German government condemns Iran’s call to ‘destroy Israel’

BERLIN – After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the Islamic Republic of Iran on Wednesday for its genocidal antisemitism targeting Israel, Germany’s foreign ministry condemned the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a statement to The Jerusalem Post.

“The federal government sharply condemns all glorification and legitimizing of terror, calls for the annihilation of Israel, inciting terrorist acts or spreading antisemitic content. Such hostile comments to Israel are in no way acceptable. Israel’s right to exist is not negotiable. The federal republic regularly addresses critical points in all areas in an open way with Iran,” said the Germany’s foreign ministry.

The Post sent a press query to the German government regarding Khamenei’s actions, after he published an antisemitic poster on Tuesday evoking Nazi Germany’s “final solution” that destroyed European Jewry, in order to advance Tehran’s quest to abolish Israel.

The poster’s language reads: “Palestine will be free. The final solution. Resistance is referendum.”

A poster Khamenei’s office published on his website for Quds day

Khamenei displayed the antisemitic poster in English, Farsi and Arabic on his official homepage.

The picture shows a conquered Jerusalem with photos of the late Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani. The EU and the US classified Soleimani as an international terrorist.

The German government has largely refused to criticize Iran’s regime over the years for its lethal antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

In 2019, German foreign ministry state secretary Niels Annen, from the Social Democratic party, celebrated Iran’s Islamic revolution at Tehran’s embassy in Berlin. Germany’s president ,the social democrat Frank Walter-Steinmeier, congratulated Iran’s radical anti-Western regime in the same year in the name of the German people.

The US government under the Obama and Trump administrations designated Iran’s regime the worst state-sponsor of terrorism.

Elan Carr, the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism, tweeted last week that “Iran’s regime is the world’s chief state sponsor of Antisemitism. It must stop incitement and protect its Jewish community and other minorities”

Germany’s social democratic foreign minister Heiko Maas along with his British and French counterparts set up a financial mechanism termed INSTEX to circumvent US sanctions against Iran. The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges allows for EU trade with Iran’s regime.

Germany remains the most important European trade partner for Tehran.