A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad’s birthplace, and the name derives from “weaver of the Sabour”, the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: “This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s background explains a lot about him.

“Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

“By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society.”

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that “jian” ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. . . .

The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family moved to Tehran in the 1950s. But he has never revealed what it was change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch.

Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr Ahmadinejad was aged four.

I mean look at his nose:

More: “Let’s see how Iran’s president likes being called ‘the Jew Ahmadinejad’”.

Is anything sacred? Or is Osama bin Laden Jewish, too?

UPDATE: Can Ahmadinejad apply for Israeli citizenship?

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This time, the principal issue was Iran’s nukes, which overshadowed even Palestinian terrorism:

Security was the number one issue to Israeli voters. Security as it relates to the Arab Palestinians was not the major issue; most parties had minuscule differences on that matter. The most pressing security issue is Iran. Here too, there was little difference between major parties.

The Iran issue adds the pressure on major candidates to form a broad coalition. A broader coalition is necessary to generate the political legitimacy to attack Iran (if necessary). Broad based support is also desired to stand up to any effort by the Obama administration to impose a peace plan dangerous to Israeli security. Look for [President Shimon] Peres to urge the leading parties to form a unity government that would include Labor, Likud and Kadima.

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Where is the media outcry?

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From The Virginian.

Hamas Intifada Baby Armor.

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Distancing Europe from Israel is seen as necessary for appeasing the anger of Europe’s Muslim population.

Jews won’t cut your throat, or even riot in the streets, so for the Europeans, the choice between them and the Muslims is easy.

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“Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air – something superficial. They’ll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in ‘48. What got into you all of a sudden?”

Hamas was basing its expectations on past experience. Changing the terrorists’ perception of it as week and unwilling to fight for real was one of the goals of Israel’s operation in Gaza. You don’t want your enemies to treat you as a pushover.

(Via Small Dead Animals.)

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(Via Ezra Levant.)

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Because the existence of Israel radiates an affront to the Muslim world, only Palestinians have been sequestered from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to a special agency. That agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, has warehoused displaced Palestinians for decades because it has been in the interests of the Arab world for this problem not to be solved.

Gaza has become a giant warehouse of misery. It has no economic growth, no prospects, almost no civil order, yet about half the population is under the age of 17. The population has exploded amid economic privation. Women, living under Sharia law, are used primarily as breeding stock. Nizar Rayan, the most senior member of Hamas killed in the latest Israeli attacks, he had four wives and 14 children.

Plus, why Israel started Operation Cast Lead:

- A perception had grown in the Arab world that Israel was losing its stomach for a war of attrition and had responded tepidly to 6000 Hamas rocket attacks. Israel wants to end that perception.

- To stop the rocket attacks, Israel has a very specific target, the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt. It has occupied the corridor, destroyed the smuggling tunnels, and will pass control only to an international military force.

- Neither Israel nor Egypt want an Islamic Hamastan solidifying on their doorsteps in Gaza. They want Hamas to be synonymous with chaos.

- Finally, Israel believes it did not waste the war in Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah was badly damaged. After 17 days of attacks in Gaza, Hezbollah has not opened a second front of rocket attacks from Lebanon. Its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, remains in hiding, giving speeches and sermons via video link.

(Via Norman Geras.)

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Hamas on Monday raided some 100 aid trucks that Israel had allowed into Gaza, stole their contents and sold them to the highest bidders.

Remember, these are the people who booby-trap their own schools, pack them full with their own children and then use as rocket-launching sites, hoping to attract Israeli fire to them so they can parade their dead children for the cameras.

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In August 2001, I turned 21 and my parents gave me a Star of David necklace. Then a month later, the world changed and my mother, with remarkable foresight, began her campaign to rescind the gift, begging me to take it off because she was frightened it would make me a target in the wake of mounting evidence that fanatical Islamism was tightening its grip on the country. My argument was always the same – when I am no longer safe being identifiably Jewish on the tube, I don’t want to live in England.

Now it’s happening and I am devastated. It was bluster. I am resolutely, irreducibly British. I love Marmite and Labradors and Sunday lunch. If you step on my foot, I will reflexively apologise. New York, where I will go if I have to leave the UK, does not feel like home for me nor, I suspect, could it ever. But as the British establishment sides with the appeasing of Islamism at home and abroad and as the word Zionism is increasingly bastardised, hijacked by a new definition comprising traditional antisemitic libels and demonising conspiracy theories, and as the liberal media and campaigning groups single out Israel disproportionately among all other countries for criticism, perpetuating the myth that Israel is responsible for mushrooming anti-western sentiment, I feel increasingly that I cannot stay.

My little sister arrived back at her university last week to discover buildings had been daubed with antisemitic graffiti. Across north London, the same scrawled vitriol has been appearing – “Jihad to Israel”, frequently accompanied by the message: “Kill Jews.”

Hamas’ leader Mahmoud Zahar has now declared Jewish children worldwide as “legitimate targets” and although Fleet Street’s recent Hamas revisionism made his statement easy to miss, it seems that plenty of others have taken note. The Community Security Trust has dealt with more than 50 antisemitic incidents in the UK in the last two weeks, including an arson attack on a synagogue, a massive spike in violence since the current operation began in Gaza.

When this appears in the left-wing Guardian, things must be bad.

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Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.

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It is not surprising that the country’s leadership is hesitant about leaving Gaza without a concrete achievement. Only the assurance of quiet on the southern front for a lengthy period of time now looks like a goal that can justify the price that has already been paid. The military plan for the war in Gaza comprises four main stages, with an optional exit point built into each of the stages. 

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Well, a proportionate response by Israel would be firing rockets into Gaza’s civilian centers hoping to kill as many random Palestinians as possible. Is that what those calling for a proportionate response want?

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From today’s Gaza liveblogging post on Israellycool.

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