Bibi’s Got The Blue Jean Blues

Our esteemed Prime Minister – Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi to most of us) – has a habit of going out half cocked. Especially when it comes to his favorite subject – The Islamic Republic of Iran.  In a recent interview with the Persian version of BBC he stated:

“I think if the Iranian people had freedom, they would wear jeans, listen to Western music, and have free elections,”

While its certainly easy to agree with the sentiment of this statement (although I’m not sure if the freedom to listen to Miley Cyrus or One Direction is really in their best interests) the fact is that Iranians can and do wear jeans. Its not clear whether they’re Levis or Wranglers (maybe True Religion?), but apparently denim is widely available and no fatwa exists banning the making of denim into pants.

After Bibi’s faux pas it seems dozens of Iranians leaped into action on Twiiter (which is ironically banned in Iran), giving Bibi a piece of their minds:

“Mr. Netanyahu, here is a shop selling weapons of mass destruction in Iran,” one popular tweet read, showing a picture of a denim shop originally published by an Iranian semi-official news agency. “Netanyahu, three days ago I bought a pair of jeans,” another Iranian user tweeted.

Come on Bibi!!! Get with the program!!! Even Ahmadinejad supporters wear jeans!!

iran-jeans_2694298b

In fact, in another Israellycool exclusive, we’ve discovered that their new President – Hassan “Laughing Boy” Rouhani – did some modelling for an Iranian Jeans company before becoming president, and here are some snaps from one such modelling session.

Rouhani Jeans

Remember, we brought it to you first!

18 thoughts on “Bibi’s Got The Blue Jean Blues”

  1. must forgive a child of the cold war, who grew up knowing that those behind the iron curtain didnt have jeans or western music

    facts are facts though

    not one of the pics tweeted are of women walking in open areas

    men have many freedoms in muslim states….

    what he shouldve said was

    women would have the feedom to wear jeans without having to cover them up with a burkha

    1. Actually, thats a good parallel. It turns out that many of those stories of Russians waiting in line for toilet paper during the Soviet era were just bull crap propaganda fed to us by Hollywood. My only concept of Russia came fro the film “Moscow on the Hudson”. But I’ve asked many of my Russian friends here in Israel and they tell me all that is nonsense. I think the same goes for what is going on in Iran. The people themselves are quite Western, and don;t forget they have the Internet and computers now, so Western music will be pretty easy to come by. They do travel the world, it wouldn’t be very difficult to put some Coldplay or U2 on a USB thumb drive and bring it in to the country.

      1. all nonsense?

        thats why when russians came to america, they freaked out in supermarkets?

        forget the movie, i saw it myself

        they may not have waited for tp, but they sure didnt have lots of choices in things that they purchased

        1. You’re right. Our system is better, so lets make their system out to be like cavemen living 150000 years ago. We can excuse the lies and misinformation because its all for a good cause.

          Please, give me a small break.

          1. that system you dont wish to disparage was run by jew hating bastards

            i will never say a nice word about the former soviet union

  2. Of course women may only wear jeans under their burkhas, but that still counts, right? Just like voting for any one of the Supreme Leader’s hand picked candidates counts as democracy.

  3. Russians waiting in line for toilet paper was most certainly not bull crap Hollywood propaganda. It all depends on where in the USSR one lived. In Moscow, a different country from the rest of Russia, or in the seaport cities on the Black and the Baltic seas, shortages were fairly rare, but I remember very well how when I was a child I stood in a waiting line for 6 hours to buy some laundry soap. Jeans were not unheard of but they were certainly luxury items, usually bought from a “fartzovschik” (illegal trader buying Western things from foreigners to sell them later through the black market) or from the rare lucky people who got to go to the “far abroad”. To be especially hip, jeans had to be boiled in order for the coloring pigment to come off in camouflage-like spots – which means that poor quality jeans were valued more than the high-quality ones that would not lose color when boiled.

    1. Ok, the guys I spoke to were from St Petersburg and Moscow. But in general, our perception of what is going on these places is tainted by misinformation fed to us by our own politico – media complex.

      1. Sometimes. And sometimes the said complex UNDER-represents the degree of mess going on in a given country. There was a lot of stuff in the good old USSR that would have surpassed the most over-the-top American propaganda. There likely is in Iran as well.

        1. I repeat what I said in a comment above. These regimes are indeed hideous, but there is enough real stuff for us to call them out on without making up stupid shit like “they’re not allowed to wear jeans”. If Bibi was to go after REAL human rights abuses, maybe his banter wouldn’t fall on deaf ears.

      2. Your friends either have short memories or are too young to have been through it. I was born in Moscow and we left Former USSR when I was 9 in 1981. I can confirm that people stood in queues for everything including toilet paper. I remember a few times, when I was very young we didn’t have toilet paper and had to scrunch up newspaper – true story, hand on my heart. I am still obsessed with buying the best, thickest, softest toilet paper, and have a little panic if I see a roll that’s running low. Interestingly, I’m told that’s one of the few things they still have problems with, at least in Ukraine. There is no shortage, but apparently they just don’t sell good quality toilet paper. If I ever go back, half my suitcase will be packed with tp. Once my mother and I stood in line for 5 hours to buy bananas – because the doctor told her it would help if I ate bananas after I was hospitalized for 3 months. Good times.

        1. That’s not to say I disagree with your point. It’s just that it’s hard to know what’s going on in a restricted regime. They wear jeans. They may well not be allowed to listen to Western music. Some travel the world, but for all we know, just like 99% of election candidates were rejected by the regime, those allowed to travel could be handpicked. For all we know, if they don’t toe the party line, their family could be “disappeared”. That Chinese ballet dancer’s family were threatened when he defected and wanted to live a normal life in the US.

  4. The funny thing is, Bibi never said that Iranians were not allowed to wear jeans. He said that if they were free, they would wear them and listen to Western music- that is, if they were freer, their lifestyle would’ve been closer to ours. Not the same thing.

    The easiest rebuttal to the Iranians on Twitter is that they are showing off their jeans, but not their CDs with Western music. And if I felt really cruel, I would have asked why there are no pictures of jeans-wearing Iranian girls.

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