Iranian news organization IranWire published an eye-popping deep dive analysis into more than 1,000 articles on an antisemitic website with the misleading name “Jewish Studies Center” that is backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Australian Islamic studies academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was held hostage by Iran’s regime from 2018-2020, tweeted on Thursday about the IranWire exposé: “An important and frightening window into the horrific antisemitism promoted by the regime in Iran.
I can't tell you how many times I rolled my eyes in disdain at many of these anti-Jewish conspiracy theories from my IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] captors. Sickening.”
An important and frightening window into the horrific antisemitism promoted by the regime in Iran. I can't tell you how many times I rolled my eyes in disdain at many of these anti-Jewish conspiracy theories from my IRGC captors. Sickening. https://t.co/yBjPaxyGIn
— Kylie Moore-Gilbert (@KMooreGilbert) June 2, 2022
She added that "by the way, the very same IRGC who are promoting this ‘Jewish Studies Centre thinktank’ told me that all think tanks are covers for espionage."
IranWire correspondent Behnam Gholipour authored the article titled The Bone Chilling Insanity of Iran's 'Jewish Studies Center.’
The analysis states that "within the nexus of unaccountable bodies that make up the Iranian state, the Revolutionary Guards, the foreign ministry, Religious Endowments Organization and a number of others are also supporters of a virulent antisemitic supposed thinktank by the name of the Jewish Studies Center. “
‘Jews and the Media,’ ‘Jewish Methods,’ ‘Jewish Corruption’
According to IranWire, since its inception in 2016, the site has published more than 1,000 antisemitic articles, reports, comment pieces, books and videos, arranged into 10 categories with such titles as the ‘Jews and the Media,’ ‘Jewish Methods’ and ‘Jewish Corruption.’
Gholipour’s nearly 2,500-word article reports that “the managing editor of the so-called Jewish Studies Center is a young Isfahani clergyman by the name of Kayvan Ezzati, also the editor-in-chief of the website Rasekhoon , which is similarly saturated with antisemitic content but belongs to Iran’s Religious Endowments Organization. In 2018, Ezzati won an award at the anti-Israeli ‘International’ Hourglass Festival whose biggest sponsor is the Seraj Organization: the IRGC’s most important online affiliate.”The US government classified the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. According to the US state department, Iran’s regime is the leading international state sponsor of antisemitism.
"Child-killing" Zionists are "blood thirsty, deviant"
The Iranian regime-backed Jewish Studies Center presents Jews as “blood-thirsty”, “deviant” people who are guilty of “infanticide,” wrote Gholipour. The website states that “Israeli infanticide” is allowed as part of Judaism. One article, notes Gholipour, states that the Old Testament codified “child-killing” by Zionists in Palestine and “both the Jews and Christians believe in.”Another article predicts Iranians will eradicate Jews: “God, through Iranians, prepares the ground for the coming [of the Mahdi, the “hidden” 12th Imam of Shiite Muslims]...and the eventual destruction of the Jewry shall be achieved by the Mahdi.”
Gholipour writes that “With around 50 articles and commentaries, an entire segment of the website, entitled ‘Jewish Plots” exists to accuse Jews of having had a hand in unhappy historical events in Iran and the Islamic world.”
Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled the country due to repression, told The Jerusalem Post, that “The Islamic Republic is deeply antisemitic. The Islamic Republic hates Cyrus the Great only because of his importance to the Jewish people. When you talk about the Iran-Israel friendship, they become your enemy.
We know how much we need Israeli water technology for Iran's water scarcity. An Iranian government would restore its relations with the Jewish State of Israel to solve this environmental issue.”
She continued that “Israel is the only country that can help Iran. It doesn’t matter to the Islamic Republic if Iran would be destroyed with their ideology, the only thing that matters to them is the hatred towards Israel, that's why their militias are much more important to them than the Iranian people because they know we won’t stand by them to export and expand their dangerous ideology.”
Gholipour said 30 articles argue Jews are “promoters of corruption, drug trafficking, superstition, racism and homosexuality around the world.”
He writes that “the site names Capezio, a manufacturer of dance shoes, apparel and accessories, fashion designers Isaac Mizrahi and Tommy Hilfiger and the Iranian-Jewish high-end menswear and fragrance mogul Bijan Pakzad as examples of ‘nodes’ in a wider conspiracy.”
Iranian regime's Holocaust denial, homophobia
The antisemitic Iranian regime-backed website declared “The Zionist regime is one of the promoters of homosexuality in the world and it the organizer of promotional events like homosexual marches in various cities. Tel Aviv is the homosexuals’ favorite town in the world."
Holocaust denial is a central part of the website's publications. “The myth of Holocaust has caused tens of billions of dollars from the US and more than that from Germany to flow into the pockets of Jews,” stated one publication, adding “The Holocaust kindled the fires of Zionism around the world. The story of the Holocaust united the Jews across the world and provided the financial and political support that Israel needed to establish itself and survive."
The article continued that “the Holocaust has turned into a new religion in the West and it has become so sacred that expressing any doubt about its truth can lead to prosecution.” Gholipour wrote that the website declared, without evidence, that Tel Aviv dictated to foreign countries that they criminalize Holocaust denial.
Vojoudi, the Iranian dissident who lives in Germany, argued that antisemitism is one of the central factors of the Iranian regime's domestic and foreign policy and it plays out as a method to distract Iranians from the pressing bread and butter problems: “The Islamic Republic has destroyed Iran to save its enmity with Israel and the Jewish people. Israel is the only word that you can hear from the Mullahs and the Islamic Republic's officials for all the problems that we've been facing in Iran, from the economic problems to the environmental problems, from the social issues to the political issues."