US envoy urges Germany not to celebrate Iran’s Holocaust-denying regime

The US government and the Anti-Defamation League have concluded that Iran’s regime is the leading international state-sponsor of terrorism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Soldiers of the German armed forces Bundeswehr hold the Iranian flag during a ceremony for the diplomatic accreditation of the new ambassador of Iran to Germany in Berlin (photo credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS)
Soldiers of the German armed forces Bundeswehr hold the Iranian flag during a ceremony for the diplomatic accreditation of the new ambassador of Iran to Germany in Berlin
(photo credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS)
The US government’s top continental European ambassador took Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to task about its planned celebration of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, as the regime calls for the destruction of Israel and denies the Shoah.
“Germany has a moral responsibility to say to Iran very firmly and clearly that it is unacceptable to deny basic human rights to your people, or kill protesters in the streets or push gay people off buildings. Celebrating the regime’s ongoing existence sends the opposite message,” US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell said on Thursday.
FoxNews.com first reported Grenell’s criticism.
The Jerusalem Post exclusively reported that Germany’s Foreign Ministry plans to participate in the “Islamic Revolution’s Victory Day” once more this coming week.
This is a national holiday with regime-sponsored demonstrations in every city. The decision by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to honor Iran’s regime comes just a short time after Merkel’s government, including Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, commemorated the liberation of Auschwitz in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean for the Los Angeles-based human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post that “Steinmeier’s stirring speech at Yad Vashem’s 75th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation is meaningless if Germany continues honoring the “Holocaust-denying Israel-hating genocide-seeking Iranian regime.”
He added that “Maas should stop invoking Auschwitz. What has he learned from Auschwitz if he continues to do business as usual with Holocaust denying regime with nary a peep of criticism.”
Maas said he went into politics “because of Auschwitz.”
The German paper Die Welt reported on Saturday that Steinmeier will not send a congratulatory telegram to Iran’s regime.
The US government and the Anti-Defamation League have concluded that Iran’s regime is the leading international state-sponsor of terrorism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Merkel’s government says Iran’s calls to obliterate Israel’s nearly seven million Jews are “anti-Israel rhetoric” and not Jew-hatred.
The Post learned from German Foreign Ministry sources that “The usual practice in diplomatic relations also includes the celebration of national holidays of the other country. As the Federal Republic of Germany continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, this also applies to the coming national holiday.”
The Post sent press queries to Steinmeier, Merkel and Maas in connection with Grenell’s and Cooper’s criticisms.
Dr. Yossi Mansharof, an expert on Iran and political Shi’ite Islam at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) as well as the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa, told the Post the “German government’s planned participation in the 41st anniversary of the establishment of the Iranian Regime is a sign of disgrace for Germany In his speech at the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020 German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared, ‘No to antisemitism! No to hatred!’
He added that Germany’s plan to laud the founding of the Islamic Republic of the Iran“comes at odds with this declared promise.”
Mansharof, who is fluent in Persian, said Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, “personally leads the Holocaust denial” and “the Iranian regime has systematically encouraged the denial of Holocaust, claiming that it is a myth that never took place and a plot which meant to pave the ground for the establishment of the state of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and the Muslim nation.”
He noted that by “Attending the Islamic Revolution Anniversary celebrations at the Iranian embassy in Germany, the German government joins rallies to be held simultaneously across Iran in which the Iranian regime takes pride in his strategic project to annihilate Israel and display it missiles which play a major role in this strategic plan. As the IRGC [The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] chief Hossein Salami recently declared..., this plan is not a fiction but a real desire of Tehran.”
Salami announced, “This sinister [Israeli] regime must be wiped off the map.”
Uwe Becker, the commissioner for Jewish life in the German state of Hesse, told the Post that his country should not congratulate Tehran’s rulers for their “Iranian revolution anniversary.”
He said “Germany should send a clear signal against the backdrop of human rights violations in Iran and the continuing threats by the Tehran mullah regime to destroy Israel. The Iranian National Day is not just an anniversary, it commemorates the violent revolution of 1979 and the beginning of the reign of terror.”
Becker added that Iran’s regime supports the terrorist organization Hezbollah in “and strengthens terrorism in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.”
“At the same time, the Tehran leadership oppresses its own people and denies them freedom and human rights,” he said.