Threats, deligitimization and anti-Semitism are the constant subject of 14 quotes during August alone in "greatest hits" list.
By HERB KEINONIranian Presidnet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at OIC in Mecca 370 (R(photo credit: Susan Baaghil / Reuters)
Hoping to shift the debate from screaming headlines about internal Israeli divisions concerning a possible attack on Iran to the nature of the regime trying to acquire nuclear weapons, the Foreign Ministry put out a list on Monday of outrageous anti-Israeli and anti- Semitic comments made by the Iranian leadership over the last month alone.The 14 quotes, two from August 2 and all the rest gathered over the past week, were divided into three categories: threats, deligitimization and anti-Semitism.Under the “destroying Israel category,” the ministry culled a quote from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taken from the Fars News Agency last Thursday.“The Israeli regime is a tool in the hands of Zionists to control the Middle-East and the entire world,” Ahmadinejad stated.The Iranian president further stated that “the international al-Qods day is the day of unity among all human beings to remove the Zionist black stain from the human society.”In an address Sunday to ambassadors of Muslim states and other officials on the occasion of Id al-Fitr, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “Zionism is a danger for all of humanity,” making the list under the “delegitimization of Israel’s existence,” category.Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threatAs for anti-Semitism, the Foreign Ministry cited the following report from the Islamic Republic News Agency published on Friday: “He [Ahmadinejad] said Zionists, who think solely of power, wealth and dominance over others, have been inflicting very heavy damage and suffering on the whole humanity for over 2,000 years, especially during the past four centuries.Saying that the two world wars were designed by Zionists and carried out by the US to retain dominance over other countries, the president further noted that Zionists have been administrating affairs in the US since the very beginning of its establishment.”One Israeli government official said the idea behind the compilation of these quotes from only this month was to “show the nature of the regime to the region, and beyond.”
“Iran achieving a nuclear weapon is not just another country proliferating, but it changes history,” the official said. “This is a regime that has a crazy ideology, that believes in that crazy ideology.It is a regime that hates Israel and the West and the moderate pragmatic governments in the Arab world,” he said.The official added that Iran is a regime seeking to “fundamentally change the way that world is, and that has no qualms about using violence to send people to their deaths, having brutalized its own people and its neighbors.”The source characterized as a “perversion of reality” the notion that a possible Israeli attack on Iran was the “supposed threat to peace and stability.” What the government hoped to do by compiling these statements, he said, was illustrate through the Iranian leaders’ own words that they were the “threat to peace and security.”Iranian officials continued with belligerent rhetoric directed against Israel on Monday, according to Iranian state-owned English media outlet PressTV.Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi was quoted as saying, “the Zionists are today even afraid of their own shadow [and are] therefore trying to control this disappointing atmosphere by [staging] brouhaha and psychological warfare, but should know that propaganda will not resolve their problems.”Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei addressed the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, saying that Tehran’s response would be devastating.He was quoted by a state-owned news agency as declaring, “if the Zionists commit the folly and attack Iran, they will receive a crushing response from Islamic Republic’s armed forces which will lead to their annihilation.”
