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How Iran Killed Its Future
(Los Angeles Times) Shahrzad Elghanayan - In May 1979, three months after Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran, my grandfather, Habib Elghanian, Iran's most prominent Jewish industrialist and philanthropist, was gunned down by a revolutionary firing squad. His execution and the subsequent fleeing of businessmen from Iran contributed to derailing the country's chances of building a modern, diversified economy. During a show trial that lasted no longer than 20 minutes, he was falsely charged with being a "Zionist spy" and a "corrupter on Earth." His crime, according to the prosecutor, was making financial contributions to Israel and meeting with Israeli politicians when they came to Iran or when he traveled to Israel - as was customary in the 1960s and 1970s when Iran and Israel enjoyed peaceful relations under the shah. Known as "Iran's plastics king," my father, along with his brothers, spent decades building factories, creating thousands of jobs. The family played a pioneering role in Iran's modernization and industrialization, building the first high-rise and shopping arcades.