By: Jessica Emami
Just after 9/11, the United States government implemented security policies that targeted Americans of Middle Eastern descent. Several Muslim American and Middle Eastern organizations partnered to fight back against this policy. Among these, one Iranian American organization was formed called the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA).
Sadly, although at least one half of Iranian Americans are not Muslim, PAAIA continues to focus their attention on Muslim Iranian Americans while contradicting the priority of hundreds of thousands of Iranian American Jews.
PAAIA’s own annual surveys since 2008 reveal that nearly one-half to two-thirds of the 700,000+ Americans of Iranian ancestry are members of religious and ethnic minorities including Jews. Many, if not most, have experienced centuries of oppression at the hands of Muslim majorities in the Middle East. A large number fled en masse to the United States in 1979 because of the oppression and discrimination instituted by the Islamic Republic of Iran against religious and ethnic minorities.
PAAIA does make perfunctory statements in support of Iranian American Jews. For example, a 2008 conference of International Jewry was celebrated with a press release. PAAIA also quietly endorsed the claims of a Middle Eastern coalition of religious and ethnic minorities who discovered that the mandatory ethnic studies curriculum proposed for California public schools was heavy on Islamophobia but totally omitted antisemitism under Muslim majority countries.
But beyond press statements, the political stances of PAAIA have been particularly harmful to the Iranian American Jewish community.
Nearly all Iranian American Jews have been living in exile since 1979, unable to visit Iran for fear of imprisonment and reprisal. Nearly all have lost millions of dollars in properties illegally seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And nearly all vigorously support Israel.
But PAAIA’s most vigorous and monied campaigns to date have been to support the Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA) and to abolish the Trump travel ban, proudly nicknamed the “Muslim ban”.
The JCPOA extends the longevity of the brutal Islamic Republic of Iran by normalizing its economic and political status in the international community. But this deal explicitly fails to address the Iranian government’s support for terrorism against Israel. Iranian Jews are highly supportive of Israel. Hundreds of thousands more Iranian Jews live in Israel.
PAAIA characterizes any sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran as “a call to war”. Thus, those who wish to leverage the Islamic Republic’s cooperation using a diplomatic stick rather than a carrot are labeled warmongers and silenced.
PAAIA also mounted concerted campaigns against the Trump travel ban because it “prevented the entry of persons from Muslim majority countries into the United states”.
Although this policy was inhumane and resulted in the forced separation of many Iranian families, PAAIA’s rationale illustrates an orientation towards the majority Muslim homeland rather than the hundreds of thousands of Iranian Americans in exile, including Iranian Jews.
For Iranian Jews living in the United States, being in exile from Iran for 42 years, the travel ban is not germane. Rather, they need Iranian American organizations that advocate for their ability to safely visit Iran and leave without being arrested and tortured.
Many Iranians Jews were also prominent business persons and land owners who had all of their properties illegally seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran. They need an organization that takes to task the regime to provide financial reparations to these individuals as a part of any negotiation with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Lastly, PAAIA’s ongoing work involves partnering closely with organizations such as Muslim Advocates, who financially back and champion the vehemently anti-Semitic politicians Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Iranian Jews view these two politicians as demagogues who are antithetical to their interests.
But the clearest evidence of PAAIA’s lip service to Iranian American Jews was their anemic reaction to the recent targeted beatings of Iranian Jews in Los Angeles (FN).
Last week, gangs of marauding youth wearing kuffiyahs around their faces and shouting “death to the Jews” targeted youths who turned out to be Iranian Jews. The gangs jumped out of black vans at restaurants and other populated places and asked “who is Jewish?”. When two Iranian youth identified themselves as Jews they were beaten and had glass bottles thrown at them. Several people were injured. The Iranian American Jewish Federation immediately issued a press release urging law enforcement and the FBI to get involved, and 24 hours later had a press conference with the Israeli-American Civic Action Network.
Although PAAIA tweeted and posted on Facebook that they oppose antisemitism, no concerted campaigns, no posts or press releases, and no publicized contacts with lawmakers are evident.
It is time for all organizations that claim to represent Iranian Americans to support the Iranian American Jewish community.
