The presentation by Judea Pearl, the father of beheaded Daniel pearl was most passionate, but in the same session the most exciting thing that happened, in the International Society for Iranian Studies that is currently underway in Santa Monica, California, was that one scholar told another scholar that what he was talking about was non-sense. Well, actually I don’t know whether the guy that said it was a scholar, or not, but it’s the way he said it that makes me believe he is a scholar; he just sounded like he knew what he was talking about. The man that was at the receiving end of this comment was none other than Doctor Ronen Cohen, from the Ariel University in Israel, in the West Bank, to be exact; in the fourth largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, to be more exact. More about him later, but first, he kept on saying KHojjatiyeh, KHojjatiyeh…, and I didn’t know what he was saying till I read in the Conference Program that he was talking about Hojjatiyeh, “the real creators of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.” I don’t know why some people can’t pronounce “heh” the way it’s supposed to be pronounced. They pronounce it like “KHeh”, like there’re getting ready to spit on their enemies.
But anyway, up to then I thought the real creator of the Islamic Revolution of Iran was ignorance, but now it is all clear; the real creators were the Hojjaties, the organized ones, the ones that not even Khomeini himself could like. Apparently, the argument goes something like this, which was first, chicken or chicken, and which one pooped on the Persian carpet first.
And also, there was another smart looking young guy in the audience that had a differing opinion about what Ronen was saying. I think I have seen his pictures with Mahmud Ahmadinejad in the Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran, but I can’t be sure. After the session was over, a few times I wanted to approach him and ask him if he was in Tehran during that time, and whether in fact he is the one shaking hands with Mahmud Ahmadinejad, but I couldn’t do it. Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself up to asking him such a question; I just didn’t know how he would react.
Back to Doctor Ronen Cohen, he is associated with this university in Ariel that may not even be a university. It looks like they may not have gone through a “normal” process to get accredited; whatever “normal” means. I guess a bunch of brainy guys get together and decide what should qualify as a university, and what should not. Ariel University, the university that Ronan goes to, was granted university status by the Israel’s Minister of Defense, and it’s built on the West Bank, in violation of the Geneva Convention.
I ate too much at the all-you-eat buffet, so I dozed off a few times in the first session after lunch. I came to my room to take a nap, and writing this blog is cutting into my nap time. So, if you live around Santa Monica and have trouble falling asleep come on over. Not even the fresh coffee they serve at the lobby would keep you awake.
