A cynic would argue that Israel loves, even needs, to hate Iran. It is the one hostility that endears it to the Sunni Arab world, which secretly hates the Shiite Iran too. After decades, Israel may finally be winning a few friends by becoming the enemy of its own enemies.
Whereas Jews have more reasons than most people to be committed to the notion of remembering, Israel’s leaders all seem to be afflicted with amnesia when it comes to Iran. Hundreds of years ago, it was Persia that gave sanctuary to Jewish refugees fleeing the Promised Land after the fall of the First Temple. It was this historic displacement that moved Cyrus the Great to invent the famed cylinder, the first prototype for the international declaration of human rights.
