Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn't want Jews in the Middle East. He has proposed that various Western states, including Germany and Austria, give up land for Israeli Jews to settle. Living in Germany, Austria, and other central European states didn't work out for Jews in the 20th century, so I doubt that Mr. Ahmadinejad's proposal will spur 21st-century Jews to want move back.

But there is a proposal that Mr. Ahmadinejad should consider if he truly wants Jews to hand over Israel to the Palestinans: leave Iran so that its previous occupants, the Zoroastrians, can return. Zoroastrians, despite living in Persia for centuries, endured persecution at the hands of the newcomers. Zoroastrians have an ancestral claim to Iran, just as you say Palestinians have an ancestral claim to Israel. The Muslim extremists who rule Iran, on the other hand, took Persia by force. That history book that you're reading, the one that denies Hitler's mass-murder of European Jews, probably denies the Muslim conquest of Iran, too. But this, like the Holocaust, happened.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranian Muslims could return and assimilate into the Arabian peninsula whence the Muslims came fourteen centuries ago. This would certainly be easier than transplanting Israelis from the Middle East into European nations that speak different languages, practice different religions, and derive from a separate tribal stock. Sure, you'd have cultural obstacles to overcome by moving hundreds of miles from where you've lived your entire life. But would those burdens be as great as the ones you're proposing for Israelis, whom you wish to migrate to another continent thousands of miles away?

The Arabian conquest of Persia ultimately dispersed the Zoroastrians into numerous countries in which they form tiny minorities. Even the Palestinians have their own land. The Zoroastrians don't. But you can do something about this, Mr. Ahmadinejad. Encourage your coreligionists to migrate west and turn over your country to the 22,000 Zoroastrians still living there and the quarter-million or so living elsewhere.

By your example, you may inspire Jews to abandon the Middle East and hand over Israel to the Palestinians. Of course, giving up your country may not incite the Jews to give up theirs. But at least you'll sleep well knowing that you practice what you preach in regard to righting historic injustices and the like. And the rest of us will sleep better, too, knowing that Iran's nuclear program is in the hands of Zoroastrians and not Muslim lunatics. It's a win-win. What do you say?

OWNED!

Dan, nice thought! However, since I've never personally met you, let alone shared a juicy New York Strip and a fine glass of cabernet at the Palm, I'm afraid I don't believe you actually exist. After all, absent the proof of my own eyes (which didn't even suffice for some Germans), how do I really know the the Holocaust was real, or that you are truly extant?

I'm just waiting for Jimmy Carter to visit Tehran, shake hands with President Ahmadinejad and assure the world the guy's simply misunderstood, that he really isn't developing any nukes, and that he's promised Jimmy he'll behave!

Mr. McKee,
the man you really want to assure us about the good intentions of Iran is Ted Turner. His impression of Kim Jong Il is that he looks no different from the rest of us. I am sure he would see the good overflowing from the president of Iran.

Apparently Turner's wealth gathering success did not rely upon being a good judge of character.

How could Ted Turner POSSIBLY say that about a guy with such HEINOUS hair! But then, Jimmy the C, the everlasting shame of the U.S. Naval Academy, like Kim Jong-Il as well!

Think the world is an interesting place now? Wait till Israel conducts land and air strikes against Iranian nuclear targets.

Excellent proposal and reasoning, Dan. Why stop there, though? All of the Middle East was at one time non-Muslim until Muhammed's hordes took it by conquest. If we're pushing reparations (and if our enemies would have us make reparations to blacks and to the American Indians), it's only fair that all Muslim peoples do likewise.

I see a man in a black mask making the sign of the Z on the bodies of his occupier muslim victims. It worked in old California.

Ralph, interesting comment. I listened to an "expert" several nights ago talking about the inability of Israeli aircraft to reach targets in Iran because of limited airborne refueling capability and strike-fighter range. I do however wonder what the Israelis have up their sleeves. They have always exhibited an amazing capability to take standard U.S. equipment and make dramatic modifications to suit their specific purposes. And it would not surprise me a bit to learn that an Iranian nuclear capability is a contingency they have considered and planned to "address".

Living under the constant threat of literal annihilation by your "neighbors" makes you plan for things like that. Who knows what the IDF has up its collective sleeve?

On the subject of righting "historic injustice(s)"... I continue to maintain that I have no problem with these things, as long as (at some point) the Catholic Church is returned all of the lands and churches that were stolen from her during the Reformation and the Muslim conquest.

Yeah, and I think Adam wants his rib back too!