Israel Matzav

Iranians listening to Israel Radio broadcasts unanimously favor sanctions

One of the arguments that has been used to oppose strong sanctions against Iran is that those sanctions - let alone an American or Israeli air strike - would cause Iranians to rally around Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs. That argument has now been disproved.

In the midst of a wave of international debate on increased sanctions against Iran, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Tzahi Hanegbi (Kadima) revealed Tuesday that Iranian listeners to Voice of Israel radio had unanimously said that they support increased sanctions against the Iranian regime.

On Monday night, Hanegbi spoke by telephone with Iranian citizens. Hanegbi visited the studio from which the Voice of Israel in Persian is broadcast and spoke with listeners who called in to the radio station from throughout Iran.

The Iranians spoke in Farsi, and the radio station’s manager, Menashe Amir, translated back and forth to enable the dialogue between Hanegbi and the callers.

The Israel Broadcasting Authority believes that millions of Iranians regularly listen to Voice of Israel’s Farsi broadcasts, despite warnings by the Iranian regime that anyone caught listening to foreign radio stations will be immediately jailed.

According to Hanegbi, the listeners expressed unanimous support for increased sanctions against the Iranian government, and even encouraged Israel to pressure the West to expand the sanctions against the Teheran regime.

One Iranian student who called from Teheran argued that the Jews have a historical debt to the historical pre-Islamic Persian King Cyrus, who liberated the Jews from exile and allowed them to return to the land of Israel, then under Persian dominance.

“The State of Israel must support the Iranian nation in its struggle for freedom,” declared the student.

Hanegbi answered that the hearts of all Israelis are with the Iranian people, and that the horrifying pictures of Iranian security forces massacring an antigovernment protester in the streets of Teheran last year shocked millions of Israeli television viewers.

“Because of the shared history between the Jewish people and the Iranian people, it is possible to explain the special ties that existed between Israel and Iran prior to the rise to power of the ayatollahs. I am certain that those relations will return,” Hanegbi told the student.

Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:33 PM