Human Rights Violations: European Union Gives Iran's Mullahs Full Impunity by Majid Rafizadeh November 13, 2021 at 5:00 am

 

Human Rights Violations: European Union Gives Iran's Mullahs Full Impunity

by Majid Rafizadeh
November 13, 2021 at 5:00 am

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• To execute political prisoners, Iran's judiciary accuses defendants of vaguely defined charges labeled as "national security crimes." These "crimes" include moharebeh ("enmity against God"), ifsad fil arz ("sowing corruption on Earth"), and baghi ("armed rebellion").

• It is not only the number of executions that is appalling, but also the nature of some of them. Executions have involved minor children, women and individuals from ethnic and religious minority groups. Although Iran has ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, the government has made no effort to alter the country's Islamic Penal Code, which allows girls as young as nine to be executed.

• In addition, children, women and men are routinely tortured during interrogations and behind bars. They are forced to confess. They are denied access to lawyers and due process. They are denied family visits and medical care.

• The ruling mullahs of Iran refuse to halt their executions and human rights violations, or to reform their repressive system, because they feel no pressure from the usually moralizing European Union. So they act with full impunity. The informed silence of the EU therefore makes it a willing accessory to their crimes.

• It is beyond repulsive that the EU -- the same EU that incessantly lectures the world about human rights -- not only ignores the Iranian regime's unspeakable human violations, but that it also happily continues to do "business as usual" with the leaders of Iran's cruel and inhuman regime.

European Union special envoy Enrique Mora, despite the Iranian regime's horrendous and brutal human rights abuses, traveled to Iran in October and discussed "mutual interests" with Iran's leaders. Meanwhile, Iran's regime has been executing people "at an alarming rate", and, according to a recent report by Amnesty International, was "the top executioner in the Middle East" last year. Pictured: Mora attends the swearing in ceremony of Iran's newly elected President in Tehran on August 5, 2021. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

The European Union, which endlessly and hypocritically lectures the international community on human rights, is turning a blind eye on the Iranian regime's expanding human rights violations.

EU special envoy Enrique Mora, despite the Iranian regime's horrendous and brutal human rights abuses, traveled to Iran in October and discussed "mutual interests" with Iran's leaders. Meanwhile, Iran's regime has been executing people "at an alarming rate", and, according to a recent report by Amnesty International, was "the top executioner in the Middle East" last year.

The EU has been cuddling the repressive rulers of Iran, even as the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran recently warned:

"There are extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool. In addition, the structural flaws of the justice system are so deep and at odds with the notion of rule of law that one can barely speak of a justice system. The entrenched flaws in law and in the administration of the death penalty in Iran mean that most, if not all, executions are an arbitrary deprivation of life."

The suppression and execution of political prisoners and those who protest against the ruling mullahs of Iran has been on the rise. According to Human Rights Watch's "World Report 2021," the Iranian regime is one of the leading "implementers of the death penalty".

To execute political prisoners, Iran's judiciary accuses defendants of vaguely defined charges labeled as "national security crimes." These "crimes" include moharebeh ("enmity against God"), ifsad fil arz ("sowing corruption on Earth"), and baghi ("armed rebellion").

It is not only the number of executions that is appalling, but also the nature of some of them. Executions have involved minor children, women and individuals from ethnic and religious minority groups. Although Iran has ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, the government has made no effort to alter the country's Islamic Penal Code, which allows girls as young as nine to be executed.

In addition, children, women and men are routinely tortured during interrogations and behind bars. They are forced to confess. They are denied access to lawyers and due process. They are denied family visits and medical care. According to Amnesty International:

"Away from public view, Iranian security officials routinely subject men, women and children behind bars to torture or other ill-treatment, particularly when undergoing interrogations in detention centres run by the ministry of intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards, and the investigation unit of Iran's police (Agahi)."

Iran's regime, presumably to spread fear among those who criticize and oppose the ruling mullahs, has for decades resorted to punishments of torture and death. Torture is administered both physically and psychologically. According to Amnesty International:

"... victims were frequently hooded or blindfolded; punched, kicked and flogged; beaten with sticks, rubber hosepipes, knives, batons and cables; suspended or forced into holding painful stress positions for prolonged periods; deprived of sufficient food and potable water; placed in prolonged solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks or even months; and denied medical care for injuries sustained during the protests or as a result of torture."

The ruling mullahs of Iran refuse to halt their executions and human rights violations, or to reform their repressive system, because they feel no pressure from the usually moralizing European Union. So they act with full impunity. The informed silence of the EU therefore makes it a willing accessory to their crimes.

The European powers do not only fail to hold Iran's regime accountable for its pervasive human rights violations; they also do business with the ruling mullahs. From January-July 2021, the EU's trade with Iran brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime. The Financial Tribune reports:

"Germany remained the top trading partner of Iran during the seven months under review, as the two countries exchanged €1.01 billion worth of goods. Italy came next with €347.96 million worth of trade with Iran.... The Netherlands with €264.48 million (down 9.23%), Spain with €178.33 million (up 9.25%) and Belgium with €140.14 million (up 6.79%) were Iran's other major European trading partners. Estonia registered the highest growth of 709.52% in trade with Iran during the seven months under review. Malta with 471.77%, Romania with 284.86% and Croatia with 169.12% came next."

It is beyond repulsive that the EU -- the same EU that incessantly lectures the world about human rights -- not only ignores the Iranian regime's unspeakable human violations, but that it also happily continues to do "business as usual" with the leaders of Iran's cruel and inhuman regime.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

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The Moral Imperative to End China's Regime by Gordon G. Chang December 1, 2021 at 5:00 am

 

The Moral Imperative to End China's Regime

by Gordon G. Chang
December 1, 2021 at 5:00 am

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• The Communist Party of China operates one of the most immoral regimes in history. For instance, it kills in great numbers.

• The Genocide Convention, in Article I, requires signatories, such as the United States, "to prevent and to punish" acts of genocide.

• Preventing and punishing does not include strengthening the despicable ruling group by, for instance, buying Chinese products.

• If there is now no reasonable hope for a benign Chinese communism — almost all observers and political leaders once thought the system would evolve in a welcomed direction — then we must not tolerate the regime, which means we have, in the first instance, a moral imperative to cut ties with it.

• Cutting ties would result in ending the reign of the Communist Party, which has always been dependent on continual infusions of foreign cash.

The Communist Party of China operates one of the most immoral regimes in history. For instance, it kills in great numbers. China's impossible-to-justify crimes in recent years have been the work of one of the most dangerous figures in history, Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

"We do business in 100 countries," said Jamie Dimon to Fox News Channel's Maria Bartiromo in early August. "And we do, we do it under the laws of those lands and under the law of America as they apply."

"Foreign policy is set by the American government, not set by JPMorgan," Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, argued.

Dimon is correct. The U.S. government does not prohibit banks or other companies from doing business in China.

Yet doing business in China strengthens a horrific regime, so the issue is not about legality, as Dimon suggests. It is about morality.

We must, therefore, ask: Is it moral to do business in the People's Republic of China?

The Communist Party of China operates one of the most immoral regimes in history. For instance, it kills in great numbers.

We begin in the metropolis of Wuhan. The world still does not know how COVID-19 started, but it is 100% clear that Beijing deliberately spread the disease beyond China's borders. While lying about contagiousness for at least weeks — Chinese doctors knew it was highly transmissible human-to-human but officials said it was not — Beijing was busy locking down Chinese cities while pressuring other countries to not impose travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals from China. Then, after finally admitting transmissibility, China's officials said the disease would infect fewer than SARS, the disease at the turn of the century that sickened 8,400 people worldwide and killed 810.

Therefore, each of the more than 5.1 million COVID-19 deaths outside China should be considered a murder. The intentional spread of the disease is, so far, the crime of this century.

Also murdered are the tens of thousands of Americans who each year have overdosed on fentanyl compounds, which are formulated in China. The ingredients — and sometimes the final products — are made in that country. The Chinese fentanyl gangs are far-flung and international in scope. They have their money laundered by other Chinese gangs through China's state banks.

The Communist Party, in its near-total surveillance state, knows about the activities of these gangs and therefore approves of them. Chinese officials undoubtedly profit from the fentanyl trade. The intentional killing of others without just cause — the inevitable result of Beijing's protection of the fentanyl gangs — is also murder. In one year alone, from May 2020 to April 2021, fentanyl killed about 64,000 Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

China, in addition to murdering foreigners, is "disappearing" and killing its own people, starting with critics and dissidents.

Most notably, it has, in the horribly misnamed Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, built a chain of concentration camps that have held an estimated three million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic minorities. Minorities are dying in those camps in large numbers. We know this because officials built a crematorium and cemetery between two of their internment camps, in Aksu City.

Inside those facilities, inmates are systematically tortured. Beijing has institutionalized slavery, offering the labor of tens of thousands of minorities to domestic and foreign companies. The Chinese state maintains a policy promoting the rape of Uyghur and other Turkic women. Officials are organ-harvesting minorities and imprisoning children in "orphanages" resembling prisons. Policies imposed on Tibetans appear to be similar in many respects to those forced on the Turkic peoples.

These crimes against humanity in Xinjiang constitute "genocide" as defined in Article II of the Genocide Convention of 1948. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have declared that China is committing this unspeakable crime.

The Genocide Convention, in Article I, requires signatories such as the United States, "to prevent and to punish" acts of genocide.

Preventing and punishing does not include strengthening the despicable ruling group by, for instance, buying Chinese products. "We are each responsible for our actions, whether they're in our backyard or an ocean away," Jonathan Bass, CEO of Los Angeles-based WhomHome.com, told Gatestone. "In 2010, I realized that the way Chinese factories treated workers was not in line with the values that America represented. Slave labor in any form is unacceptable." Bass then moved high-value jobs to North America and assembly jobs to Mexico.

Is there a moral imperative to leave China, like Bass? There is such an imperative if the Chinese regime cannot be dissuaded from committing atrocities.

Those impossible-to-justify crimes have been the work of one of the most dangerous figures in history, Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler. Some have suggested that Xi is merely an aberration of China's communism, implying that his crimes are his doing, not inherent in the communist system.

Xi's era, marked by an attempt to return to totalitarianism, resembles that of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic. Mao turned what was supposed to be a regime run by a committee into a regime run by one man, and then he almost destroyed the Chinese state with ruinous campaigns such as the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward.

Mao's eventual successor, Deng Xiaoping, normalized politics. Deng started institutionalizing the Communist Party by developing norms, guidelines, understandings and rules. Foreign observers gushed over the rise of what they called a "meritocratic" system.

Xi, in a Mao-like grab, has reversed the process, deinstitutionalizing the Party by seizing power from just about everyone else. Mao has also been called an aberration, but he was not. China has been ruled by strongmen both at the beginning of the Communist period and now. That system, which from its Maoist beginning has idealized struggle, demands a strongman. It is Deng and his two successors who are the aberration.

The Chinese communist system, by its very nature, demands uniformity, and to further its goals justifies the elimination of all refusing to conform. All China's communist leaders, but especially Mao and Xi, are blood-soaked.

If there is now no reasonable hope for a benign Chinese communism — almost all observers and political leaders once thought the system would evolve in a welcomed direction — then we must not tolerate the regime, which means we have, in the first instance, a moral imperative to cut ties with it.

Cutting ties would result in ending the reign of the Communist Party, which has always been dependent on continual infusions of foreign cash. Among other things, ending Chinese communism would make Jamie Dimon, who quipped this month that his bank would outlast the Communist Party, look prophetic.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

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To Biden Admin: Do Not Give Away US Leverage Against Iran by Majid Rafizadeh November 27, 2021 at 5:00 am

 

To Biden Admin: Do Not Give Away US Leverage Against Iran

by Majid Rafizadeh
November 27, 2021 at 5:00 am

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• Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness.

• The Biden administration needs to understand that the Iranian regime is desperate for the revival of the nuclear deal due to the significant financial and sanctions relief that the JCPOA offers the ruling clerics.

• Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper surprisingly acknowledged on November 20, 2021: "No country, neither China nor Russia, will be able to save our economy. We must try to lift the sanctions. The way out of the internal pressures and the heavy (bad) economic situation is to get rid of the issue of sanctions and it will be solved with the JCPOA."

• Iran's mullahs particularly love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal soon expires. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness. Pictured: Mohammad Eslami (right), head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attend the IAEA General Conference in Vienna, Austria on September 20, 2021. (Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iranian regime will be resuming "nuclear talks" with the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) next week. It is crucial that the Biden administration not give away the leverage that the former administration built against the Islamic Republic through sanctions. The deal is not yet dead: the Biden administration and the EU are still trying to resurrect it.

China and Russia, because of their shared geopolitical, strategic and economic interests, are likely to align themselves with Iran's leaders and their demands. Iran's new president, Ebrahim Raisi, recently spoke with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, regarding the upcoming nuclear talks and the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). China, Russia, and the Islamic Republic, according to a statement released by the Chinese government, have apparently already reached "a broad consensus" on the deal

Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness.

The Biden administration needs to understand that the Iranian regime is desperate for the revival of the nuclear deal due to the significant financial and sanctions relief that the JCPOA offers the ruling clerics. The deal that Iran and China recently signed has not yet substantially benefited Tehran financially; it is spread out over 25 years of Chinese investments in Iran's gas and oil industries. Iran may not see any profits from the deal for a long time.

It has become evident in the last three years, since the Trump administration pulled the US out of the nuclear agreement, that China, Russia, or even the European Union cannot completely shield Tehran from US sanctions. In fact, Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper surprisingly acknowledged on November 20, 2021:

"No country, neither China nor Russia, will be able to save our economy. We must try to lift the sanctions. The way out of the internal pressures and the heavy (bad) economic situation is to get rid of the issue of sanctions and it will be solved with the JCPOA."

Since the Raisi government entered office, it has been attempting to increase Iran's leverage in the negotiations by escalating uranium enrichment to come close to weapons-grade levels and by rapidly advancing the country's nuclear program. The reality on the ground is that the regime needs to revive the nuclear deal in order to lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after it pulled out the US of the flimsy nuclear deal, which by the way, Iran never signed.

Iran's militia groups are receiving less funding to pursue their terror activities because of the Trump administration's sanctions, which are still in place but will be lifted if the nuclear deal is revived. This shortfall may be why, for the first time in more than three decades, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, made a public statement asking people to donate money to his group, saying: "I announce today that we are in need of the support of our popular base. It is the responsibility of the Lebanese resistance, its popular base, its milieu," to battle these measures. The Yemeni militia group, the Houthis, has also been sending people SMS text messages asking for donations.

Iran's ruling mullahs also need to revive the nuclear deal because it will enable Iran to rejoin the global financial system with full legitimacy -- allowing billions of dollars to flowing into the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its expanding militias across the Middle East.

The regime also needs the nuclear deal and sanctions relief because it is running a major budget deficit of $200 million per week.

Based on a report released by the Financial Tribune, the Iranian regime's budget deficit is "on course to reach 4,640 trillion rials ($16.79 billion) in the fiscal 2021-22 while the government is also facing an unfunded deficit of roughly 30%, or 3,830 trillion rials ($13.86 billion)." The regime also recently asked the US to unlock $10 billion.

Iran's mullahs particularly love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal soon expires. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

If the Islamic Republic's huge deficit continues, it will cause increasing inflation and contribute to further devaluation of the currency. This will, in return, add to the frustration of the people against the ruling clerics, which could trigger another nationwide uprising and endanger the theocratic establishment's hold on power.

Raisi has formed a Cabinet full of members of the security services -- the Quds Force and the IRGC -- offering yet another indication that the regime is afraid of further uprisings.

In addition, the regime seems extremely concerned about its regional isolation and how the geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East is tipping the balance of power against Tehran -- particularly by the recent development of better relations between Israel and some of the Arab Gulf states. From the perspective of the Iranian leaders, the nuclear deal will address such concerns, because it will give Tehran global legitimacy, acceptance in the international community, and reintegrate Iran in the global financial system. As Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper recently warned:

"We must take care of the security circles around the country. Recently, the Zionist regime has been trying to form a regional and international coalition against our country (regime). These threats should not be ignored. It should not be taken lightly, but it can be very serious. A front is forming in the region with four main members: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt. The Prime Minister of the Zionist regime has announced that the anti-Iranian alliance in the region will take a stronger shape. This front can be dangerous and a threat to us. Negotiations must begin peacefully."

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

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Like Obama, Biden Silent on Iran Mullahs Killing Peaceful Protesters by Majid Rafizadeh December 4, 2021 at 5:00 am

 

Like Obama, Biden Silent on Iran Mullahs Killing Peaceful Protesters

by Majid Rafizadeh
December 4, 2021 at 5:00 am

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• "We call on President Joe Biden, Secretary Antony Blinken, and all members of Congress to stand with the Iranian people. Diplomacy with the world's leading sponsor of terrorism is never going to produce a favorable result that benefits the American people or the Iranian people. Diplomacy with the Islamic Republic was destined to fail from day one." — Iranian Americans for Liberty, reported by Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post, November 27, 2021.

• "[W]hen millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, 'Are you with us, or are you with them?' – the American president was silent," — Mitt Romney, October 8, 2012.

• "If the free world wants to stand on the right side of history, they should support the Iranian people who have been fighting for their freedom for the last 43 years. The Iranians need free internet because the regime has already shut down the internet in Isfahan. They want to kill the protesters ...." — Iranian dissident Sheina Vojoudi, Jerusalem Post, November 26, 2021.

• Will the Biden administration stand with the Iranian people?

Recently, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Isfahan, Iran to criticize the government over a severe water shortage. In response, the regime cut off access to the Internet, and security forces fired shotguns as well as tear gas at the protesters, resulting in deaths and hundreds of injuries. Meanwhile, the Biden administration chooses to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime's bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns. Pictured: Tens of thousands of anti-regime protestors in Isfahan on November 9, 2021. (Photo by Fatmeh Nasr/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)

The Biden administration appears to be repeating the Obama Administration policy of choosing to be silent in the face of the Iranian regime's bloodshed, human rights violations, and crackdowns that kill and wound peaceful protesters.

Recently, huge numbers of people in the province of Isfahan rose up against the Islamic Republic. Tens of thousands of farmers and other demonstrators poured into the streets and criticized government officials over a severe water shortage. Many were heard chanting, "The people of Isfahan will rather die than give in to disgrace"; "Zayandeh Rud [river] is our undeniable right"; and "We will not go home until we get our water back."

As the regime cut off access to the Internet, security forces fired shotguns as well as tear gas at the protesters, resulting in deaths and hundreds of injuries. As #BloodyFriday began trending on twitter, Mohammad-Reza Mir-Heidari, Isfahan's Chief of Police, threatened "to deal" with protestors.

The organization Iranian-Americans for Liberty has pleaded with the Biden administration to show solidarity with the protesters:

"We call on President Joe Biden, Secretary Antony Blinken, and all members of Congress to stand with the Iranian people. Diplomacy with the world's leading sponsor of terrorism is never going to produce a favorable result that benefits the American people or the Iranian people. Diplomacy with the Islamic Republic was destined to fail from day one."

The Iranian regime does not appear to have a practical solution for the water shortage. It continues to mismanage the economy, spends the country's resources on its proxies and militia groups, and allocates a significant portion of the nation's water to the projects of the regime. "We are not in a position to provide their water needs," the minister of energy admitted in the face of the protests. Instead, the regime has resorted to its usual modus operandi of cracking down with brute force on whoever protests.

Throughout all of this, the Biden Administration stays silent -- just as the Obama Administration did during the 2009 nationwide uprisings in Iran. As Mitt Romney said in 2012:

"[W]hen millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, 'Are you with us, or are you with them?' – the American president was silent".

As the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations described it:

"While Obama initially opted for a muted response, the Iranian regime's violent crackdown of opposition supporters complicated his administration's attempt to balance outreach with its defense of human rights."

The latest protests are not limited to farmers. In recent weeks, retirees and pensioners have staged more than a dozen protests, each spanning multiple cities. The most recent of these protests adopted slogans such as, "We have seen no justice; we will not vote anymore."

Karmel Melamed, an Iranian-American journalist and commentator, posted on Twitter:

"Horrific images of my compatriots in the Iranian city of Isfahan being slaughtered by ruthless Ayatollah regime's thugs & security apparatus for peacefully protesting against the regime! This older woman was shot in cold blood on the streets. Are you seeing this @StateDept?"

Masih Alinejad, an activist and Iranian-American journalist whom the Iranian regime plotted to kidnap from New York, tweeted:

"This is what happening in Iran right now. People took to the streets in Isfahan for a peaceful protest but they are being violently suppressed by the regime. West is busy getting a nuclear deal. You must warn the Islamic Republic that there will be consequences for such brutality."

And Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident, echoed what many Iranians believe as she told the Jerusalem Post:

"Iranians from other cities have announced that they will protest to support the people of Isfahan. Now we Iranians know exactly that the enemy of our nation has occupied our country since 1979 and we must liberate our country. This is a sure thing that will happen very soon. If the free world wants to stand on the right side of history, they should support the Iranian people who have been fighting for their freedom for the last 43 years. The Iranians need free internet because the regime has already shut down the internet in Isfahan. They want to kill the protesters like in November 2019 and that must be stopped. Soon Khuzestan, Yazd, and other cities will also come to the streets and they will face the same danger."

Will the Biden administration stand with the Iranian people? By being silent, the Biden administration is empowering, emboldening, and validating the ruling mullahs' human rights violations and brutal suppression of many people in Iran.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

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Exodus 20:12 (12) "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. Exodus 20:14 (14) "You shall not commit adultery. Exodus 20:17 (17) "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's." New King James Version

 

(12) "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. Having trouble reading this email? View it in your browser.     About The Berean | Archives | Random Berean | Subscriptions               Exodus 20:12 (12) "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.   Exodus 20:14 (14) "You shall not commit adultery.   Exodus 20:17 (17) "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's." New King James Version   Change Bible versions No less than three of the Ten Commandments—the fifth, seventh, and tenth—directly involve strengthening marriages and families and preserving their unity and sacredness. Of course, all of God's commands, if followed, will work to strengthen man's relationship with God and fellow man, but these three are aimed directly at securing these sacred bonds. When considering any of God's commands, we find that they are broad in scope and ordained, not just to regulate our physical relationships, but also our spiritual one with Christ. The fifth commandment speaks directly to parents and children, laying the foundation of responsibility that each has to the other. When children submit to their parents, and parents provide a loving environment to nurture their children in lawful living, the children and society directly benefit from this command. Home government is the cornerstone of national government, and when the home is right, the social structure follows. When marriage and family unity are held in high esteem and a fear of violating God's standards is instilled, sin can be held in check. Hebrews 12:11 declares, "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." The seventh commandment—forbidding adultery, unfaithfulness by either spouse—stands against anyone who would defile the sanctity of the marriage covenant through sexual sins. Adultery is probably the most dishonest act against the binding contract of the marriage relationship; it is a betrayal of a most sacred trust. Not only is it a sin against one's companion, but as Paul teaches in I Corinthians 6:18, it is a sin against one's own flesh. It has destroyed many marriages and families. A marriage can stand against many adversities from without, but this sin destroys it from within, and few, if any, marriages can truly recover from such infidelity. Jesus says in Matthew 5:28 that adultery begins in the heart. It is more than an outward action, but a lust that comes from within. Christ teaches us how broad the law is, and sexual acts outside of the marriage covenant—even just the desire for them—breaks this command. In other words, if the desire is there, yet only lack of opportunity has kept a person from this sin, the law has still been broken. The tenth commandment—"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Deuteronomy 5:21)—is likely a precursor for warnings against many other sins. It defends against anyone who would come between a man and his wife, and like the seventh, its breaking also begins in the heart. Unlike the seventh commandment, which looks to protect the marriage from within, in the tenth commandment God protects it from without. Strong marriages can stand up to outside pressures of this sort, but weak marriages that are battling other issues may not. How many marriages have been defiled or destroyed by the coveting of another cannot be known, but since God included it in the Ten Commandments, its potential harm against the sacred bond of marriage must be high. When he coveted Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, King David assaulted the marriage covenant, and disaster soon followed. Breaking this commandment led to adultery and then to murder. In our society today, similar lusts are leaving destroyed families in their wake. — James Beaubelle To learn more, see: The Sacredness of Marriage Related Topics: Adultery Adultery begins in Heart Adultery, Spirit of Chastening Coveting David's Adultery Fifth Commandment God's Chastening Infidelity Lust Marriage Relationship Marriage, Sanctity of Seventh Commandment Sexual Immorality Sexual Sins Strengthening Family Ties The Fifth Commandment The Seventh Commandment Unfaithfulness