Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [104]
After, presumably, Rosewater found out that Chekhov was not Jewish, he did not bother with any more questions about people with surnames ending with ov. That included my Israeli friend David Shem-tov. I don’t think you can find a more Israeli name than Shem-tov, but I could just imagine the Revolutionary Guards researchers saying to each other, “Chekhov, Molotov, Shem-tov, they are all the same!”
I had grown up listening to anti-Israeli propaganda on Iranian television, but it was only in Evin that I discovered the real depth of the Islamic government’s hatred, paranoia, and lack of understanding of Israel, and of Jewish people in general. The Iranian government claims Israel is its main nemesis. If the United States is the Great Satan, Israel is the “Even More Devious Satan.” I was coming to understand that Rosewater, who was likely being fed anti-Israeli propaganda on an hourly basis, believed every conspiracy theory pertaining to the Jewish people. To Rosewater, a Jew could not be an ordinary person. To him a Jew meant a Zionist, a spy—someone who has no other occupation than conspiring against Islam and Muslims. I don’t think he had ever met a Jewish person in his life. But he thought that he knew everything about the Jews and Israelis.
“Write down the name of every Jewish element you’ve ever met in your life!” he demanded one day.
I took the pen. In the West it is not customary to ask about people’s religious affiliations. It will be very difficult for me to answer your question because I cannot guess the religious background of every person I’ve ever met in my life.
He tore my answer into pieces and threw them in my face. Grabbing my hair from behind, he forced me to pick them up from the floor. “Do as I ask! Tell me the names of the most evil, irreligious bastards you have ever met. They were all Jews!”
In order to satisfy him, I wrote down a list that included journalists, university students, and teachers and former neighbors of mine in Canada and the United Kingdom.
“I thought you said you’ve never met any Jews in your life,” he declared proudly. “But there are ten names here. You have to detail all the information you have about these elements.”
I knew that Rosewater would be well rewarded by his bosses if he could connect me to shady dealings with Israel, but there was nothing to be found. Ever since I had returned to Iran, in 1997, I had made sure to keep my distance from any association with Israel. I knew that being connected to Israel could easily put me in jail or, at the very least, end my career in Iran. I even refused to cover the Palestinian-Israeli conflict—the most pressing issue in the Middle East—in order to avoid having to travel to Israel.
Rosewater’s ideas about the Jews and Israel came directly from Khomeini’s writings and speeches. After seizing power, like all Middle Eastern tyrants, Khomeini had sought legitimacy through demonizing the Jewish state. In turn, Israel—by committing atrocities against the Palestinians and setting up illegal settlements—kept providing Khomeini and other Middle Eastern dictators with ample reason to condemn it.
Despite Rosewater’s hatred of the Jews, his attitude to Israel was one of awe and envy. While he clearly had contempt for anything to do with Israel, he frequently demonstrated his admiration for the methods Israel used to defeat its enemies. He once told me that all my friends in the West who have criticized the Islamic government or have acted against it would someday be brought back in a bag “just like that Nazi guy in Argentina, what’s his name?”
“Adolf Eichmann,” I said.
“Yes, Eichmann. The Nazi leader,” he said. “If the Israelis can kidnap one of their enemies, don’t you think we can do the same thing?” He took my right earlobe and pulled it as hard as he could. “We are much stronger than Israel.