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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Cartographic Aggression!

China's ten-dashed line map 2023.

Learned a new word today - cartographic aggression. In simple terms, it is the act of shoving a map in front of someone's face and expecting the someone to respect its boundaries. This is the age-old form of exerting geopolitical dominance, failing which the aggressor will have justification to attack and usurp the non-conformer.

Back at a time when the term Europeans and Flat-Earthers were interchangeable, early Portuguese voyagers managed to put their new discoveries on hand-drawn maps. These maps were State-guarded secrets. Everyone wanted to lay their hands on them to go another nautical mile. In 1538, Geradus Mercator, from a region around the Netherlands (a region known as low countries, which included Belgium and Luxembourg) with available information around him, put up the first world map. He mapped out Asia as separate from the Americas before the discovery of the Bering Straits.

The East India Company, after establishing their first post in Surat, the British representative presented an atlas to Emperor Jahangir. It was politely refused as the Moghul Empire was shown to be puny compared to the rest of the world. Whether it was intimidation or a gift is anyone's guess. 

As time passed, we have realised that a map is not merely a navigational tool. The British surveyors who went into the God-forsaken valleys of Afghanistan and the tundra lands of Siberia not to map the geographical terrain of the world for people to learn. They had geopolitics on their minds. Wanting to halt the Russian Empire's expansion and win in the Great Game of Imperialism, they were strategising their next military move.

Funny, Australia and Antarctica are seen here,

 even though they were discovered later.

(1606 and 1820 respectively) **

So, it is no surprise that China's 2023 Ten-Dash line map, in a single stroke, has stirred the emotions of many countries. In essence, it has staked claim over the whole of the South China Sea, usurping oil-rich islands belonging to Malaysia and Vietnam. On top of that, China had created artificial islands for military recognisance. It had successfully re-flared an old wound with Russia. By claiming a piece of 'island', Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, which almost brought to a nuclear showdown in 1969, China shows its fangs to its sometimes ally. A dash of line over Taiwan angered the Taiwanese, too. As far as China is concerned, Taiwan is part of China anyway. ASEAN has expressed its satisfaction. The Indian Government, as if its internal squabbles are not enough, is accused of quietly losing 2000 square km of its territory to China. The last time this thing happened, they went to war.

It is one thing to draw a map but another to recognise its borders. We all remember the aftermath of Sir Cyril Radcliffe's disastrous attempt at carving Pakistan out of India. The British can draw the Durand Line to demarcate Afghanistan from Pakistan, but that does not mean the Taliban nor the Pashtuns will respect it.

A map is a geopolitical statement attempting to exert power over an area. Now, the affected party must state their objection, negotiate, resolve or go to war for it.

** P.S. Of course, discovery is Europe’s POV. The Maoris, Polynesians and Australian aborigines knew they existed in Australia before Cook came and slaughtered them. The same applies to the penguins in the South Seas. Antarctica was their playground. I heard from the grapevine that Vikings 'discovered' Antarctica in their great travel in the 1500s.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.