Iran’s Ali Khamenei slammed for antisemitic tweets against Jared Kushner

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 10:42

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attacked the Israel-UAE agreement on Wednesday and called Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, and pro-Israel Americans “filthy Zionist agents,” referring to him as “the Jewish member of Trump’s family,” in a series of tweets that were condemned as reactionary and antisemitic.

Khamenei’s use of the word “filthy” and his singling out of “Jewish” members of the Trump administration, as well as calling them “cruel”, were all words used in his English language Twittter channel.

Blue and White MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh slammed the tweets and asked Twitter if “singling out a Jew and referring to Jews as ‘filthy’ violate your hate speech policy.”

US Assistant Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism Ellie Cohanim tweeted that it was time for the social media giant to permanently remove the “vile anti-Semite” from Twitter. Emily Schrader, founder of Social Creative, also slammed the tweet for antisemitism.

The Iranian leader has long spread hatred for Israel using his official Twitter account and during speeches and sermons. The official Iranian regime narrative presents Iran as not being antisemitic and points to the relatively large Jewish community in Iran as evidence of the lack of antisemitism, arguing that in contrast to the Arab nationalist regimes of the 1950s, Tehran has had a more progressive policy.

However, the tweets in English using words like “filthy” and “cruel” appear to have been written by someone who has knowledge of traditional western antisemitism.

Accusations that Jews are “cruel” or “filthy” are part of western antisemitic tradition, appearing prominently throughout the Middle Ages. The Iranian leader did not tweet the same words in Farsi or in any of his other accounts, implying that a careful study was made by his media team to use the right words to push antisemitism through terms that have been used by Nazis and other regimes in the West.

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In Spanish, he tweeted about “vile Zionists agents in the Trump family” but did not use the term Jewish.

In his Arabic tweet he did refer to the “Jew” in the Trump family, illustrating that Iran seeks to push antisemitism in the Arabic language as well. In Hindi, he also used the term “Jews.” In French, he referred to “dirty Zionist American agents,” but not “Jews.”

Earlier this week, the Iranian leader portrays the UAE agreement with Israel as a “betrayal” of the “world of Islam.” He also characterized the deal as going against the “interests of the World of Islam” and created a hashtag about the UAE “stabs Muslims.”

The term “world of Islam” is taken from the concept of Dar al-Islam, the states governed by Muslims and the Dar al-Harb or states that are in war and the ones which war can be waged against or which are savage and are beyond the borders of Islamic rule.

The Iranian regime is a reactionary far-right theocratic regime and views the world in these binary terms. As such the tweets are meant as a threat against the UAE. Iran says the “betrayal won’t last long” and that the “stigma” is on the UAE, a veiled threat against the Emirates.

Last year Iran used drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and mined ships off the coast of the UAE. It has also backed the Houthis in Yemen to threaten Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.