Liberman on Iran VP: Hitler also said crazy things

FM says Iranian regime composed of anti-Semitic fanatics after Iranian VP Rahimi blames Jews for int'l drug trade.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman 311 (R) (photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman 311 (R)
(photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Wednesday condemned Iranian first Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi for a speech he gave at a UN conference in Tehran on Tuesday in which he blamed Jews for controlling the international drug trade.
“Hitler also said crazy things and succeeded in carrying out his plan,” Liberman stated, adding that the world has not yet fully come to understand the danger that Iran poses.
In his address to a UN-sponsored conference marking International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Tehran, Rahimi blamed Judaism for the spread of illegal drugs around the world, during a speech Tuesday at an international drug conference in Iran, a New York Times correspondent reported from Tehran.
In the speech described by the Times as “baldly anti-Semitic,” Rahimi said that the Talmud teaches to “destroy everyone who opposes the Jews,” according to the report.
He went on to assert that there are no drug addicts who are Zionists: “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 drugs trade,” the Times quoted Rahimi as saying.
Moving to another issue, Rahimi reportedly said that the Talmud teaches Jews that they are a superior race, saying: “They think God has created the world so that all other nations can serve them.”
Diplomats present at the conference criticized the speech, but remained for the rest of the event.
Liberman responded that “The Iranian regime is not composed of crazy people, but of anti-Semitic fanatics,who have a detailed worldwide plan, part of which, as they admit openly, is the destruction of the State of Israel.”
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Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
The foreign minister added that “the fact that UN representatives and representatives of European nations are still participating in conferences held in Tehran, in which the worst kind of anti-Semitics remarks are made, legitimizes the the regime of the Ayatollahs.”
The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the speech.
“To all those who thought that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, certainly this makes it very clear that it is alive and well again. What makes it more sinister and dangerous is the fact that it comes from a leader of a country that has vowed to destroy the Jewish state, and is making efforts to obtain the means to do it,” ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said.
He added: “Before now, good people in the world either ignored Iran’s anti- Semitism or did not take it seriously. One would hope that this resurgence of dangerous anti-Semitic themes at a UN conference in Tehran would shake up the moral, political, religious leadership to condemn it with a strong voice. We begin by calling on Ban Ki-moon to speak out and to make clear that these views are not only objectionable, but repugnant to the entire international community.”