[Marxism] Iran's Unlikely TV Hit (WSJ)

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If the Wall Street Journal, which published that ferocious attack 
on Norman Finkelstein can't find anti-Semitic references in this 
story, which is probably based on watching episodes of it, it's 
likely that there aren't any. More so, as Iran is under the micro-
scope of Israeli and Jewish media internationally. (For example, 
the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles which covers Iranian Jewry very 
extensively as there is a very large Iranian Jewish Community in 
this city. The JJ very, very, very hostile to the Islamic Republic. 

This story's appearance so prominently in the most important daily 
newspaper of the U.S. business community constitutes an obstacle, 
of modest but important symbolic dimensions, to the process of 
manufacturing consent for a military strike against the Islamic 
Republic which right-wing Zionists and right-wing U.S. policy-
makers like John Bolton and others are engaged in.

Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools, it's been well-said. 
My guess is that element is missing from this series. From the 
leading business journal of the United States, the idea that the 
Iranians should use television to shape public opinion is almost 
laughable. That's what EVERY government in the world does.

Combined with the report Louis took note of earlier about the 
declining support for Israel among Jews internationally, we've
got some reasons for cautious optimism, it seems to me.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
==================================================================

Iran's Unlikely TV Hit
Show Sympathetic to Plight
Of Jews During the Holocaust
Draws Millions Each Week
By FARNAZ FASSIHI
September 7, 2007; Page B1

http://tv1.irib.ir/barnameha/sharhefilm.asp?code=0011109036106

Every Monday night at 10 o'clock, Iranians by the millions tune into
Channel One to watch the most expensive show ever aired on the
Islamic republic's state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s
costumes and European locations are a far cry from the typical
Iranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.

But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that
it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.

The hour-long drama, "Zero Degree Turn," centers on a love story
between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman.
Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi
detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for
the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian
Jews to their homeland.

On the surface, the message of the lavish, state-funded production
appears sharply at odds with that sent out by Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth.

In fact, the government's spending on the show underscores the subtle
and often sophisticated way in which the Iranian state uses its TV
empire to send out political messages. The aim of the show, according
to many inside and outside the country, is to draw a clear
distinction between the government's views about Judaism -- which is
accepted across Iranian society -- and its stance on Israel -- which
the leadership denounces every chance it gets.

"Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a
minority of Zionists," says Hassan Fatthi, the show's writer and
director. "The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as
despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian
women and children by racist Zionist soldiers," he says.

Mr. Fatthi, 48 years old, is a well-known director of historical
fiction for television. In the past, his work has focused on Iranian
history. But he also dabbles in comedy, winning international
critical acclaim two years ago for a hit feature, "Marriage, Iranian
Style."

He says he came up with the idea for "Zero Degree Turn" four years
ago as he was reading books about World War II and stumbled across
literature about charge d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Paris.
Abdol Hussein Sardari saved over a thousand European Jews by forging
Iranian passports and claiming they belonged to an Iranian tribe.

Mr. Fatthi says he chose the title because the world at the time was
in dire circumstances, offering few options for avoiding the terrors
to come. Shot on location in Paris and Budapest, the show stars
Iranian heartthrob Shahab Husseini and is so popular that its theme
song -- an ode to getting lost in love -- is a hit, too.

"It's captivating. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, on Monday
nights I find a television set and watch the show. So does every
Jewish person I know here," says Morris Motamed, the lone Jew in
parliament.

Mr. Fatthi enlisted the help of Iran's Jewish Association, an
independent body that safeguards the community's culture and
heritage. The association has criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments
about the Holocaust but has praised Mr. Fatthi's show.

Iran is home to some 25,000 Jews, the largest population in the
Middle East outside of Israel. Iran's Jews -- along with Christians
and Zorastrians -- are guaranteed equal rights in the country's
constitution. Iran's Jews are guaranteed one member of parliament and
are free to study Hebrew in school, pray in synagogues and shop at
kosher supermarkets. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, it isn't
government policy to question the Holocaust, and the country's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn't endorsed those views.

While Iran makes it no secret that it considers Israel an enemy, it
has been extremely touchy about criticism of its treatment of Jewish
citizens. The show is seen as an effort by the government to erase
the image that it may be anti-Semitic -- both at home among Jews and
non-Jews, and abroad.

"In this show, you notice that a new method of political dialogue is
being promoted that is more in line with the modern world," says
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former Iranian vice
president.

The message appears to be grabbing the public. Sara Khatibi, a
35-year-old mother and chemist in Tehran, says she and her husband
never miss an episode. "All we ever hear about Jews is rants from the
government about Israel," she says. "This is the first time we are
seeing another side of the story and learning about their plight."

The show also pushes Iran's political line regarding the legitimacy
of Israel: The Jewish state was conceived in modern times by Western
powers rather than as part of a centuries-old desire of Jews for a
return to their ancestral homeland. In one scene, a rabbi declares it
a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands. In another, the French
Jewish protagonist refuses a marriage offer by a cousin, who is
advocating the creation of Israel.

Iran has long used TV to shape public opinion, where newspapers and
the Internet are seen as media for the elite. The state's control
over radio and television is enshrined in the constitution. Ayatollah
Khamenei, the supreme leader, is not only head of the armed forces
and the judiciary, but also the national broadcast authority.

"The regime appreciates the fact that to appeal to the masses, both
in Iran and the Muslim world, television is the most important
outlet," says Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

On any given day, the country's seven state-run channels broadcast a
mostly drab offering of news, sports, cooking shows, soap operas and
religious sermons. Political propaganda is constantly fed into the
mix. Dissidents such as students or reformers are routinely paraded
before cameras to read confessions after stints of solitary
imprisonment.

A slick documentary-style program recently aired long interviews with
two Iranian-Americans who were detained on allegations of working to
overthrow the regime. The interviews -- in which the pair blandly
admitted to meeting with Iranian scholars and dissidents, but not to
attempting to topple the government -- were intercut with provocative
scenes of demonstrations in Ukraine, where the U.S. encouraged groups
that eventually staged the successful Orange Revolution in late 2004.

In July, Iran launched a 24-hour English-language satellite news
channel called Press TV, joining the ranks of the BBC, CNN and Al
Jazeera. Its Arabic news channel, Al Alam, has been broadcasting news
with an Iranian slant in the Arab world for several years.

Episodes of "Zero Degree Turn," broadcast in Farsi, can be seen
outside of Iran on the Internet, either streaming live or downloaded
at tv1.irib.ir/barnameha/sharhefilm.asp?code=00111090361062. It is
also broadcast with English subtitles on the state-controlled Jameh
Jam satellite channel, which is available on Europe's Hot Bird
satellite network. Mr. Fatthi also says Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting has been contacted about selling the show to networks 
in other countries, but he doesn't know which ones.


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