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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38372/full/38372/jews-have-tepid-reaction-to-election-in-iran/ <br /><br /> <b>Jews have tepid reaction to election in Iran</b> <br /> Thursday, June 18, 2009 | by <br /><br /><p>Israeli officials and Jewish organizations failed to weigh in strongly this week on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection in Iran, but not because of the election’s disputed outcome.</p> <p>Rather, it’s because they already have been asserting for weeks that it doesn’t matter whether Ahmadinejad or Mir Hussein Mousavi is president because the final decision-maker is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and by most accounts he is a strong backer of Iran’s current nuclear policies and support for terrorist proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.</p> <p>In recent days Mousavi, the prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, has sided unabashedly with the demonstrators, even as they have appeared to be challenging the legitimacy of the regime. This, coupled with his calls for better relations with the West and less support for Hamas and Hezbollah, has many portraying Mousavi as a reformist candidate who could potentially trigger significant changes on some fronts.</p> <p>But Dan Mariaschin, international executive director of B’nai B’rith International, cautioned against losing sight of the fact that Mousavi was the prime minister when Iran’s nuclear program launched.</p> <p>“Those who think there are sharp differences” between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad are “certainly taking a leap of faith,” Mariaschin said.</p> <p>David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said in a statement, “The reelection of Ahmadinejad underscores why the international community must do all it can to deny the Iranian regime the means to carry out its dangerous and destabilizing ambitions.”</p> <p>In Tehran, Jewish leaders and Jewish members of the Iranian Parliament routinely congratulate the winner of an election, but no such announcement had been reported as of June 17. — jta</p>

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