On Iran, Anti-Semitism and the Twelfth Imam
Yesterday, I was alerted to this news-report from earlier this week in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was quoted as saying:
the state of Israel will cease to exist with or without the involvement of his country.
‘This will happen whether we are involved in it or not,’ the Iranian leader told a news conference…..
He had been asked to explain his statement earlier this week in which he said the Jewish state would soon disappear from the map.
This is not the first time that Mr Ahmedinejad has expressed similar sentiments…But the reason this particular report caught my eye was an interview I had just finished reading which had actually discussed the broader context around such remarks.
The interview was with political scientist and thinker, Matthias Küntzel (currently a research associate at the Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) in Jerusalem and author of several books including, “Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11).
I am reproducing some excerpts below (emphasis mine) in which Mr Kuntzel talks about Iran, anti-semitism and the world view that appears to underpin and support the violent ideology of Islamism.
*** Excerpts Begin ***
Alan Johnson: Let’s turn to Iran. In a stream of articles and lectures presented around the world, you have pleaded with us to ‘take the Iranian leader’s Weltanschauung [worldview] seriously as a specific outlook with its own principles and history‘. You have invited us to ‘look inside Ahmadinejad’s fantasy world and seek to grasp the immanent logic behind his attacks, even if this involves insights which may send a shiver down the spine‘. You see the regime’s ideology – a ‘mish-mash of Jew-hatred, Holocaust denial and Shiite death-cult messianism‘ – as the real context for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Let’s begin with that aspect that most observers find frankly bizarre – Holocaust denial. What is the meaning and import of what you call ‘this new form of Holocaust denial: creative, modern, unrestrained, and extremely self-assertive‘?
Matthias Küntzel: I should say first that I am convinced that they believe what they say. It’s not just propaganda for their public. They are also trying to influence UN debates, suggesting that Israel should not be allowed to ’spread the lie of the Holocaust’ and so on. Iran is pushing its own ‘truth’ within institutions. And this is little understood.
