The New York Post has reprinted in today’s edition Amir Taheri’s scare piece about Iran forcing Jews (and incidentally, all other non-Muslims) to wear colored identifying badges. The piece made the rounds of the blogosphere last Friday, including here, and was debunked within hours.
Jim Henley notes that the sinister force cited in Taheri’s account, “Mostafa Pourhardani, Minister of Islamic Orientation,” does not exist.
Taheri and The Post ran a provably false report, on their own initiative or at the behest of some publicity-shy agency of some government or other, played in as inflammatory way as possible. Why? So that months from now, someone hearing about plans to bomb Iran, or seeing footage of bombing on TV, will say to themselves, “Didn’t I read that Iran was going to round up all the Jews and make them wear yellow stars like the Nazis? Something like that. Well, good riddance.” All the story had to do was live long enough to get into circulation.
It’s classic pre-war propaganda.
