When two tribes go to war...

Tehran University students, 1971.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/xmjn15/
tehran_university_students_iran_1971/

Persia's love affair with the Jews dates back to 593 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar plundered Jerusalem and took the Jews as slaves to Baghdad. He attacked Jerusalem again ten years later, destroying the First Temple and completing their captivity. After spending seventy years in exile in Baghdad, Cyrus liberated them, allowing their return to their homeland. In gratitude for helping the Babylonians, Cyrus enabled the construction of their Second Temple.

Throughout the generations, as Persia was overrun by various empires, including the Abbasid Islamic Dynasty, the Jews remained part of the Persian diaspora during the glorious days of Islam. The Islamic invasion did cause some Jews and Parsees to flee their homeland to various places, including India. Nevertheless, the Persian-Jewish relationship persisted into modern times. The Islamic Empire would claim that the Jews were very content living under the Empire. However, in reality, it is anybody's guess if the present-day opinion of Muslims about Jews is anything to go by.

Iran opposed the Palestine Mandate that aimed to establish the Jewish state of Israel in 1948. Many Persian Jews migrated to the newly formed country of Israel. Interactions between Iran and Israel remained cordial, though they were mainly transactional. Iran was among the first countries in the world to recognise Israel as a sovereign nation. Israel secured oil and finances from Iran, as maintaining a friendly relationship with Iran made considerable sense. It is important to note that the Israelis' neighbours, all of whom were Arabs, were quite hostile. The Persians have always held a sense of superiority, believing themselves to be one step above the Arabs. Therefore, maintaining a good relationship with a major non-Arab, non-Sunni country was crucial.

In the early 1950s, Iranian Islamists criticised Iran's diplomatic relations with Israel and actively collected donations for the Palestinians. They were unhappy with the Shah's close connections to Israel. The Iranian defence system used Israeli arms and was involved in their wars with Iraq. Both countries were also deeply engaged in developing each other's nuclear facilities. All of this changed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. 

Suddenly, Israel became a 'cancerous tumour' as mentioned by Ayatollah Ali Khameini in 2000 and should be wiped off the surface of the Earth, according to President Ahmadinejad in 2005. Iranian hostility towards Israel grew over the years, mainly via proxies, in Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthis. The climax of all these must surely be Hamas's kidnapping of Israelis at a music festival on October 7, 2023. Finally, a full-scale war between Iran and Israel broke out on June 13, 2025, when Israel conducted strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets. The world is once again at risk of a nuclear meltdown.

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The post-apocalyptic pillbox?

 

T junction - Semenyih, Hulu Langat Batu 18, Genting Peres.

This junction had seen better days. Weekends and holidays used to be marked with a hive of activities, loud banters and laughs. Streams of cyclists enjoyed the mild temperatures, the greenery and the challenge of steep hills leading to Genting Peres. This is the once busy T-junction of Batu 18 Hulu Langat leading to Peres and beyond. Now it stands a sorry sight of the testimony of all the putrifying underhand dealings that had been happening right under our noses.

Used to be a family heirloom, now a staircase
to nowhere.

To me, this reminds me of my own imaginary vision of how the world would be after the apocalyptical World War 3 - a pillbox amidst the man-made ruin, standing proud as the last man standing, a symbol of victory after a zero-sum game.

To the outside world, it was a front for prosperity. Unbeknownst, behind the row of lush greenery that paved the web of highways lay hidden hectares over hectares of government-sanctioned logging to line the pockets of political ballcarriers. As if a signed document can cement the ecosystem that Nature took generations to reach a steady state. 

As a near sexagenarian, looking back at the repeated faux pas that put our nation in the international media for all the wrong reasons, I realise my generation and the generation before me have blood in their hands.

Nowhere in the world would Forces of Nature
systematically slice timber! Yet the authorities
denied issuing any logging licences. Of course,
the issuances were legitimised at whim.

First, they told us the majority of the country held only 5% of its wealth. Let us all prosper together, they said. What was kept away from us was an accurate breakdown of the distribution of wealth. Somehow, statistics from Government-linked companies did not make it to the public pool. Then they said affirmative action would only last 20 years. But then, a cat fed milk daily would shy away from catching mice! Then race supremacy, and religious hegemony ensued. Rubber barons ruled the roost under the cloak of official secret and siege mentality. A halo of grandiosity was painted on its citizens. Like an Emperor with his new clothes, only we were proud of our perceived achievements even when meritocracy took a backseat and the floodgates to brain-drain laid bare open.

The leaders who we thought would take care of various interests either slept on the job or were bought over. Yet they keep painting a rosy picture despite the parched desert terrain that we see. We sensed a feeling of unease when two strange bedfellows, politicians and businessmen, were screaming 'win-win'. Little did we know that 'win-win' never referred to the nation and its citizens but upon themselves!

Meanwhile, as the economic pie got smaller, accentuated by a worldwide pandemic by years of sweeping under the carpet, the stench from years of decay is finally seeped out. It took a global jolt to expose the shortcomings. Do we need another cataclysmic catastrophe to change this crony capitalism, nepotism and unashamed corruption?

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Eyeball to eyeball; the fellow blinked!

Thirteen Days (2000)

Director: Roger Donaldson

Recently Barbados, the Island Country in the Caribbean, cut her ties from British Commonwealth and declared herself a republic. She unceremoniously replaced QEII with her President as the Head of State to cut off England's previous legacy in slavery. 

It also declared China as a friendly nation to rub salt on an open wound. To strengthen bilateral ties, flights between countries were commenced, and Barbados went so far as to let the Middle Kingdom finance many of its development projects. The Western world decries that this is a prelude to a takeover of Barbados by China via debt traps. Barbados denies, saying that China's loans constitute only 2.5% of the nation's total debt.

America is, of course, hot under the collar because of its proximity to the United States. This kind of reminds us of the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the autumn of 1962, which almost triggered the Third World War. 

Soviet SS4 ballistic missiles.

After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Cuba requested Big Brother protection. The Soviet Union offered to park some medium-range missiles in Cuba, just in case. This was discovered by the prying USAF U2 spy planes.

The movie tries to capture the events that unfolded over the next thirteen days in October 1962 as President Kennedy and his team tried to get these nuclear missiles far away from their soil. It is told from the point of view of JFK's political secretary, Kenneth O'Donnell. 

It showcases the Army bigwigs so gungho in pushing the Big Red Button to start a war with the Soviet Union as JFK attempts desperately to avert a clash. Kenneth O'Donnell is seen as a kingmaker in cutting many back deals behind the scene with the Russians. JFK imposed a 'quarantine' to prevent Soviet missiles from reaching Cuba by sea. It was purposely not labelled 'blockade' as it would infer aggression and justify war. The US did lose a pilot and had another plane shot at as it went on its clandestine reconnaissance work. Still, it was hushed from the media apparently by O'Donnell's backhand manoeuvres. Of course, O'Donnell's keen involvement in the whole hoopla is denied by many who were directly involved in the crisis. They say that his job was just to attend to JFK's political needs, not actively influencing the President's and the AG's (Robert Kennedy) decisions! 

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