I'm glad that Rouhani is making overtures.  I've been focused on it like a laser beam.  I find the use of the designated Jewish lawmaker in Iran to be gratuitous at best, but I guess some people will be impressed by that.  Yes, Iran designates a court Jew to sit in its Parliament.  Let us not get carried away with what is otherwise a positive step in foreign affairs.

I wrote a few days ago that my brother-in-law is the CEO of Movado Watch and, as such, he travels all over the world for business purposes.  He's never been to Iran--but he's been to many Islamic countries, along with my beloved apolitical sister, and has been treated with absolute respect and dignity.  He has taken his children to several gulf states.  As Jeffrey Goldberg wrote back when Roger Cohen visited Iran and wrote about how great things are for the remnants of the community there:

Warmth, civility, hospitality and friendliness are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies I've visited. I have been in many places -- in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq and Iran -- where people absolutely hate Israel, absolutely hate "International Jewry," and hate the Talmud, or what they think is in the Talmud. But people in these places have been almost uniformly kind to me as a visiting Jewish reporter (and they almost always know, right from the outset, that I'm Jewish, because it's not something I ever hide). The people with whom I visit -- and I count the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah in this group -- are raised by their families to be kind to guests. It's very lovely and civilized -- Israelis could learn a thing or two about politeness from Muslims -- but it's irrelevant to their politics, or to their beliefs about what should happen to the Jewish state and its supporters. 

I was once with a mullah in Pakistan who told me that Allah would soon fulfill his promise and destroy the Jews, but who invited me to stay in his guest room rather than make a dangerous night drive back to my hotel. I took him up on his offer, and slept soundly. It wouldn't be fair of me to call this sort of hospitality superficial, because it grows from a real spirit of personal generosity, but I've learned the hard way that the personal isn't always the political.  

After Cohen's visit to Iran, prominent LA Rabbi David Wolpe invited Mr. Cohen to address his congregation in Los Angeles, which is densely populated with Persian Jewish ex-pats.  Here's a review of Cohen's visit, and I commend Mr. Cohen for accepting the invitation and addressing these folks (he didn't have to accept the invitation):

Cohen, a British-born Jewish journalist, wrote a column last month from Iran titled “What Iran’s Jews Say” claiming that Jews in the Islamic Republic were “living, working and worshiping in relative tranquility.”

 

Despite Holocaust denials and rants by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about wiping Israel off the map, Cohen wrote from Esfahan, “as a Jew, I have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran.”

The column set off a firestorm of criticism.

 

Many of the estimated 30,000 Iranian Jewish expatriates living in Los Angeles, who uprooted themselves from their homes in Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, said Cohen’s evaluation was dangerously naive at best and, at worst, a mockery of their own experiences.

. . . 

When Cohen completed his talk, which was met by light applause, Wolpe was the first to challenge him.

 

“You draw a distinction between the Iranian people and their rulers, but Iran has a long history of anti-Semitism,” Wolpe said. “The Iranian government has republished the notorious anti-Semitic forgery ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ and your New York Times column ran in the Tehran Post.”

 

“Then they stole my column,” Cohen responded.

 

Wolpe countered, “That shows that it was worth stealing.”

 

Questions from audience members ranged from thoughtful to bitter. Several asked how Cohen could take the answers of fearful Iranian Jews at face value, especially with a government translator at his side.

 

Cohen responded that he recognized the possibility of self-censorship by the Iranian Jews, “but that doesn’t mean that nothing they said is of any value.”

 

Some of the sharpest questions came from the Bahai community; seven Bahai leaders in Iran recently were imprisoned as alleged Israeli spies. Cohen said he had not spoken to the Bahais but was aware of their plight.

 

Law student Jasmin Niku was unsatisfied by Cohen’s presentation.

“He didn’t understand the geopolitical situation and he doesn’t know what he is talking about,” said Niku, 22.

 

Two veteran community leaders also expressed doubt about Cohen’s analysis.

“In Iran, Jews are pawns of the regime, which will go to great lengths to persuade outsiders, like Cohen, who know little about the history of the Jewish community, that everything is just fine,” said George Haroonian.

 

Sam Kermanian said he was particularly disappointed after spending two hours alone with Cohen earlier in the day trying to explain the real situation in Iran.

Kermanian, who is active in the Center for the Promotion of Democracy in Iran, said the Tehran regime is adamantly anti-American, whatever the sentiments of its people.

“If Cohen has come to a different conclusion, after talking to four or five Jews through an interpreter,” Kermanian said, “then he has been deceived.”

How many folks who read about this visit will presume that the one token seat reserved for a Persian Jew, which has been the case since 1906, can be filled with a Jewish person who is able to speak his mind without fear of: (1) personal danger; and (2) community danger?

Perspective people.  I honestly believe that Rouhani wants to facilitate an end to a crippling stalemate marked by sanctions that have had a devastating effect on the people, the really good and decent people of Iran.  I don't think using the court Jew is a reflection of that objective.

This has nothing to do with the bellicose nature of the current Israeli government.  It's about using a Jew as a prop--so far as I see it anyway.