Iran's Supreme Leader Likens Zionists to Nazis

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei compared Zionists with Nazis on his official Twitter feed Monday, the Jerusalem Post reports.

The account, believed to be run by his office, also featured a graphic marking the anniversary of the 1998 trial of French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, a communist intellectual who converted to Islam.

Much of the Muslim world embraced Garaudy's book, The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, after it appeared in the 1990s. Khamenei's tweet derived from an April 1998 meeting Khamenei had with Garaudy where he said, "The Zionists are just like the Nazis."

The post was mirrored on Khamenei's official Facebook page with additional commentary.

"We hold no prejudice and negativity against the Jews and the #Jews are living in Iran in #peace and comfort," the Facebook post stated. "The issue of Zionists is different from that of the Jews; the Zionists are just like the #Nazis and display the same #racist behaviors."

This comment is not an isolated incident.

Khamenei's Facebook page attacked American human rights in a Dec. 2 post with a twist of irony, charging that little has changed in the United States since Harriet Beecher Stowe penned Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.

"The reason 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' novel is still alive after 200 years is that the racist and inhumane approaches are still applied by the US government," the post says. "These are the realities about the United States; this is the American government; this is the distinguishing feature that introduced the American system to the world with no freedom and no human equality. What equality?!"

Iran's own religious minorities, such as the Christians, Bahais and Zoroastrians face repression. For example, Pastor Saeed Abedini remains imprisoned in Iran for religious activities.

Other Khamenei posts discard accusations of terrorism against Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Hizballah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the al-Aqsa Brigades as "baseless."

"Courageous #resistance by the people whose country and homes are occupied is recognized by international conventions and encouraged. Accusing them of terrorism is baseless," a Nov. 28 tweet said. "The obvious #terrorist is the #ZionistRegime; & #Palestinian resistance is a movement against the oppressive terrorists & is a sacred movement."

Days earlier, Khamenei wrote that Israel was "the sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region."

Related Topics: John Rossomando, Ayatollah Khamenei, Roger Garaudy, Saeed Abedini

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