Iranian-American Jews, Trump and the Dangers of Conspiracy Theory

The Iranian-American Jewish community has elevated President Donald Trump into a messianic figure despite his embrace by white supremacists and the rise of hate crimes against Jews. There is no polling data on this small community of less than 100,000 people, but a survey of popular figures in the community such as Afshine Emrani who wrote “10 Reasons Persian Jews Support Trump in 2016” attests to Trump’s popularity within the Iranian Jewish community. While there are strong historical reasons Iranian Jews came to support the Republican Party, Trump’s reckless embrace of conspiracy theory is the single biggest threat to a peaceful and prosperous Jewish life in the United States. 

After centuries of abject poverty and religious persecution, the Jews of Iran got their big break under the Pahlavi Dynasty (1925-1979). Iran was one of the fastest modernization projects in the world, and experienced 20 percent annual increases to GNP. Simultaneous with Iran’s modernization, the religious, political, and social conditions of the Jews improved fundamentally. In 1977, the last Shah Mohammad Reza Phalvi’s (shah is Iranian for “king”) government was destabilized by the stagnation of oil prices, his declining health, and a democratic movement that was controlled by a network of religious organizations. By 1979 it was all over and the democratic revolution gave way to clerical despotism. 

For the Iranian Jews, the two primary culprits for this tragic collapse were Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and President Jimmy Carter. Carter’s human rights policies gave life to a dormant democratic movement that was dominated by Khomeini. Khomeini’s true intentions were obscured by the fact that his books had been banned in Iran. His rants against women’s rights and land reform had gone unnoticed, and he was ironically able to take the mantle of a democrat, a progressive cleric fighting against despotism and colonialism.  His rise was supported by secular intellectuals like Jalal Al-Ahmad and even French postmodernist philosopher Michel Foucault. Unlike the Republican President Richard Nixon, Carter was pressuring the Shah to democratize during an already destabilizing oil crisis. The Carter administration’s failure to grasp the precarious situation and provide clear support to the Shah is seen as a major contributing cause of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which resulted in the mass exodus of Iranian Jews to the USA and Israel. 

To Iranian Jews, the Iranian people had been duped by a fundamentalist Muslim cleric who had posed as a leftist reformer.  To this day, Iranian Jews have therefore been wary of any populist, whether religious or secular, who appeals to the left.  The caricature of the Islamist posing as a progressive figure was born. Iranian Jews saw that their failures led to a despot Islamic regime that curtailed human rights and liberty for the past 40 years.  Their exodus from Iran coincided with the rise of Ronald Reagan, who succeeded in capturing the essence of Carter’s mistake.  As Reagan said in the 1980 Presidential Debate “Because someone [the Shah] did not meet exactly our standards of human rights, even though they were an ally of ours, instead of trying patiently to persuade them to change their ways, we have aided in a revolutionary overthrow which results in totalitarianism instead for those people [Iranians].”  Reagan’s view was perfectly in touch with the pro-Shah sentiment of the Iranian Jewish community, which Iranian Jews looked back to longingly as the most prosperous time in the last centuries.  

It also helped that under Reagan, Iranian-American Jews saw the third longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. Reagan additionally appealed to family values and conservative morality which meshed perfectly with the traditional and religious values of the Iranian Jewish community. To a community fresh to America, the stark contrast between Carter’s perceived failures and Reagan’s successes could not be stronger.  This idea of a golden age under the Shah and the leftist downfall turns out to be more complicated than perceived.  Life under the Shah could also be autocratic, and had Iran reformed well before Carter’s presidency, such as with their push for democratization under President John F. Kennedy been heeded, there may not have been the need for a revolution. But on the surface, the right side to be on was clear, and Republicans had won the hearts of the Iranian-American Jews.

To understand how Iranian-American Jews came to support Trump, who waffled in party affiliation throughout his life but ended up running for president as a Republican, one must also understand the Iranian Jewish relationship with Israel. To begin with, Iranian Jews tend to be fairly traditional in their religiosity and it goes without saying that Israel plays a prominent role in Judaism. But beyond that, Israel currently has the largest population of Iranian Jews in the world. Israel granted Iranian Jews citizenship during their time of crises in 1979. So it is no surprise that they would be defensive of the country. 

 Due to its unwavering support for Israel, conservative media won over Iranian Jews.  Under the guidance of Roger Ailes, Fox News took a hard-right position on Israel, and once again the Iranian Jewish faith in the conservative Republican establishment had been affirmed with the following message: Israel is a good country and here is a station that is not afraid to admit it. Fox was quickly accelerating toward a course of highly biased, incendiary, and sensationalistic news. But the anger and hatred was directed toward common enemies. In yet another instance of what seems to be a divinely ordained path toward the right-wing for the Iranian Jewish community, Barack Obama appeared on the scene. A liberal democrat with a Muslim name (his middle name is Hussein) was a nonstarter as the echoes of Khomeini were still being felt.  A series of missteps early in Obama’s presidency that led to an acrimonious relationship with right-winger Netanyahu, and a deal which seemed to legitimize the Iranian regime were too much to stomach. Fox News was there with an unrelenting  24-hour news cycle to expose this boogeyman and others like Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour who seemed to fit the bill for duplicitous progressive Muslims. 

While we can point to his bad relationship with Netanyahu, or the wisdom of the Iran deal, Obama was not actually the boogeyman. In practice, Obama was deeply committed to the security of the Jewish state and approved a 38 billion dollar military aid deal, the largest ever. In fact, Obama described himself as basically a liberal Jew who believed that Netanyahu’s course for Israel endangered Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state. But the inherent distrust for the man could not be shaken off, especially with Fox spewing verifiable falsehoods about him from everything to immigration to terrorism to healthcare. And then came Trump.

Trump stood in front of a tenuous AIPAC crowd where some rabbis had staged a walkout. From the Iran deal, to the UN, terrorism, to even his daughter having a Jewish baby, Trump hit all the right notes. With the words, “we will move the embassy to the eternal capital of Israel, Jerusalem”, Trump clinched the speech and left with a standing ovation. If there was any doubt this man would be an unshakable supporter of Israel, it was erased when Trump delivered on his promise after becoming president with the move of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. 

As far as the Iranian Jewish community was concerned, after delivering on Israel, exiting the Iran deal, killing the commander of Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, Trump had proven himself as a lover of the Jewish people and a great president.  However, the view that Trump’s presidency has been a boon for Jews is short sighted. His reckless embrace of conspiracy theories for political gain is laying the groundwork for a catastrophic future for the Jewish people in the long run.

Conspiracy theories are the lifeblood of antisemitism. Dr. Dave Rich, author of “Anti-Semitism: From Its Origins to the Present” in an interview with Yad Vashem stated  that, “When conspiracy theories become the main way of viewing politics and the world, antisemitism will have not just a place, but a central place.”  In short, conspiracy theories tend to converge toward extreme antisemitism.  Blood libel conspiracy theories have historically played a big role inciting pogroms that led to the torture and murder of countless Jews. Even in Iran, blood libel conspiracy theories led to massacres in Shiraz and the complete destruction of the Jewish community of Tabriz.

Trump’s political life is built on conspiracy theories, from birtherism aimed at Obama, terrorists in the migrant caravan, climate change denial, and dozens more. Trump has also repeatedly flirted with antisemitic rhetoric such as questioning the loyalty of Jewish voters, tweeting unfounded conspiracies about George Soros, and referring to globalists in his UN speech.  Trump has also congratulated Marjorie Taylor Greene, who shared an anti-Semitic video claiming that “Zionist supremacists” are conspiring to flood Europe with migrants to displace the white Europeans. This language has bled into the Republican National Convention (RNC). Mary Ann Mendoza had to be pulled from the RNC convention at the last minute for references to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Kimberly Guilfoyle railed against the “cosmopolitan elites” which harkens to Soviet era antisemitic propaganda against the “rootless cosmopolitans”.  Senator Tim Scott warned that, “They want to take more money from your pocket and give it to Manhattan elites, and Hollywood moguls.” These terms flirt openly with antisemitism, because of the large Jewish population of New York and prominent Jewish figures in Hollywood. 

The conspiracies and the flirtations with antisemitic tropes have corresponded with real increases in antisemitic instances in the United States. According to the ADL, antisemitic crimes already reached record levels in 2019. That record is unfortunately set to be broken in 2020 with a slew of new antisemitic conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19. In August 2020 alone, a University of Delaware Chabad was set on fire, a New Mexico and South Carolina holocaust memorial was vandalized, and a bomb threat was made to a Virginia synagogue. It is also alarming that in an internal memo by the FBI in May of 2019, the Bureau made an assessment with “high confidence” that “anti-government, identity based, and fringe political theories very likely motivate domestic extremists, wholly are in part, to commit criminal and sometimes violent activity.” In a separate statement to the House Committee on Homeland Security entitled “Confronting the Rise in Anti-Semitic Domestic Terrorism” the FBI notes that, “Violent extremists are increasingly using social media for the distribution of propaganda, recruitment, target selection, and incitement to violence.”

Giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, he may not understand the ramifications of his embrace of conspiracy. We see a perfect illustration of Trump’s short-sightedness clearly during the height of the COVID-19 crises. When Trump saw his polling numbers declining in Michigan, a swing state, he elected to tweet “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” to gain cheap political points among the protestors of the stay-at-home order. However, this not only went against his own interest to curb the pandemic, but also the interests of the people he was supporting as well as Michigan ended up with one of the highest ratio of deaths in the country. As much as he may outwardly support the Jewish community, his embrace of conspiracy theory is endangering them possibly without him even realizing the danger he is creating. 

Iranian Jews have flourished in America and should not take for granted the importance of a thoughtful and measured president. Trump is recklessly dismantling the institutions that all Americans rely on for stability. When people turn to conspiracy theories over evidence based claims, what authority can they trust to turn them back? A messiah is a savior of a group of people. The Book of Isaiah refers to Cyrus the Great as a messiah presumably for allowing the Jews to rebuild their temple. His empire was famously built on tolerance. It was also built on honesty. Herodotus, also known as ‘The Father of History’ was born in the Persian Empire. When it comes to Trump, consider closely what Herodotus said about the ancient Persians that Cyrus was leading, “The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, is to tell a lie; the next worst, to owe a debt: because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies.” The pursuit of truth is imperative to the future of America, especially for the Jewish people. 

An abridged version of this piece was originally published in The Forward.