Ahmadinejad the Jew

An intriguing new report by Global Voices writer Hamid Tehrani on the myriad ways in which anti-Jewish sentiment is alive and well in the Islamic Republic:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who, for many, is the living symbol of anti-Semitism, has recently become the target of an anti-Semitic attack.

Mehdi Khazali, the son of a conservative – and pro-Ahmadinejad – ayatollah, and director of the Hayyan Cultural Institute in Tehran, published a post in his blog trying to discredit Mr. Ahamadinejad and his supporters by claiming Iran’s president has “Jewish roots.”

Some newspapers and websites, such as the Jerusalem Post, reported this story but ignored Mr. Khazali’s entire post and its multi-dimensional anti-Semitic aspects, showing that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his supporters do not have a monopoly on anti-Semitism in Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rivals, too, use radical anti-Semitic arguments as ammunition in attacks against him.

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