Conspiracy minded

Iran isn't actually powering missiles with money

George Orwell characterized the English "Rule of the Saints" under Oliver Cromwell as "a military dictatorship enlivened by witchcraft trials". Those words appear to describe Iran pretty well today. A dictatorship, and particularly a military dictatorship, needs an enemy, and the current regime in Iran had identified Israel as an enemy well before the Ayatollahs came to power. Iran's declarations of solidarity with the Palestinian people and support for Hamas in the current conflict continues a policy they have pursued for over forty years. It seems obvious the leadership in Iran strongly approves of  the current opposition to Israeli policy in the West, and it makes sense expect them to support organizing in opposition to Israel in any way they can.

From this perspective, the recent column by Warren Kinsella, suggesting Iran has inspired and funded a significant part of the opposition to Israel's fight against Hamas, appears to make sense. That impression fades, however, when we ask how much money the Iranian government can move into Western countries to fund activism. According to the Congressional Research Service: 

U.S. sanctions on Iran are arguably the most extensive and comprehensive set of sanctions that the United States maintains on any country. 

These specific targets of these sanctions include Iran's financial sector, so for the government of Iran, or party militias aligned with the Iranian government, moving money abroad to support political organizing would involve a lot more than writing a cheque or sending a wire transfer. Mr. Kinsella provides no specifics for his claims, so we have no way of knowing how he thinks the Iranians and their allies might have evaded the sanctions, to say nothing of measures designed specifically to prevent political interference in democratic nations by countries at odds with them.

The major evidence Mr. Kinsella cites consists of his perception of the organizing done by the opponents of Israel's current policies as unduly sophisticated. At first, I had thought of attributing this to simple wounded vanity on the part of a professional bested by amateurs, as happens fairly often in golf, curling, and political organizing. 

Looking further, I see another instance of the use of conspiratorial thinking to ward off an unpleasant reality. By every account, protests against Israeli policy have far outnumbered protests or vigils for Israel. Individuals protesting have shown a willingness to risk arrest, demonstrating commitment far beyond anything expected of a paid organizer. Whether you agree with them or not, millions of young people, far more than Iran or any other country could hope to pay off, have stated and continue to state, unequivocally, their opposition to Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank, and their rejection of the defences offered for those politics.

These displays of passion  have found a matching willingness in governments throughout the West to pressure the current Israeli government in ways no government appears to have seriously considered before. Canada has suspended arms shipments to Israel on the basis of a motion passed by Parliament. The United States has applied financial sanctions to Israeli individuals and institutions, reportedly including Bentzi Gopstein, an advisor to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the current Israeli minister of national security. Even Germany, historically a staunch supporter of Israel, has begun to criticize Israeli military actions in Gaza.

No truth matters more than the one we hate, the one we do not want to hear, because that truth can change us. The conspiracies we choose to believe in, whatever we identify as the hidden hand behind the truth we want to deny, have the substance of castles in the air; they may look pretty and comforting, at least to us, but they offer no real shelter from the realities we want to escape.Supporters of Israel urgently need to come to terms with the reality of the war in Gaza, and most important, of the cost to Israel of the proposals to ethnically cleanse Gaza or even the West Bank. Whether or not you believe the millions of people, from street protesters to members of Parliament, who object to Israeli tactics in Gaza have grasped an important truth, dismissing that possibility with exaggerated ideas of a conspiracy offers no practical advantage for Israel at all. Genuine support for Israel requires facing the truth.