There are
those who, either lacking proper information or promoting their own political agendas,
regard the establishment of the Bahá’í World Centre in Israel as a political
statement — as evidence of ties to the Zionist movement. Yet anyone with even a
rudimentary understanding of historical facts knows that the location of the
World Centre can be attributed to the machinations of the Iranian government
itself. It was that government which exiled Bahá’u’lláh from His native Persia
and instigated His final banishment to the Holy Land—then under the sovereignty
of the Ottoman empire—some one hundred and forty years ago, eighty years prior
to the establishment of the State of Israel. The relationship of the World
Centre with that State is governed by the same principles being followed by any
Bahá’í community — it is characterized by obedience to the laws of the land and
a strict abstention from partisan politics.
(The Universal House of Justice, from a message dated 31 October 2008 to
the Baha’is of Iran)
