Iran's Jerusalem Parade

You have to hand it to the Iranian government – they have a way with words.

So today’s Jerusalem parade was held under the official slogan:

"The Islamic world will not recognise the fake Zionist regime under any circumstances and believes that this cancerous tumour will one day be wiped off the face of the earth."

If Israel is lucky, this slogan will have to be chanted three times before any attack by Iran – that should give time to prepare!

More seriously though, the Iranian government continues to focus on vilifying Jews as a way of avoiding discussion of the failures of the Iranian state.

So, as part of the parade a new book was promoted.

Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book "Holocaust" was published by members of the Islamist Basij militia.


The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground.


Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.


Another depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving as gun-wielding terrorists from the other side.


Yet another shows a patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the Nazi extermination chambers.

Every age begets the anti-Semitism best suited to it. And while the key emotion driving it may be a visceral hatred of Jews, the critical intellectual aim is to delegitimize them. In a spiritual age, the Jews are delegitimized spiritually. Today Jews are delegitimized politically – no one can suggest the Iranian government is making a division between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. It’s all just Jewbaiting.