If forced to choose between Israel and Iran, which side would Arabs in the Arabian Gulf be on? This article from Kuwait’s Al Seyassah makes it hard to guess. Al-Sayasseh editor and chief Ahmad Abdal Aziz Al Jarallah accuses the Iranian regime of following the policies of the former Shah to economically and culturally take over Arab lands, starting with calling the ‘Arabian Gulf’ the ‘Persian Gulf.’
For Al Seyassah, Ahmad Abdal Aziz Al Jarallah writes in part:
Does the Gulf have a Persian identity? That old/new question came to mind while I listened to news of how Iranian authorities fired a Greek airline steward for using the term “Arabian Gulf” aboard an Iranian aircraft.
It is a fact that the Gulf was “Arabic” prior to the advent of Islam. It was Arabic before the Imperial Persianization movement began in the nineteenth century, and before the coveting of the Shah that was bequeathed to Tehran, despite the current regime’s attempts to disprove these facts.
So let us put the record straight: Arabs in their natural environment are not a minority to be designated “Gulf Arabs.” That is a term which applies more to Iranians than Arabs, because Iranians are the natural minority in the region surrounding the Arabian Gulf. We can therefore hit the nail on the head without any distortion of the facts by saying, “Gulf Persians.” We want to tell the Iranian school of ambitious expansionism: Between you and us, there is history, geography, and social and economic realities – and even religious realities if you like.
No power, however great, can impose on us an identity different from our own. Created with the ugly tools of repression, we cannot accept such an open forgery, abandon our identity and submit to a greed that is the satanic result of a mentality based on the suppression of the other.
This leads us reconsider everything leaders of the Tehran regime have said about “good brotherly relations among neighbors!” This also raises more suspicion about Iran’s nuclear project, which is a continuation of the program of the Shah’s regime – to say nothing of that country’s state of permanent militarization. These are nothing more than tools for achieving the occupation of the entire region. Therefore, it is the duty of all Arabs to openly reflect their Arabian-Gulf identity.
Would the leaders of the Tehran regime answer the following question?: How is this regime an enemy of Israel, which is working to erase the identity of Al Quds [Jerusalem] and Palestine, if it exhibits the same behavior with its attempt to undermine the identity of the Arabian Gulf? Aren’t Iran and Israel two sides of the same coin?
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