Iran’s Threats to Execute Jews on Spy Charges May Halt Detente With U.S.

WASHINGTON â€”  After 18 months of tentative overtures between Iran and the United States, prospects for rapprochement have been seriously endangered by the arrest of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel and the United States, according to U.S. officials.

The arrests, which occurred several months ago but were not revealed publicly until last month, threaten to become a cause celebre of the magnitude of the Salman Rushdie case. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill the author for alleged blasphemy against the Islamic prophet Muhammad in his book “The Satanic Verses.�

In the case of the arrested Jews, the head of Iran’s judiciary has in effect called for death sentences for the captives. “The Jewish spies for Israel will be tried for treason according to Islamic law, and they may be sentenced to death--not once but several times,� Ayatollah Mohammed Yazdi exhorted during a recent Friday prayer sermon, prompting shouts from the crowd for the “traitors� to be hanged.

U.S. officials say the Jews may be pawns in the escalating power struggle between moderates and conservatives in the period before critical Iranian parliamentary elections next spring. The conservatives, who control the Iranian parliament, fear the reformist tide that brought President Mohammad Khatami to power in 1997 will allow moderates to win the legislature too.

Yazdi is one of half a dozen leading conservatives in Iran opposed to reforms promised by Khatami after the president’s upset election victory over another leading conservative. Among other things, Khatami called for restoring the rule of law at home and engaging in a “dialogue of civilizations� with the outside world.

Washington has been receptive, but it contends that Khatami needs to prove that he can act on his pledges--particularly the promise to restore the rule of law--before diplomatic detente proceeds. The arrest of the 13 Jews, who are from the cities of Shiraz and Esfahan and include teachers and students, has become the same kind of test case as the Rushdie controversy.

Khomeini’s death edict against Rushdie damaged Iran’s international standing for a decade. Resolution of the case last fall, when Iranian officials said the edict in effect had been rescinded, opened the way for warmer relations with Europe.

But the arrest of the Jews has again marred Iran’s image.

“This is going to be a very heavy weight over any prospects of moving forward,� said a senior U.S. official. “President Khatami has said that he is going to protect religious minorities. Arresting people on trumped-up charges of espionage because of their religion is not consistent with those words.�

In public comments and private communication through third parties, the United States and Israel have vehemently denied any connection to the arrested Jews. Iran several years ago broke up a ring of Iranians who were spying for the United States, but this case bears no similarities, according to officials in Washington.

“These charges are entirely without foundation,� said White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart. Several Israeli officials have issued similar denials.

The United States learned of the arrests in April but did not mention them publicly in hopes that the Jews would be released. Until the detentions were reported in Iran, no formal charges were filed and family visits were permitted. Only when the arrests were publicized did espionage charges surface and family visits get cut off.

The White House is coming under mounting pressure to do and say more publicly about the case.

Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) and Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) circulated a letter last week calling on the Clinton administration to reappraise both its position on Iran and the State Department’s decision to label the People’s Moujahedeen a terrorist group. The People’s Moujahedeen, which is headquartered in Iraq, is the leading Iranian opposition group.

Various Jewish organizations are pressuring the administration to act. Directly or through intermediaries, they also have appealed to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Pope John Paul II, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Syria, various Muslim clerics in Egypt and Indonesia, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Though it now has fewer than 30,000 members, Iran’s Jewish community is still the largest in any Muslim country of the Middle East and one of the oldest anywhere.

After his return from exile in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini met with Jewish leaders and other minorities and issued a fatwa, or religious order, that they be treated well.

But Iran’s Jews have experienced periodic waves of discrimination and pressure, including a steady barrage of anti-Israeli rhetoric, and about 50,000 have left since the 1979 revolution.

The recent arrests are by far the most serious action against Iran’s Jews since the revolution. A trial, convictions and possible executions would almost certainly freeze efforts at detente, and reverse the first significant progress made in repairing relations in 20 years, U.S. officials say.

After his election, Khatami called for people-to-people exchanges to break down “the wall of mistrust� between Iran and the U.S. The Clinton administration has responded with a series of overtures, including certifying Iran as a partner in the war against narcotics and easing economic sanctions to allow the sale of food and medicine to the Islamic Republic.

President Clinton in effect apologized to Iran two months ago for past meddling by Western governments, saying the West should understand Iranian perceptions that the nation has been the target of imperialism over the past two centuries.