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In bringing about the Islamic revolution
and establishing an Islamic republic in Iran in 1979, the late Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini sought to reinstitute the Islamic Caliphate
(formally abolished in 1924), in which there would be one Islamic community
which would apply the religious laws of Islam (Shari'a) and the tradition
of the prophet Muhammad. Thus, like the jihad of Prophet Muhammad against
the infidels, the Islamic regime headed by Khomeini set out to wage a
war to the death against the “contemporary infidels:” “the big Satan,”
the United States, and “the little Satan,” Israel. |
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Both Shi'ite religious law and the teachings of Khomeini ,
like similar other non-Islamic religious figures, define the Jews
as infidels and therefore unclean and abominations . Khomeini
perceived the Jews as Islam's eternal enemy . For Khomeini and
the heads of the Islamic regime in Iran the negative image of the Jew was
reinforced because the Jews and “global Zionism” were identified
as being allied with the corrupt, exploitive Shah [the Iranian
ruler toppled by Khumeini in 1979], as having robbed the Palestinians of
their rights and land. Indeed the Palestinian issue has been one
of the foundations on which the legitimacy of the Islamic régime in Iran
is based (since its ultimate target s the destruction of the
state of Israel) and provides the justification for its negative position
vis-a-vis the Jews, Israel and the entire peace process in the Middle East. |
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According to the ideology of the shi'i-Islamic clerics ruling
Iran, Judaism is considered "a religion" but the Jews are not considered "a
nation" - and therefore not necessarily entitled to or worthy
of a state of their own (because they lack the national basis
for establishing an independent state). Therefore, there is no
place for a Jewish state and certainly not on Muslim lands (i.e.,
Palestine while the lawful rights of Muslims (i.e., the Palestinians) are
denied, and most certainly not with the control of Jerusalem ,
which is holy to all Muslims [of course the irony is
that such ideology overlooks the fact that according to its own logic,
the Shi'ies being a minority in Islam do not deserve to be recognized themselves
as a nation other let alone to have a state of their own]. |
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The idea that the Jews are scheming to take over the
world is firmly rooted in the minds of the
leaders of the Islamic régime in Iran. As far as they are concerned ,
overtly or covertly the Jews are responsible for every negative situation,
international event or crisis; they control the global media (and
the film industry, particularly in the United States), they founded the
secular-orientated, secretive Order of the Freemasons to
bring to fruition their plots to take over the world and prevent the
spread of Islam; they exert pressure on the decision-making centers
in the United States and Europe ; they are even accused
of supporting international terrorist organizations to create international
crises . Therefore, they pose a threat to the entire
world . One of the main “proofs” to such a (twisted)
view is, not surprisingly, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ,
which are central to the anti-Semitic literature published in Iran . |
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Holocaust denial: According to the leaders
of the Islamic régime in Iran, the Jews exploit the enormity of
the Holocaust to fool the world and hide their real aims . While
the Iranian régime does not officially deny the events
of the Holocaust, it attempts to minimize them and to give as much
exposure as possible to those who express doubt as to the Holocaust's extent
or deny it entirely . |
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In the wake of international criticism of
the civil rights violations in Iran, the régime has been much more
cautious about blatantly anti-Semitic references and has tried
to focus its venomous attacks on “ Zionism” and “Israel .”
However, the hatred for Jews and the call for the destruction of the State
of Israel have reached such proportions that the régime has not been able
to curb occasional outbreaks of anti-Semitic statements, violent events
and cartoons. It is important to note that in a country whose régime censures
the media in a fashion strongly opposed to every principle of freedom of
expression, permitting anti-Semitic items to appear in the newspapers,
especially the official press, means that even if those items do not actually
represent the position of Iran's religious leaders, which is doubtful,
they at least have no objection to them being published or broadcast. |
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The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion – the Iranian version |
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The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are
part and parcel of the anti-Semitic literature published in Iran. The book
has gone through several editions, all translated from Arabic .
The first was issued during the early stages of the Islamic revolution
in the summer of 1978 as a weapon against the Shah,
Israel and the Jews . In 1985 a new edition was published and
widely distributed by the Department of International Relations
of the Association for the Spread of Islam in Teheran . One of
the wealthiest foundations in Iran, The Shrine of the Iman Reza in Mashhad,
financed the edition of The Protocols published in 1994. Sections
of the book were even published in the radical newspaper Jomhouri Eslami
under the heading “The smell of blood, Jewish conspiracies” (March 7, 1994). |
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The monthly Sobh, which represents radical Islamic
elements, published selected portions of The Protocols under
the heading “ The text of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for
instituting global Jewish rule ” (December 1998 - January 1999).
The articles also included the familiar illustration of the Jewish
snake swallowing the globe . |
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Following are excerpts of The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion as they appeared in Sobh: |
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“ Politics have nothing in common
with morality [sic] . A leadership
which relies on morality will not be able to represent a talented,
experienced politician and is fated to have its political base
shaken” (from the First Protocol). |
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“We can be happy, because in addition to the newspapers,
we [the Jews] also control [all] the gold [in the world]; however,
it should be remembered… that we made many sacrifices to attain
them [the newspapers and the gold]. Naturally, from God's point
of view, each of our sacrifices is worth one thousand of those
[sacrifices] made by non-Jews” (from the Second Protocol). |
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“When power is [finally] in our hands, we [the Jews]
will have to erase the term ‘freedom' from the dictionary of [ordinary]
life because it makes the masses bloodthirsty” (from the Third
Protocol). |
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" Original" Iranian contributions
to the idea found in The Protocols : In Iran there
were those who made their own additions to The Protocols . For
example, belief in the Jewish conspiracies to take over the world [as
they] appear in The Protocols became a “research” topic for Ali
Bakri , an Iranian author and researcher. In an interview with
the Iranian monthly Sobh, he claimed that “ the ultimate goal
of the Jews … after they conquer the planet… is to take from
the hands of God (so that they themselves take control of) a
great deal [as many as possible] of stars and galaxies ” (Sobh,
April 1999). |
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The last pages of the book, following the table
of content, are used to advertise two new publications from
the Islamic anti-Israel hate industry: Why the Jews Were Cursed
by the Qur'an and the Sunnah , by Ahmed al-Haj, and The
Jews – a History of Corruption , by Dr. Tawfiq al-Wa'i. |
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Additional ideas added to The Protocols by
Iranian writer Ali Bakri, Sobh, issue No. 93, April 99. |
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The Destruction of the Holocaust: “Research” by ISNA,
the Iranian
Students' News Agency (March 3, 2002) |
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In 2002 the Iranian Student News Agency -
ISNA 2, a “reformist” group, published
“research” under the heading “One of the biggest lies in history: the
truths that cast doubt on the murder of 6 million Jews by Hitler.” The
opening sentence and main results of the “research” were: “the question
of the murder and cremation of Jews by Nazi Germany is an issue the Zionists
have been exploiting for years to represent themselves as unfortunate.”
The method used to cast doubt on the veracity of Holocaust events was
a list of 66 questions and answers and the assumption that the reader's
sense of logic would gradually cause him to accept the authors' position.
2ISNA represents the "reformist" trend
in Iran and is usually considered the leading
and most trustworthy news agency in the country. |
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Thus, for instance, the following question is
asked: “ What document actually exists proving Nazis in Germany
murdered six million Jews ?” The answer provided is, “There is
no such document and the only records are the testimonies of survivors
of the war, [testimonies] which contradict one another and [only] a small
number of them witnessed the Jews' being asphyxiated with gas…” The question
“What document does exist [proving] that six million Jews were not murdered
by the Nazis?” follows, and it is answered by “There are many legal, democratic
(?), analytical and analogical documents which indicate that such an event
could never have happened. Six million is entirely too large a number.” |
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The results of the “research”
also showed that Zyklon B gas was never meant to be used against humans
but was used throughout Europe as an insecticide. In addition, [Rudolph]
Hoess [the commandant of Auschwitz] was tortured into confessing that
Auschwitz was a death camp; many of the Jews who were incarcerated in
concentration camps died of typhus, starvation, lack of medical supervision,
etc.; bodies were burned for reasons of health; the most important of
the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 was that mixed marriages and sexual relations
between Germans and Jews were forbidden, and that today there are similar
laws in Israel; Anne Frank's diary is a literary lie. |
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| Holocaust denial
and its exploitation as a lever for extorting money: an excerpt from
a speech by Iranian leader Khamenei |
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“The Zionists say that they need emotional
security, and that everything they have been given till now does not
satisfy their need for emotional security and that they need more. There
is no end to their extortion . Europe has had bitter experience
in that context: Germany paid 150 million marks in reparations to the
Jews, but there is no end to the Jews' demands. They still want more…
they demand that every person in the West genuflect before
a memorial to the crematoria [in the concentration camps], and
honor a tale whose veracity is uncertain , [and want] the West
feel it owes the Jews something” (IRNA - the Acronym of the Islamic Republic
News Agency, January 31, 2002, taken from a speech made by Khamenei before
members of the Islamic States Communication Conference for [the Palestinian]
Intifada Support).
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The comparison of Israelis killing Palestinians with the murder
of the Jews
during the Holocaust as they appear in Iranian cartoons
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A cartoon from Keyhan News (December 17, 2001), comparing
the Israeli killing of Palestinians with the murder of 6 million
Jews during the Holocaust and representing the Israelis as no different
from the Nazis . |
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The Jews need the blood of non-Jewish children to bake Passover
matzo |
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The May 5, 2002 edition of the
extremist newspaper Jomhouri Eslami , published, in
the “For Your Information” column, an anti-Semitic article which claimed
that to prepare matzohs for Passover the Jews needed the blood
of non-Jewish children . The next day a letter of protest from
the Jewish Association of Teheran was published in response. It wholly
denied the blood libel and explained the main features of the holiday.
Despite the denial and explanation the newspaper was quick to note that “it
was happy that Teheran's Jews [as opposed to the Jews in the rest of
the world] did not have the same custom ” and that it preferred
to believe that the nature of their reply was the result of “the positive
influence of the Iranian people” and not that the statement was untrue. |
The distortion of the Bible and the description of the Talmud as
“evil teaching” |
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An editorial in the Teheran Times, entitled
“Was it a human being or a Jew who was created in God's image?”, attacked
the Talmud and called upon the Jews to reject its “evil teaching :”
“The simple question… is why they [the Jews] cannot simply tell the truth.
Why do those people need to lie, misrepresent and tell half-truths? It
is mainly the Zionists who tell the lies and the innocent who believe
them… The truth about the Talmud is that it is an insult to all
humanity and describes the human race (except for the Jews!) as animals
and devils .” The conclusion is that “in no uncertain terms
the Talmud despises and degrades all those who are not Jewish and deprives
them of their humanity… and that… is the basis for the cruel
Israeli maltreatment of the Palestinians [in particular]… [and] the Jewish
maltreatment of all humanity [in general] ” (Teheran Times,
July 2, 2002). |
An anti-Semitic documentary movie: “The Movie – The Promised Land” |
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A conservative Iranian organization called The
Iranian Center for Culture and Thought, operating under the
thumb of Khamenei's minions at the University of Teheran, made
an anti-Semitic documentary movie called “The Movie – the Promised Land .”
It is a detailed “analysis” of how the Jews have “taken over”
the film industry in Hollywood . |
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The movie has three parts: the first is called
“Zionism and [its] global policy,” the second is “the Jewish myth” and
the third is “the legacy of Croesus” (the Biblical Croesus as a troublemaker
and symbol of greed). ISNA (April 29, 2003) describes the movie as follows: |
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The first part deals with “exposing the
fallacious myths of the Jews” by showing “the Zionist presence” in
Hollywood movies. In them, claims The Iranian Center for Culture
and Thought, Americans are represented as “the saviors of humanity,”
and Judaism is based on the exclusive rule of the Jews over the world. |
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The third part discusses “the back-stage role of the
Jews in the history of corruption in the films and music of the United
States” and the spread of their influence to the international arena,
quoting from Henry Ford's aforementioned book, My
Life and Work . |
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The film's finale presents The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion which calls upon
Jews, according to the producers, to focus on studying economics,
which is one of the key subjects taught at Jewish universities.
Focusing on financial subjects is presented as an important means
by which the Zionists control the world. |
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The movie assimilates perfectly
into the Iranian régime's anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli propaganda system
in which, from time to time, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is
exploited for purposes of getting anti-Semitic messages across to the
general public. |
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The destruction of
the State of Israel:
a central ideological tenet of the Shi'i-Islamic
Iranian régime |
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“Israel must be uprooted and erased from history” inscribed
on a Shahab 3 ballistic missile
in a military parade in Teheran (September
22, 2003).
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Posters and banners inscribed with the
words “Death to Israel” and people shouting for the destruction of Israel
and its removal from "the pages of history" were prominent
in a popular parade held in Teheran on Jerusalem Day at which senior
government members were present. The picture shows Iranian president
Kahatami patting a child holding a flag re ading “Death to Israel” (Fars
News Agency, November 21, 2003). |
