Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi delivered a virulently anti-Semitic speech at an international anti-drug conference in Tehran on Tuesday, which was sponsored by Iran and the United Nations.
Rahimi, according to The New York Times, said the Talmud, which is a central text of Judaism, was responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world, and that it teaches to “destroy everyone who opposes the Jews.”
Rahimi said there was a difference between Jews who “honestly follow the prophet Moses” and the Zionists, who are “the main elements of the international drugs trade.”
He added said the Talmud teaches Jews to think they are a superior race. “They think God has created the world so that all other nations can serve them,” he said.
The Iranian vice president, second in command to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, challenged the audience to find evidence contrary to his claims, declaring that “The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in [the] drugs trade.”
Rahimi didn't stop there, the Times reported, telling the audience stories of "gynecologists killing black babies on the orders of the Zionists." He also claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by Jews, adding that mysteriously no Jews died in that uprising.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded to Rahimi's comments in a statement released to the press on Wednesday, saying that "The fact that the U.N. representative and the European representatives are still participating in conferences held in Tehran, where the most despicable of anti-Semitic sentiments are voiced, provides legitimacy to the Iranian ayatollah regime, which poses a danger to peace for the entire world."
Lieberman went on to say that the Iranian regime "isn't comprised of lunatics, but by fanatics and anti-Semites with a structured doctrine who have a detailed global plan, including a core tenet, as they readily verbalize, of destroying Israel."
"The international community has still not internalized the immense danger posed by this regime to world peace," continued the Foreign Minister. "Hitler, too, said crazy things and succeeded in carrying out his plan. Today the situation is different and the sovereign State of Israel will not allow any Jews to be harmed. But as long as the [international community] doesn't come to its senses and the ayatollah regime doesn't pass from this world, a clear recipe for disaster and a threat to world peace will remain unhindered."
A European diplomat who attended the conference said afterward: “This was definitely one of the worst speeches I have heard in my life. My gut reaction was: Why are we supporting any cooperation with these people?”
Other Iranians who participated in the conference also wondered, in private, what their government's motive was for allowing such a speech. More than 25,000 Jews live in Iran and are officially recognized as a minority religion.
