Iranian diplomat in Brazil predicts ‘no place for Zionists’ in Middle East

(JTA) — A Brazilian newspaper has published an opinion piece by an Iranian diplomat asserting that “there will soon be no place for Zionists in the Middle East.”

Ali Mohaghegh, first secretary of the Iranian embassy in Brasilia, made the assertion in article published last month in the newspaper Folha de S. Paolo. “This [Israeli] regime that once sought to dominate the land between Nile and the Euphrates, now needs to hide behind a wall,” Mohaghegh wrote. He added: “The Zionist regime of Israel is the foremost reason for international terrorism.”

CONIB, the representative body of Brazilian Jewish communities, condemned the opinion piece published as “unacceptable.”

Several responses to Mohaghegh have appeared in Brazilian media, including in Folha.

Flavio Morgenstern, a translator and writer for the commentary site Papo de Homem, accused the paper of “ceding inches to anti-Semitism.”

Writing in O Globo, another major Brazilian daily, Osias Wurman, Israel’s honorary consul in Rio de Janeiro, accused Iran of state terrorism.