iranian parliament.
activities by adherents of the Karaite schism in the ninth and tenth              Although these changes were slow in coming, they affected the community
centuries. The Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century resulted in              in a beneficial way.
the destruction of several major cities and the massacre of their pop-               The next notable event for Iranian Jewry was the coming to power
ulations. The Jews, along with other Iranians, suffered heavily at the           of Reza Shah and the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925.
hands of the invaders. A few prominent Jews, however, emerged as key             Reza Shah's programs of modernization and secular nationalism as well
officials of the administration in the ensuing period. Some of them even         as the tight rein he imposed on clerical influence helped the Jewish
reached the rank of grand vizier of the Il-Khanids and provided protection       community immensely. He abrogated the Law of Apostasy and abolished
and a brief respite for their Jewish brethren. With the downfall of these        the jezya (poll tax). 11 Jews entered a variety of occupations, including
officials, Jewish life once again suffered.                                      government service. The only discontinuity in this period was Reza
The coming to power of the Safavid dynasty in 1501 created a new             Shah's sympathy for the Axis powers, which eventually resulted in his
situation for Iranian Jewry. The Safavids made Shi'ism the state religion        forced abdication in favor of his son in 1941.
and showed overwhelming zeal in transforming Iran into a Shi'i land.                The succession of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the Peacock Throne
A new and more acute intolerance was directed against non-Shi'is and            greatly improved the status of the Jews in Iran. Despite sporadic antiexpressed with some regularity in persecutions of the Jews. Codes of            Jewish incidents and the anti-Baha'i campaign of 1955, his reign can
conduct and rules designed to restrict Jewish social and economic life          probably be considered a "Golden Age" for minorities in modern Iran.
were promulgated. 5 Pressures for conversion were particularly strong           The Jews prospered economically, socially, and culturally, especially in
and resulted in a decrease of the Jewish population and severe intra-           the last two decades of the shah's rule. A new and vigorous Jewish
communal strife. Special identifying clothing, their "badge of shame,"          bourgeoisie emerged in the capital city, which in turn attracted Jewish
was required of the Jews, further segregating them from the dominant            migrants from provincial towns and rural areas. By the early 1970s,
Shi'i community. The Law of Apostasy allowed a Jewish convert to                Tehran was the center of Jewish economic and social activities. Iran's
Islam to "inherit all of the property of his relatives, even those of distant   Jewish population surpassed eighty thousand, with perhaps over half
degree." 6                                                                      residing in Tehran.
The restrictive codes of the Safavids, among the most severe in the              During this period the Iranian Jews also benefited from the generally
Muslim world, had detrimental consequences for Jewish economic, social,         friendly and multifaceted relationship of Iran with Israel. This relationship
legal, and political rights. As Sorour Soroudi remarks, the main purpose        went through different phases in the course of the shah's regime but
94                                Farhad Kazemi
Iran, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Balance                  95
2. Laurence Loeb, Outcaste: Jewish Life in Southern Iran (New York: Gordon
and Breach, 1977), p. 274. See also J. Neusner, "Jews in Iran," in Cambridge                21. Segev, Iranian Triangle, p. 108; Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel," p. 1076.
History of Iran, vol. 3, pt. 2, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, ed. Ehsan         22. Davar, April 20, 1980, pp. 3-4. Segev points out that the Iranian foreign
Yarshater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 909-23; Shaul              minister, 'Abbasqoli Khal'atbari, visited Israel in 1977 (Iranian Triangle, p. 153).
Shaked, ed., lrano-Judaica: Studies relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture        23. Discussion of the Iran-Israel oil link can be found in Robert Reppa, Sr.,
throughout the Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1982).                                              Israel and Iran (New York: Praeger, 1974), pp. 73-86; Segev, Iranian Triangle,
3. Loeb, Outcaste, p. 279.                                                          p. 75; Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel," pp. 1078-80; Marvin Zonis, "Israel and
4. Ibid., p. 280, citing Walter Fischel, "Isfahan: The Story of a Jewish            Iran: From Intimacy to Alienation," Moment 4 (March 1979):13.
Community in Persia," in Joshua Starr Memorial Volume (New York: Jewish Social              24. For details see Reppa, Israel and Iran, pp. 98-99.
Studies Publication, 1953), p. 116. On the contribution of Iranian Jews to Persian          25. Rabi'i's defense is (to my knowledge) part of the only published report
literature of both pre- and post-Islamic periods, see Jalal Matini, "Ahamiyyat-         of the proceedings of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts. Most of the minutes of
e Athar-e Adabi-ye Farsi-ye Yahudian," Iran Nameh 1 (1983):424-46.                      the trial were published in Iranian newspapers. Three issues of Ettela'at give
reasonable verbatim accounts of the trial: Farvardin 21, 22, and 23, 1358/1979.
5. Soroudi, "Jews in Islamic Iran," p. 103.
See also Segev, Iranian Triangle, pp. 72-74.
6. Loeb, Outcaste, pp. 286, 292; Soroudi, "Jews in Islamic Iran," pp.
26. Zonis, "Israel and Iran," p. 12.
104-6; Fischel, "Israel in Iran," pp. 1167-71.
27. Ibid., p. 15.
7. Soroudi, "Jews in Islamic Iran," p. 104.
28. Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel," p. 1081; Segev, Iranian Triangle, pp. 119,
8. Ibid., p. 106; Marvin Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel: The Discreet Entente,"
176, 187.
Orbis 18 (1975):1071.
29. John Cooley, "Iran, the Palestinians, and the Gulf," Foreign Affairs, summer
9. See Walter Fischel, "The Bahai Movement and Persian Jewry," Jewish
1979, p. 1017.
Review, March 1934, pp. 47-55; Hayyim Cohen, The Jews of the Middle East:                  30. Ibid.
1860-1972 (New York: Wiley, 1973), pp. 162-63.
31. For a firsthand account of the Jewish community's distress at this time,
10. Cohen, Jews of the Middle East, pp. 53-54, 141-46; S. Landshut, Jewish         see Barbara and Barry Rosen (with George Feifer), The Destined Hour: The
Communities in the Muslim Countries of the Middle East (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion       Hostage Crisis and One Family's Ordeal (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982),
Press, 1950), p. 65.                                                                    pp. 78-80.
11. Loeb, Outcaste, p. 289; Soroudi, "Jews in Islamic Iran," p. 107.                   32. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Velayat-e Faqih: Hokumat-e Eslami (Tehran,
12. Farhad Kazemi, "The Fada'iyan-i Islam: Fanaticism, Politics, and Terror,"      1977), p. 38; also p. 6.
in From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam: Essays on Social Movements in the              33. Ibid., p. 175.
Contemporary Near and Middle East, ed. Said Amir Atjomand (Albany: State                   34. During the first presidential elections held in the Islamic Republic, in
University of New York Press, 1983), p. 162.                                           January 1981, a radio reporter was dispatched to a Jewish activities center to
13. Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel," p. 1073.                                          interview the Jews and broadcast their views on the election. The reporter asked
14. Ibid., p. 1074, n. 10.                                                         those present about the primary qualifications for the office of the president.
15. Jerusalem Post, December 31, 1961, quoted in Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel,"      Every respondent began with the statement that he must be a believing and
p. 1070.                                                                               true Muslim who respects, fulfills, and enforces Islamic injunctions.
16. New York Times, July 27, 1960, p. 5.                                               35. A letter of protest was sent to members of Parliament by a group of
17. New York Times, July 25, p. 2; July 27, p. 5; July 29, p. 1; August l, p.      Iranian Jewish intellectuals in April 1981.
7; and August 30, p. 2, all 1960.                                                          36. Many of these recent Jewish immigrants to Israel are of modest socio-
18. New York Times, July 28, 1960, p. 5.                                           economic background and have practically no knowledge of Hebrew. For a
19. Weinbaum, "Iran and Israel," p. 1077. Detailed analysis of Iran-Israel         variety of reasons, their adjustment to Israeli society has been difficult. There
relations can be found in Samuel Segev, The Iranian Triangle: The Secret Relations     is, however, an organization of Iranian Jews in Israel. The organization was
between Israel-Iran-U.S.A. (Tel Aviv: Maariv, 1981). According to Segev (p. 94),       founded in 1979 and is led by the Iranian-born Likud member of the Knesset
El Al was permitted to operate in Iran in 1958 but only discreetly. After Nasser's     Moshe Katsav. The group arranges social and cultural activities and publishes
death in 1970, El Al was allowed to function openly and advertise its flights.         Payam, a monthly Persian-language magazine that includes general articles on
See also pp. 77-78, 80. I am indebted to David Menashri for sending me a               world events and Iranian Jewry, short stories, and other features. See, for
copy of this book. I am also grateful to Shaul Bar for the time he took to read        example, Payam for August and November 1980.
and translate the Hebrew text for me.                                                      37. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security
20. Davar, April 20, 1980, pp. 3-4.                                                Adviser, 1977-1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), p. 504.
-- Iran since the Revolution (Used by permission of the curator)