Posts Tagged ‘mahmoud ahmadinejad’
 
December 19, 2012 0

Iranian Leader Embraces Social Media

There is now a Face­book page in Iran’s Supreme Leader Aya­tol­lah Ali Khamenei’s name, likely mak­ing him the world’s most socially-networked auto­cratic leader. The account, cre­ated on Decem­ber 13, cur­rently boasts over 16,000 ‘Likes’ and pro­vides Khamenei with another plat­form to dis­sem­i­nate his regime’s anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic messages.

Pre­vi­ously, Khamenei described Face­book as a “Zion­ist” tool. Face­book has been blocked inside Iran since the 2009 mass protests after the reelec­tion of Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad.

Although Khamenei’s Face­book account is only days old, a video from his Youtube chan­nel fea­tur­ing images of the Star of David and destroyed Pales­tin­ian vil­lages was uploaded to the page on Decem­ber 18. The video, called “New Mid­dle East, Islamic Mid­dle East,” begins with a clip of for­mer Secu­rity of State Con­doleezza Rice super­im­posed with a Star of David. The video also con­tains footage of Hasidic Jews stand­ing in front of a screen with an image of a cry­ing child and a dead Pales­tin­ian, and a mon­tage from a 2006 speech by Hezbol­lah leader Has­san Nas­ral­lah.

The five-minute video ends with a clip of a 2010 Khamenei speech in which he is pre­sented as pre­dict­ing the for­ma­tion of a new Islamic Mid­dle East and then declar­ing, “Pales­tine will be lib­er­ated” and insists that “Resis­tance is necessary.”

Khamenei first made his social media debut in 2009 with a Twit­ter account, @Khamenei_ir. The account con­veys what appear to be offi­cially sanc­tioned mes­sages from the Supreme Leader in Farsi, Eng­lish, Ara­bic and French. The tweets often make use of the regime’s typ­i­cal vit­ri­olic lan­guage against the U.S. and Israel, while prais­ing ter­ror­ist organizations.

For exam­ple, fol­low­ing Israel’s Oper­a­tion Pil­lar of Defense in Novem­ber against Hamas rocket fire from Gaza, Khamenei tweeted a gloat­ing mes­sage in Farsi, “Who would have believed that in a war between a sec­tion of Pales­tine and Israel, the Pales­tini­ans would be the ones set­ting the con­di­tions for a ceasefire/ Bravo to Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad.” In an English-language mes­sage in Jan­u­ary, Khamenei tweeted, “The Zion­ists, Great Satan-#USA-& West­ern pow­ers are inca­pable in fac­ing Islamic awak­en­ing, & they’ll fail more & more.”

The use of social media has also been increas­ingly uti­lized by U.S. Gov­ern­ment des­ig­nated For­eign Ter­ror­ist Orga­ni­za­tions (FTOs).

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October 18, 2012 3

Holocaust Denier Mark Weber Invited to Tehran by Iranian Government

Since Iran’s Holo­caust denial con­fer­ence in 2006, Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad has con­tin­ued to open his country’s doors for Holo­caust deniers from around the world. In Sep­tem­ber, the regime hosted Mark Weber, direc­tor of the California-based Insti­tute for His­tor­i­cal Review (IHR), a pseudo-academic orga­ni­za­tion that con­sid­ers the Holo­caust to be a hoax per­pe­trated by Jews for polit­i­cal and finan­cial gains.

Dur­ing Weber’s visit to Iran, he was given mul­ti­ple plat­forms to espouse his hate­ful con­spir­a­to­r­ial views and was also hon­ored with a meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Ahmadine­jad himself.

Weber dis­cussed his 10-day trip to Iran dur­ing a Sep­tem­ber IHR meet­ing near Los Ange­les. Accord­ing to Weber, his visit included a tele­vi­sion inter­view, a lec­ture to 800 col­lege stu­dents in Tehran, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in a film fes­ti­val orga­nized by Iran’s For­eign Min­istry and Min­istry of Cul­ture. Press TV, the Iran­ian government’s English-language pro­pa­ganda net­work, described the film fes­ti­val as pro­mot­ing films that exam­ine sub­jects such as “the role of Zion­ist lob­bies in the Euro­pean and US crises” and “a world with­out Zionism.”

Weber also gave a lec­ture to col­lege stu­dents in Tehran titled “The Zion­ist Lobby in Amer­ica.” In the talk, Weber claimed that the Israel lobby uses its power to pro­mote inter­ests “dif­fer­ent than those and con­trary to those of the vast major­ity of peo­ple in that coun­try and the vast major­ity of peo­ple around the world.” He stated that the “Jew­ish Zion­ist grip of the United States” man­i­fests its power “in pro­mot­ing poli­cies that break down tra­di­tional val­ues, tra­di­tional ethics, and jus­tice” and that soci­etal prob­lems rang­ing from abor­tion to mur­der can be traced to the sup­pos­edly Jew­ish media push­ing such policies.

Weber specif­i­cally men­tions the Anti-Defamation League’s work fight­ing big­otry and dis­crim­i­na­tion as part of a larger plot by the “Zion­ist lobby to break the reli­gious and eth­nic sense of cohe­sion” in America.

Weber’s visit to Iran in an offi­cial capac­ity under­scores both Weber’s and the regime’s com­mit­ment to prop­a­gat­ing anti-Jewish con­spir­acy the­o­ries and Holo­caust denial.

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October 5, 2012 3

Anti-Semite Mark Glenn Gave Speech at Ahmadinejad Dinner in New York

Addi­tional infor­ma­tion has emerged about Amer­i­can extrem­ists invited by the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment to a din­ner hon­or­ing Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad in New York City on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2012.  Ahmadine­jad was in town to attend the United Nations Gen­eral Assembly.

Mark Glenn’s offi­cial invi­ti­a­tion to the Ahmadine­jad dinner

In addi­tion to Louis Far­rakhan, the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment invited Mark Glenn, a vir­u­lently anti-Semitic con­spir­acy the­o­rist  (who claims that Jews con­trol banks, the stock exchange, politi­cians and the media) to speak at the din­ner. Glenn, who makes reg­u­lar appear­ances on Press TV, Iran’s English-language satel­lite net­work, used the din­ner as an oppor­tu­nity to attack Jews and Israel.

Glenn dis­cussed his speech on the Sep­tem­ber 27 edi­tion of his pro­gram on “The Ugly Truth,” an anti-Semitic online radio net­work and blog he runs. Glenn claimed that he shocked the guests at the din­ner by assert­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter of Israel, Ben­jamin Netanyahu, “is cor­rect” in say­ing that “Iran’s nuclear pro­gram is going to wipe Israel off the face of the map.”  In Glenn’s vision of the future, Iran will use nuclear power for peace­ful pur­poses and will be “the nucleus” around which all other Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries will revolve in “a per­fectly har­mo­nious orbit.”  Glenn asserted that a united Mid­dle East would then be able to rid the world of Israel, and that coun­tries out­side the region would also “kick Jews out of places of power.”

Glenn let his lis­ten­ers know how much the atten­dees at the din­ner appre­ci­ated his speech, say­ing, “I saw peo­ple wip­ing their eyes.” He claimed that the speech has now opened sev­eral major doors for him, which he will reveal in the near future.  Glenn also indi­cated that his invi­ta­tion to the din­ner and his appear­ances on Press TV have brought him closer to Iran­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials, includ­ing Ahmadinejad.

This is not the first time Glenn has had deal­ings with Ahmadine­jad. In 2007, Glenn orga­nized “No More Wars for Israel,” an event in Irvine, Cal­i­for­nia that con­sisted of protests and lec­tures demo­niz­ing Jews and Israel. Accord­ing to Glenn, the event fea­tured a video­taped mes­sage from Ahmadine­jad, in which he con­demned Zion­ism as a racist move­ment and a dan­ger to world peace.

Glenn let his radio lis­ten­ers know that Ahmadine­jad is one of his heroes. Before recount­ing his din­ner speech on his show, Glenn ranted against the evils of Israel and claimed that Iran was, in con­trast, “a highly cul­tured, blame­less society.”

In addi­tion, Glenn com­pared Netanyahu and Jew­ish sup­port­ers to vam­pires, say­ing that they “feed on inno­cent human blood.” He pro­moted a con­spir­acy the­ory that Israel is mov­ing nuclear weapons into major cities and wait­ing for an oppor­tune moment for its “oper­a­tives” to det­o­nate them. Glenn later referred to Judaism as “a men­tal defect that leads to men­tal ill­ness, spir­i­tual bar­barism” and “left unchecked, can bring the world to the brink of utter annihilation.”

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