The War In The Middle East

Here are a few thoughts about the war in the Middle East.

THE STORY OF ELI COHEN 

Let me tell you what I am thinking. I have difficulty believing that I am the only one thinking this.

First, let's briefly review the story of Eli Cohen. Israel once managed to plant a secret agent in Syria who rose high in the Syrian government, all the while providing information to Israel. His secret radio transmissions were eventually detected. He was caught and executed. His name was Eli Cohen.

Has anyone wondered if Israel has someone high in the Iranian Government? The Israelis knew exactly where the Supreme Leader would be, as well as people such as the leader of the Revolutionary Guard and the former hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This is information that very few people would have known in advance.

In 2025, the Israelis knew exactly where Tehran's air defenses were located and they had been neutralized in time for Israeli jets to take control of the sky. How did they know this?

LOCAL CONNECTION TO THE 1979-81 IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS

I have always wondered if there was a local connection to the Iran Hostage Crisis.

First of all, where did the idea of taking over the embassy and seizing hostages come from?

Second, why did they blindfold some of the hostages and parade them before news cameras? This looks very familiar. Where have we seen this before?

The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Iran Hostage Crisis". It shows how some of the hostages were paraded blindfolded, early in the crisis. The man at right, holding the briefcase, was later alleged to be the future president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was killed in the recent strikes. Although the Iranian Government denied it.

Eight years before the Iran Hostage Crisis, in 1971, there had been an uprising at Attica State Prison, which is not too far from here, over prison conditions. The prisoners took a number of guards as hostages, and paraded them blindfolded just like this hostage here. These are the only two times that I recall seeing blindfolded hostages paraded before cameras. The prison uprising was not overtly about race but most of the prisoners happened to be black, and most of all of the guards that they took hostage were white, and it was a time of high racial tension.

After the Iran Hostage Crisis began the militants released all of the black hostages, with one exception, and expressed solidarity with black Americans. There had been a lot of racial violence in America the decade before, along with protests against the Vietnam War. The Iranian demonstrations against the Shah and the United States was very reminiscent of America's own demonstrations the decade before. Bell bottom pants were even in style in Iran at the time.

This was a time when some prominent black Americans were publicly converting to Islam and changing their names, such as Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Was this parading of blindfolded prisoners, exactly like at Attica, an attempt to start an Islamic revolution in the United States, centered on black people?

THE TWO FUNERALS

We can see how Iran has changed since the revolutionary fervor of the 1980s in the relatively quiet funeral of the recently deceased Supreme Leader, in contrast with that of his predecessor.

Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989. I remember watching his funeral procession. There were millions of people and it might have been the largest gathering of people in human history. The body was displayed but getting it through the crowd to the cemetery was impossible.

A helicopter was brought in, and got the body to the burial site. But the body fell out of the coffin and great numbers of people surged forward, in an attempt to touch the funeral shroud. The Revolutionary Guard finally got the body back into the casket and into the helicopter. But so many people held onto the helicopter that it was initially unable to take off.

The body was prepared for burial again. My information is that they managed to get the body buried only by falsely announcing that the burial had been postponed.