Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies held its annual conference on Iran on Sunday and Monday of this week. The focus this year was on the consequences of thirty years of Islamist rule in the Persian state.
The conference, entitled "The Iranian Revolution: Thirty Years After", brought 40 renowned scholars from a dozen countries to Tel Aviv. They presented their research and analysis of Iran's political and military situation, as well as insight into what is taking place inside the Islamic Republic on the socioeconomic and cultural levels.
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"It's wrong to see Iran only through Ahmadinejad and his remarks," conference attendee Ms. Elham Gheytanchi, of UC-Berkeley, told IsraelNN TV. "Iran is a civilization. People there are also curious about Israel - not the government in Iran, but the people in Iran are curious." At the same time, Gheytanchi implied that the Persian people can be motivated to support the regime if they are convinced their nation is under threat, an impression Ahmadinejad tries to create and maintain.
Professor Morris Mottale of Franklin College, Lugano, noted that while the Iranian regime is publicly promoting "genocidal anti-Semitism", as he called it, "internally it's squashing opposition, suppressing minority rights." He went on to comment that "anti-Semitism begins with Jews, but it never ends with Jews."
The Center for Iranian Studies is an interdisciplinary research center at Tel Aviv University dedicated to expanding knowledge and understanding of Iran, as well as of the history of Iranian Jewry.