‘Condemn Iranian hate speech,’ Israeli diplomat urges Security Council

For the international community and the United Nations, “silence is not an option” in the face of Iranian anti-Semitic statements and calls to destroy Israel, an Israeli diplomat has written in a letter to Gérard Araud, the president of the United Nations Security Council.

The letter, which was circulated by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday, cites a string of “outrageous statements” made recently by Iranian leaders – which the letter claims express “the vile anti-Semitism that forms the core of [the regime’s] ideology” – and demands that the Security Council take action and “condemn Iranian hate speech without… delay.”

The document was written by Minister-Counselor Israel Nitzan, a member of Israel’s mission to the United Nations.

“Yesterday,” the letter charges, “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, publicly stated that ‘Zionism is a danger for entire humanity’ [sic] and that Israel ‘is a cancerous tumor…in [the] heart of [the] Muslim world.’

“In remarks last Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that ‘the very existence of the Zionist regime is… an affront to all world nations’ — and called on ‘all human communities to wipe out this scarlet letter, meaning the Zionist regime, from the forehead of humanity.’”

Nitzan also cites statements made by General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a commander in Iran’s Revolution Guards Corps, to the effect that Israel would be “wiped out of the map and thrown into the trash bin of history forever.”

“As Israel has made clear in our previous letters to the Security Council, complacency in the face of Iranian hate speech and incitement is dangerous,” the letter reads. “The delusional statements of Iran’s leaders are not those of crazy people, but rational fanatics, with irrational hatreds…We expect the Security Council and all responsible members of the international community to condemn Iranian hate speech without any further delay.”