Sunday, December 30, 2007
A few days ago the Iranian propaganda outlet Press TV used this spoof image (created by the brilliantly satirical website People's Cube) ...
...to prove that reports of 40 Iranian Jews emigrating to Israel were "lies spread by the Zionist hegemony."
From Press TV's article "Iranian Jews reject emigration report"
The Iranian Jewish community has dismissed fraudulent reports claiming the organized secret emigration of 40 Iranian Jews to Israel.
In a Wednesday statement the Jewish community denounced reports by foreign news outlets on the mass emigration of Iranian Jews describing it as a misinformation campaign.
"Considering the Jewish community's comfortable living conditions in Iran and its deep common cultural roots with the followers of other religions in the country, Iranian Jews would never consider organized emigration," the statement declared.
Moris Motamed, the representative of the Jewish community in the Iranian Parliament and Siamak Mare-Sedq, the chairman of Tehran's Jews Assembly said propaganda campaigns against Iran would never manipulate the Jewish community.
Two days later, PressTV realized that they were caught propagandizing, lying and manipulating the Jewish community. They replaced the image with something less absurd. The People's Cube, wise to the ways of propagandists, expected them to do that and made a screen capture of the photo and article "for historical purposes."
From the Peoples Cube open letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran
Dear Iranian Mullahs! While our satirical website and your Propaganda Directorate deal in the same trade of making up facts and exaggerating reality, we are different in that we can recognize a spoof - but you apparently can't. On Dec. 27, 2007 you used our spoof image on your propaganda website to illustrate a "true" statement that Jews are welcome in Iran and that Western reports about mass emigration of Iranian Jews are "lies spread by the Zionist hegemony."
The spoof image in question first appeared in 2005, in our parody called Israel Dismantles; World's Problems End, which revealed the absurdity of demands to dismantle Israel, with various nations, including Iran and Germany, celebrating the return of their long-missed Jews.
It gets better. Our Iranian friends tell us that the original Farsi-language placard says "Nuclear power is our absolute right," which means that you, dear Mullahs, used that image as a propaganda tool to advance your nuclear program - so you could threaten and maybe even annihilate the Jews in Israel. In our spoof, we changed the message of the placard to the complete opposite, making it appear improbable. To be fair, your story about Iran's love for the Jews was just as improbable, so it would seem only logical to put them together. It would, we repeat - if your goal were to publish a self-parody. That wasn't your intention, however. You only did it because you didn't know better.
Let's call it self-inflicted poetic justice.
The People's Cube wonders why the Mullahs and their supporters didn't get the joke. Could it be because Khomeini outlawed humor?
Expect a heartfelt article from the Daily Mail describing the heartbreak and humiliation suffered by Iran's propagandists.
But seriously, we have to wonder, why does the news of Iranian Jews emigrating to Israel provoke such an hysterical reaction?
How dumb are Iranian propagandists? Apparently, quite dumb, but I'd prefer that than having them smarter than we are.
True. But maybe we should put more effort into messing with their heads..