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.