Iran State Media Airs Anti-Semitic Interviews, Broadcasts for Start of Ramadan
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Screenshot from an anti-Semitic IRINN documentary aired June 30, 2014. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s state-run broadcasting authority, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), aired a series of anti-Semitic documentaries and interviews in the lead up to the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, watchdog the Anti-Defamation League reported on Tuesday.
The shows included a June 27 interview with Tehran University professor Valiollah Naghipourfar who promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming Jews use sorcery and witchcraft against the Islamic state.
An IRIB Channel 1 interviewer asked if Iran’s enemies can gather intelligence and spy on the country with the use of jinns, supernatural beings in Islamic theology, known as ‘genies’ in Western lexicon.
Naghipourfar responded, “Jews have a very strong connection with jinns and sehr [magic].” He added that the majority of Jews are “sorcerers” who can send jinns to spy on behalf of the Israeli government.
Three days later, IRIB’s 24-hour news network, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), aired a short documentary promoting canards of an alleged nefarious Jewish-Zionist agenda and Jewish control of various U.S. fields, such as politics, policies, Hollywood and academia.
Titled Zionist Aspirations to Control the West the show used the terms “Zionist” and “Jewish” interchangeably and claimed that one of President Obama’s biggest supporters is Goldman Sachs. The show claimed the investment banking firm is “America’s largest banking network that has no non-Jewish owners and who are all Zionists and supporters of Israel.”
Several high-ranking officials in global finance, such as former chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, were depicted as the Jewish hands in control of the world’s economy. The documentary also showed a globe with a Star of David superimposed on it followed by the AIPAC logo, claiming that the most powerful lobby in the U.S. “works for the interests of another country and everyone knows which one.”
The documentary also included scenes from Schindler’s List while claiming exploitation of the Holocaust has helped Jews and Zionists build their stature in Hollywood.
“Zionist elites even say that non-Jews are not recognized as human beings and only Jews have importance,” the narrator claimed.
Ramadan is a prime time television season for many countries in the Arab and Muslim world when multimillion dollar television series are aired nightly after the end of the fast, the ADL noted.
